Shaken

Another one from the drafts folder! There was a time (long ago) when I was renown (notorious?) for always having a bundle of airline tickets in my desk.  In fact it was so long ago that these would actually have been those old fashioned multi-part flimsy paper tickets. Later I moved on to having lots of travel plans in my desk or on my laptop, often with e-ticket numbers (which never felt quite the thing, but did work).  And these travel plans covered pretty much every continent except Africa (realistically I couldn't afford to do Africa and the polar regions).  Through to my 50s I managed to fit in one or two 'big' trips each years and a range of shorter trips too - limited by the annual leave allocation and funds.   And I guess that I sort of expected this to carry on once I retired, possibly with the big trips getting longer as the annual leave allocation stopped being a constraint. But life isn't always so simple.   First came Climate Change.  I'd not i...

Let's just assume that all the posts on here are left to mature before I hit publish.  This one has been maturing in the drafts folder for about three months.  One of the things I'm noticing about my condition, is a reluctance to tell people about it.  I have heard fellow sufferers talk about the 'shame' of having Parkinson's and I don't think it's that, if anything it's a fear of being the 'centre of attention'.   I was at a small social gathering a while ago, almost all people I know, but only two knew (as far as I know!) about the diagnosis. And perhaps inevitably I found that the symptoms were worse than usual. Some people (those damned extroverts) would no doubt have waltzed into the room, and announced that they were a Parkie.  That's just not my style.  The other challenging communication thing for me, is keeping up with a busy conversation around a room - I can follow the conversation, but I really do struggle to contribute in a timel...