Archives: Day-to-day

Who’d have thought I’d be back to studying, eh?

Not 24 hours after my mammoth meeting on the new show, I realised that if I was going into rehearsals on Wednesday, I’d sure as heck better have done some work on the script I’m tackling.

It wasn’t till I sat down to piece together the sections of text from Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that I realised it was going to be impossible to work from copies of the script I had, so I’d have to type it all out fresh for the cast to use.

Laborious as it was, I’m actually grateful for the need to take the long way round, because it took me through both texts line-by-line, which got me much closer to them than I would have been if I’d just have given them a cursory glance through.

The basic idea of what I’m trying to do is use two of Shakespeare’s scenes with Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or Ros and Guil, as their mates – well, my type-worn fingers – call them) to book-end my favourite section of R&GAD involving a rapid-fire word game which is not only fun to watch, but also to perform and direct.  The contrast between the language and the style of performance in the two different parts (ancient and modern) is a great opportunity for the actors to really explore and play with the text and their characters.

What I didn’t count on, wading through the text as I typed it out, was just how much extra work I’d created for myself by going back to Shakespeare’s original.  Foolishly, having studied it for A-Level, I was hugely confident of my grasp of the material.  But looking at it again I realised that although I still had a good hold of the sense of it, there were a hundred questions that leapt out at me from the verse which, as an actor, I would immediately have thrown at the director.

Being the director, that means I have to know the answer.  Of course, it’s not as simple as just throwing out an answer – I prefer, in rehearsals, to let the actors reach their own decisions and conclusions about what they’re doing – but in order to keep them on the right track and not flailing off in random directions which take us round in circles, I needed to swat up on my ancient English and get to grips with Will’s words.

Remarkably, I slipped back into my studying patterns without so much as a hiccup.  In fact, I think I may have been better at it now than I was when I was studying it to be tested on.  Whether that’s a reflection on my abilities, or motivation, as a student, or on the problems with teaching Shakespeare in an English class I’m not quite sure.

Whatever the result and however well it goes in rehearsals, there is no doubt that getting back into creative endevours – and practical ones at that – has refreshed my mind and my imagination and pushed my motivation to stay fit, healthy and able to work even harder than it was before.

More than anything else right now, I want to be able to see this through to the end.  Ok, if I get my transplant call, I might just see fit to relinquish my role (provided, of course, I get comps to the show…), but beyond that, I don’t want anything else to get in the way of me being able to do the thing that’s been so missing from my life.

So it’s double-physio, extra drinks (of the build-up kind, not the alcoholic kind) and plenty of rest throughout the day so that I can make the very most of the opportunity afforded me.

And if you haven’t bought your tickets yet – why not!?!?!

I’ve had a brilliant day today, taken up mostly with a mammoth 4-hour meeting with Suze and Rheya about the MKT show this April.

The show, which is going to be in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, will be something of a gala performance for the Activ8 Youth Theatre, with whom Suze and I have worked (on-and-off on my part) for the last 5-6 years.  We’ve never had the opportunity to start with such carte blanche as we’ve been given here, and it’s fantastic – if a little daunting.

The Youth Theatre have been lucky in the past if they secured a single performance date in a 12-month period, so to have this show coming so quickly off the back of the summer show is exciting in and of itself, but to have such free reign to make the most of our stage time is a fantastic opportunity for all the children and young people involved.

So far, we’re looking at doing devised pieces for the youngest three groups, and then a combination of devised, scripted and new-writing pieces with the oldest group – who have mostly been with us for a long time and will no doubt be raring to display the many facets of stage-craft they’ve had the chance to develop working with a practitioner as accomplished and, let’s face it, off-the-wall as Suze.

Today’s meeting was spent hammering out exactly what each group would be doing – allowing for the fact that the rehearsal process is sure to kick up a few new challenges and options on the way – and also going over a few storylines for some of the devised pieces which needed solidifying before we past them back to the groups to continue working.

The groups have already been working on some of the stuff that will be incorporated into the performance in the last term, but the ideas they’ve developed will all be picked up and run with over the course of the next 10 weeks leading up to the show.  The idea is that we’ll be using familiar material but probe deeper into it to make sure we’re challenging them to come up with something that will push them and make the most of the showcase they’ve been offered.

I’m most excited about the fact that I’m due to return to rehearsals on Wednesday and Suze has offered me the opportunity to write part of the show and to direct a separate section with some of the older group involved.  It’s been so long since I’ve directed anything from scratch that I’m REALLY looking forward to it and can’t wait to get going.

The section I’m working on is an amalgam of scenes from Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead – a show I’ve always wanted to direct in its entirety.

I have to confess I’ve been a little on the tired side after our enormous brain-storming/planning session, but I feel so jazzed at the thought of being part of this show.  It’s wonderfully exciting to be working with the groups towards something that will really show their families and, hopefully, the wider community, what they are capable of doing.

Tickets are available NOW from the Milton Keynes Theatre box office 0870 060 6652 (with a booking fee) or online here. (plug, plug)

In other news: my new BlackBerry arrived today, too!!  After all my to-ing and fro-ing with O2 (the phone company, not the oxygen people), I managed not only to secure a free upgrade to the BlackBerry, but also to upgrade my call plan to double the minutes (400) and ten times the texts (1,000) per month for the same money.  And I only wanted the phone….

Unfortunately, since it arrived I’ve been castigated by K after spending all morning and half the afternoon in a meeting for then getting so wrapped up in my new toy that I’ve hardly paid any attention to her all day. 

I’d like to make a witty-yet-cutting riposte to show her that she’s completely in the wrong and I’m smugly in the right as usual, but I really can’t defend myself on this one, so I’m going to slope off and use my apologetic face.

EMILY UPDATE: For those of you still keeping tabs on Em (of which I know there are tons) she’s still doing well.  She’s still on the vent for the moment, but her family say things are looking good for now.  Thanks to you all for your love, prayers and support – I know they’re greatly appreciated. 

EMILY UPDATE:

As updated on Friday, Emily came through the surgery well and is currently in intensive care.  They made an attempt to wean her off her ventilator today, but she didn’t take to it too well and has been sedated again.  This isn’t a major issue, as it is quite common for the de-ventilation (as it were) to take a little while, what with the mixture of sedation, pain meds and new cocktails of anti-rejection drugs.  She has become slightly more awake and alert at points and is showing good signs of her old bubbly personality in flashes, so things are looking cautiously optimistic at the moment.

As for me, well, the last two days have been pretty up and down.

One of the weirdest things at the moment is how other people seem to think that I’d be really adversely affected by Em’s transplant – perhaps expecting me to be jealous or angry, the old “why not me?” chestnut.

But the truth is, I don’t feel anything like that at all.  I’m completely overwhelmed with joy for Em and her family and devoted boyfriend – I couldn’t be happier for them all, and especially seeing such a close friend going through what we’ve both been hoping for for the last two years.  It feels odd, because there’s a part of me that thinks I should be feeling some pangs of jealousy or upset, but it just isn’t there.

It has made me think a lot more about my own transplant, but actually in a much more positive light.  I have to confess that I have had moments, particularly over the last few weeks leading up to Christmas, where I have been doubting my conviction that this will come for me, and I still don’t like to hear people talk about it with such certainty in their voices. 

But I know that Em has been through patches like me as well – particularly in the summer when she had an exceptionally bad spell and was touch-and-go for a while, and we spoke about it afterwards.  And I know that although she had her doubts, she never lost faith and never stopped fighting, right up to her call.  She’s set a kind of positive-thinking example to me and perked up not only my enthusiasm, but also my previously rigid belief that this will come for me too.

Secretly, I also have to admit I’m quite pleased she got in there first, because she’ll now be on hand to help talk me through all the relevant stages of post-op recuperation as I come across them!

The last few days have been a bit rubbish for me, though, since I’ve started to feel really sick after my evening meal for the last three nights in a row now and the pattern is becoming a little disturbing.

The first night, on Friday, I had a horrible moment of thinking I was coming down with the same virus that hit K on Christmas day and that has slowly been working its way through her family.  But so far I’ve not actually been sick.

Another theory that struck me yesterday was that, having spent two afternoons back at the flat trying to get it ship-shape before we aim to move back in over the next couple of weeks, all the dust and stuff we’d been kicking up has upset my chest and made me more productive, which in turn I’ve been coughing up and swallowing a lot – causing not-too-goodness in my stomach.

Although that seemed a plausible explanation yesterday, it seems less so today, when I’ve done nothing but chill out at my ‘rents.  And it also doesn’t explain why it’s only in the evenings, either.

It’s not too bad, just annoying that I can’t seem to eat in the evenings without feeling like I’m going to hurl for a couple of hours afterwards.  It goes off slowly over the course of the evening, but it’s not very pleasant to have to put up with.

Still, things could be worse and my chest is still doing very well a week into the New Year.  I’m waking up every morning with lots of energy and get-up-and-go and I’m hopeful of a successful move back to the flat in the coming week or so, which will be lovely not just for K and me, but doubtless for Mum and Dad, too.

So next week is a chance to start focusing back on work, with the start of a new term at MKT and a show to build towards, as well as time to start turning my attention to the next issue of CF Talk.  And then, of course, there’s all my writing projects, too….

It’s been a bit of a quiet, stay-at-home kind of day today, spent largely on the sofa chilling out.  I have, however, managed to do my first piece of real writing for ages and I’m really pleased with it.

It’s an odd thing, writing.  I love doing it and when I sit in front of a screen with a real purpose to my ideas, I seem to be able to rattle things off at speed.  The 6-page scene I wrote today, which is something that will hopefully be part of the Youth Theatre show in April, took me a little under an hour to write, although I must confess I wrote the verse part of it over the course of an hour waiting for K yesterday.

It seems that when I have a deadline to write to is when I do my best writing and when my mind focuses most clearly on what it’s trying to do and say.  If I’m just sitting there of my own volition, tapping away at the keys and seeing where I end up, it doesn’t come in the same way.

What this means, of course, is that once I start getting commissioned and paid for my work and I’m a top-flight, in-demand scriptwriter and playwright, I’ll be knocking out classics left, right and centre (OK, OK, but stay with me), whilst right now I need to find that spur to keep me going when I don’t have an identifiable goal to achieve in front of me.

People say the key to it is to make sure you write a little every day, no matter what it is.  Specifically, I’ve heard it said that you should set yourself a page or word target that you must hit no matter what.  The trouble with those plans is that I always just end up writing drivel to fill the quota and end up hating myself for being so uncreative and unimaginative.  And when you think you’ve lost it, your enthusiasm for the project drops off the face of the planet.

All of which does nothing really to solve my dilemma, but it’s nice to be writing again and reading my own words on a page.  There’s still something wonderful about reading back over scripts that have just emerged from your head through your fingers and ended up as a formatted file on a hard drive and ink-on-paper in front of you.

It never ceases to amaze me when I sit at a computer that in a matter of a few hours I can turn out something really quite readable to fill a blank page and possibly more.

My head tells me that I need to set myself some time aside everyday to try to achieve something in writing, even without self-imposed artificial quotas and the like, but at the same time I know that if I set myself a timetable and don’t stick to it or am too tired to achieve it, I’ll just get down about it.

But enough of that – it’s all a bit unnecessary.

Today I watched FIELD OF DREAMS with K on the sofa and absolutely loved it.  It was a Christmas gift from her because I had told her I’d not seen it and I’d heard lots of good things about it from lots of people, so I finally sat down to watch it today. 

It’s a lovely little film, filled with a beautiful kind of magic that you somehow just don’t question.  It’s one of those films with such wonderful heart that you forgive it it’s little foibles and unnecessaries and allow yourself to get swept up with the characters and their journey and the magic they’re experiencing.

And who knew Kevin Costner used to be so watchable?  And not in dodgy-accented, car-crash kind of terms?  I mean, he was almost like a real actor.  You’d have sworn he’d never do something as silly as make Waterworld.

I also wasted nearly an hour of my day on a programme about the Archers, which promised in it’s Sky+ blurb that it would follow the production team as they put together the show’s 15,000th episode – the kind of behind-the-scenes peek that I’ve always been addicted to.  But instead, it spent the vast majority of it’s time covering the whole of the back-story to this momentous episode. 

Which, when you’re covering a radio drama on TV, is somewhat dull.

Still, at least I watched that before I watched Field of Dreams, so I could have my memory of it wiped.

Also watched a great Mark Lawson interview with Armando Iannucci, one of the writer/producers behind things like The Day Today and Alan Partridge or, more recently, The Thick of It.  I love watching programmes about writers and programme makers and getting a glimpse into their various thought-processes and working practices.  It helps focus the mind onto things I want to do and ways in which I could drive myself forward.

Of course, we all know all I really need to drive myself forward is a deadline to write to.

I think I might have cracked it.  Not in a bad, going-to-need-to-replace-it kind of way, in an it’s-about-time-you-silly-arse kind of way.

First of all, big Happy New Year to one and all – hope you had a good night’s celebrations and woke up later on the 1st without too much of a fuzzy head and swirly stomach.  Being the paragon of virtue that I am, I was enjoyable tee-total (or is that tea-total) all night and felt super when I woke up.  So bleh to you! (I don’t know how you spell the noise you make when you stick your tongue out at someone…)

But most excitingly, I’ve managed to get through all of the weekend’s festivities and back into normal life with no kind of a chest-related hangover whatsoever – how brilliant is that?

Not only did I save up enough energy on the 31st to have a really good night with S&S and the big C at the Lodge, but I lasted the course of a day with my Godson and family yesterday too.

Sunday night was great fun – just the 5 of us chilling out, chatting, laughing and watching the Hootenanny on the telly.  I love the Hootenanny, mostly just because it has a totally brilliant name.  Hootenanny has to be one of the best words in the whole language.  And it is totally fitting for some kind of party!

Come midnight we all hugged and danced (some more energetically than others) and decided we were knackered and ran away to bed.

Monday was another cracking day of fun and frolics with my Godson, his Mum and Dad and bro.  We played Uno and I lost by a lot, we played Game of Life and I lost by a little less, then after our second meal of the day – don’t you just love those days when you have a huge roast dinner and then come back later in the afternoon to finish off the leftovers and clear out the fridge with some lovely crusty bread and pickles and cheese and other wonderful delights? – we played Game of Life again and I won.  I didn’t mean to, I sort of did it by accident.

The whole thing was interspersed with an hour’s break in the middle when the two Dad’s took the young’uns off for a walk around the lake and I laid on the bed with Neve strapped on resting myself up for the 2ns half of the day.  It worked brilliantly – just as I was beginning to flag, my mini-break, semi-nap set me up for the rest of the day perfectly.

The best part of the whole weekend, though, without a doubt (aside from all the great bits) was waking up this morning feel fresh, energised and ready to tackle the day.  Not a single sentence of moany-ness from my chest and not a moment of complaint throughout the day.

I’m so happy it’s really rather silly and I’m aware of how fragile it all can be, but I can’t think of a better way to start the New Year than to realise that I’ve worked out the limits of my ever-changing body.

I know I tend to push myself too hard and usually too fast, but it’s fantastic to know where I can push myself to and to be able to recognise when I need to stop, take a breath or three and stop myself being silly.

Those of you who’ve been with me from the start will know that this whole escapade began with me searching for an understanding of the boundaries that were newly rearranged around my ever-more-protesting blowers, and to finally find something of an answer, or at least a vague level of comprehension, feels wonderful.

So now it’s time to turn my attention to more long-term and practical goals, and see what I can’t achieve with my year before Harefield get on the phone to offer me my part-exchange.

Anyone got anything they need me to do that involves sitting at a desk and preferably being creative, you know where to find me.

For now, I’m off to get my 10 hours sleep to make sure tomorrow goes just as well.

Happy New Year everyone, bring on the next challenge!

I’m still pretty impressed at myself just now for not pushing too hard and doing too much.  The nebs seem to be doing their jobs and keeping me fairly clear, and I’m sticking to the O2 all the time when I’m not using Neve.

Yesterday I had a FANTABULOUS couple of hour tour of Borders – Christmas voucherage always being a good reason to get out and about.  The best thing about Borders, among all the other best things it has, is that even in the height of the new-season sales, when the car park is full to bursting, the store’s so big it doesn’t feel busy at all.

Apart from finally getting to enjoy some proper browsing time – and by “proper”, I mean time enough to look around, then grab a book and sit and read the interesting bits that you want to read and put it back on the shelf when you’ve garnered all the useful info from it – it also served as the first time I’ve properly worn my oxygen out in the big wide world.

Those of you who were around early on in this blog may remember my difficulties coming to terms with the idea of venturing out and about with my O2 on and my reluctance to do so.  I still don’t think it’s entirely gone away, but I reasoned with myself that if I was going to be spending a couple of hours in the shop, it would be really silly of me to think I could do it unaided.  Especially when I’m doing everything else I can to make sure I look after myself and don’t take huge steps backwards.

So I grabbed one of the light-weight cylinders and trotted off with Dad and K to explore the store and we all had a whale of a time.  It was brilliant flitting between shelves, digesting bits of books, moving around and sticking my nose into all sorts of sections I wouldn’t normally look at.

I think we all struggled with not spending heaps of cash, but I did managed to spend the vouchers K’s bro and his family gave me, which was cool, netting myself Inside Little Britain (which I’m ripping through at pace) and a book about Max Clifford that I’ve wanted for a while.

The rest of the last two days have been spent very sensibly doing little-to-nothing in order to save my energy for the weekend ahead.  Tomorrow night for New Year, I’m hoping to bee able to make it over to a house-party S&S are holding at the Lodge. 

The plan at the moment is to chill out for the day and catch a late-afternoon nap in order to get up and over there for around 10pm, which should give me a couple of hours party time, followed by midnight and a bit of wind-down before scooting home.

New Year’s day I have my Godson coming over, which will be brilliant, but again very tiring, so I’m forcing myself to stay in bed for the morning and do plenty of physio while resting as much as possible so I can make the most of the afternoon with him.

This is going to be a major test of my stamina-planning ability and may have a massive impact on my decision as to whether or not I can try to phase a return to work in the near future.  What I’m hoping is that if I prove to myself I can manage my fatigue, then I will be able to take myself to work for a couple of hours on a Wednesday night to work with the oldest group. 

So I’m looking forward to the dawning of the New Year, with the feelings of energy and hope that it always brings, and I’m hoping that my planning and self-discipline holds out for the weekend and I come out of it tired but positive.

Here goes nothing….

Festive recovery is progressing well – I’ve had two complete days of doing very little-to-nothing and looking after myself and I’m feeling all the better for it.

I’ve got a voucher-splashing trip to Borders planned for the morning, under the guise of taking my Dad over to show him how fab it is, and I’ll be merrily spending my way through the delightful vouchers supplied by K’s big bro and troupe. (Happy now?;-).

I’m still not entirely firing on all cylinders, but I’m finding it much easier to get around at the moment – albeit always tied to an oxygen cylinder or concentrator – and I’m not nearly as breathless as I was yesterday or the day before, which goes to prove two things. 1) that doing plenty of physio and getting plenty of rest really works and 2) TOBI, the nebulised form of the Tobramycin anit-biotic, really does do it’s job spectacuarly well, as I only restarted it on Boxing day (it works on a month-on, month-off basis).

Also had an interesting conversation with O2 yesterday.  I’ve been thinking a lot about getting hold of a Blackberry phone/email device thingy, mostly because it’s a fair assumption that this year I’ll be spending a good deal more time in hospital and that being the case, it would be great to have access to my emails from my bed.  The hospital as it is doesn’t have workable or affordable internet access, so a Blackberry seems ideal.

What it would mean is that while I’m laid up with nothing much to do, not only can I carry on communicating with my friends without running up an insanely huge text message bill, but I can also carry on with most of the work I do for the Trust, which is handled largely through email with contributors, designers and the “bosses” there.

Now, I’ve seen a few really attractive deals on O2 for Blackberry Pearl phones and contracts to go with them, namely one which tell me that if you sign up to a £30+p/m voice contract and £10p/m Blackberry Tariff, you get the Pearl for free.

So I phoned and spoke to O2 customer services and told them that although I’m only 9 months into my current contract, I’d like to add the Blackberry Tariff and get the Pearl.  Fine, they said, that’ll be £220. 

Now, bearing in mind that the phone alone is advertised in Carphone Warehouse at the moment for £199, this didn’t seem like a fabulous offer.  I told them so.  They told me that since I’m not due an upgrade, there’s nothing they can do. 

I outlined my history with the company – loyal customer for over three years, no problems or complaints, no other issues – and suggested that perhaps, since I’m only 3 months away from the end of the contract, maybe they could budge a little on the price of the phone.  I didn’t say I wanted it free, just a little leeway on the £220.  But no, they don’t do it and no one there is authorised to.

So I thanked them politely and hung up, redialed and went through to the option on their phone menu saying “If you are less than happy”.  I outlined the situation again and got the same response – nothing they could do because I was outside the upgrade window.

At this point, having reiterated the fact that I’d been loyal for 4 years, never missed a payment, never raised a problem with them, never kicked up a fuss about anything, I let them know I was feeling like a mildly undervalued customer.

In fact, it had occurred to me whilst talking to them that it would be cheaper for me to go down to Carphone Warehouse, take out a new contract – on exactly the same terms as my current one – plus the Blackberry tariff, get the phone for free and pay out the remainder of my contract with them than it would be for me to get the Pearl through them.  I told them.

At this point he put me on hold and came back 5 minutes later telling me that having spoken to 2 different departments, the 2nd one told him that if I called them back on the 4th January, they would do the upgrade for me.  Just like that.

Interestingly, when I asked what department I needed to speak to when I called back, he told me it was the “Safe” department – the people you talk to when you say you want to cancel your contract.  So being a “valued” customer isn’t enough to get you benefits and deals as part of O2 – you really only matter when they think you’re going to defect to Vodafone or Orange.

Still, who am I to grumble, as of January I’ll be my own personal walking office – marvellous!

Since I started this blog in late November, I don’t think I’ve gone three consecutive days without posting, but I figure I’m allowed a mini-holiday over the Christmas break, if for no other reason than nobody’s likely to be reading it anyway, unless they got a new laptop for Christmas and are testing out their Wi-Fi.

 This year’s celebrations have been entirely in keeping with the whole of 2006 before it: a total roller-coaster.

Christmas Eve was a wonderful day of chilling out and seeing friends.  In fact, over the previous two days I’d caught up with a good number of friends, some of whom I’ve not seen for a while and some of whom I haven’t seen as much as I should recently.

On Christmas Eve two of my oldest friends came round to see me, which was unbelievably cool.  All three of us are really quite rubbish at staying in touch, but whenever we do manage to meet up we have the best giggle and always pick up right from where we left off – something which I think marks out a true friendship amongst the ranks of acquaintances we make as we go through life.

It was brilliant to catch up with them and find out what they’ve been up to, although I always find it hard to update people on how things have been going for me.  Luckily, the more tech-savvy of the two of them has been reading the blog, so she was pretty clued up and had, I’m guessing, filled in our techno-phobe friend on the drive over.  It’s difficult to talk about how you’re feeling when it changes so often and talking about how hard thigs have been can be a really downer on any conversation.

We had a great few hours chatting, laughing and generally messing around.  They’re both doing really well and always seem to energise me creatively when I see them.  They’re both actresses and talking to them always reminds me of the passion I have for writing, performance, theatre and film – they always inspire me.

Things started to go awry that evening, though, when K woke up at midnight and spent the next 12 hours hugging the toilet.  A few of our friends and relatives have had a vomiting virus over the last week or so and our next door neighbour had it on Christmas Eve.  Her husband and son came over in the evening and that must have been where K picked it up from.

Once she had stabilized enough to not be sick for 30-40 minutes at a time, Mum ran her back home in order to keep her quarantined away from me.  One thing I really can’t afford right now is to go 24 hours without eating, and any kind of a bug is bad news, but it was horrible to have to separate ourselves after all the planning we’d done to get through Christmas together.

What that meant, of course, is that our Christmas plans were totally shot.  I think K was more upset about it than anyone, but it was really hard to be without her on Christmas Day.  That’s now 2 Christmases in a row she’s been laid up in bed, and we had wanted so badly to celebrate together.  It also marked our first 6 months together.

We did what we could to make the most of the rest of the day and carried on as normal as possible, down to just the 4 of us in our family unit again.  It was really nice, actually, but having been up all night with K, I was completely shattered.  I slept for nearly three hours in the afternoon and then we went up the road to a friend’s for Christmas dinner.

It was a really lovely meal and we all had a lot of laughs, but after a couple of hours I was past my stamina levels and had to get Mum to bring me home.  They all stayed on and played games and drank copious amounts, while I chilled on the sofa with my Christmas DVDs.

Things picked up again yesterday, when K had managed to keep some food down and was really just struggling with energy levels from having had no food the day before.  She managed to come over to join us with Dad’s sister and her Gang in tow.

We always have a fab time when my Aunt comes down – our two families are so similar in sense of humour and shared piss-taking that there is almost endless laughter whenever we’re together. 

Three days of busy-ness were really taking their toll by the evening though and my chest was tight and protesting at over-working.  We had a second-mini Christmas to share presents with K – we’d saved all the presents to her and from her to open when she was with us.

By 9pm I was beyond shattered and had to take myself up to bed, where I promptly fell asleep by 10pm and slept almost completely solidly through until 10am this morning – my body is getting much better at taking the required rest when it needs it.

This morning, my chest is still protesting a little, and I know a good few physio sessions are going to be called for, as well as a full-on sofa-day to let my body recover properly from the stresses of the last few days.

I’m really impressed with how I held up over Christmas actually.  It was a lot tougher than I expected it to be, but looking back it was bound to be difficult as I was fitting more into 3 days than I done over the previous 2 weeks, so to expect it all to be plain sailing was perhaps wishful thinking.

Now it’s time to start planning energy-saving for New Year so I can make it to midnight to welcome in 2007 – the year of the Transplant.

Today’s been a really good day for me and I’m really pleased with myself for it, too. 

Yesterday, apart from slumming it on the sofa trying to urge my chest pains to go away, I spent the afternoon writing another article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free site – this time about Transplantation.

Em and Em, the partners in crime behind Live Life Then Give Life (from whom you should all have bought a T-shirt, not to mention signed up to the Organ Donor Register), organised another big publicity push for Christmas, which I sadly missed out on because of all my recent email hiccups and account confusions.

So, in order to still be doing my part, I mentioned the campaign to the guy who’d contacted me about writing my previous article to see if he was interested.  He said he was, so I spent the afternoon writing up a general summary of the status of transplant in the country and the various different systems around the world.

What I’m most pleased about it that he particularly wanted to stir up a bit of debate about the subject and if you go and check out the article online (here), you’ll find a lively exchange in the comments section underneath, which is really good to see.  Except maybe for the comment about my hair…

After being in the study working all afternoon, my chest was protesting a little again so I stayed on the sofa watching a movie in the evening and headed to bed at a sensible time. 

Better than anything was the fact that I got myself comfortable (not always possible with chest pains) and slept solidly through until 11am this morning – 12 hours sleep being something I’ve not enjoyed for as long as I can remember.  It was blissful to wake up and discover I’d been out like a light all night.  And it’s really recharging, too.

What I’m most pleased with today, though, is that I’ve stayed true to my promise to chill for the next few days before Christmas and have done very little again today.  I’ve been massively helped by the fact that I’ve had friends round to see me most of the day, which is good for sitting on the sofa chatting and not having to move or do other things.

But I’ve also been really good at doing physio sessions and stopping myself from “popping out” or sitting in the study at the computer for too long, or at the table in the kitchen reading the paper – all of which have a tendency to put extra strain on my chest and induce pain here and there.

Fingers crossed, I’ll be able to carry my discipline over to tomorrow, when I’ve got a little more planned, but am hoping that when I’m not out of the house, I’ll either be in bed or on the sofa doing nothing at all.  And K’s back from her parents’ tomorrow afternoon, so she’ll be around to police me.

Had a really good giggle last night when I ventured out with the fam and K to watch my bro enjoy his birthday pressie from earlier in the year with 10 minutes fly-time at Airkix indoor skydiving centre in MK.

It’s unbelievably cool – a little plexiglass bubble one story up above a pair of jet turbiney things (that’s their trade name, obviously), which serves to suspend people mid-air as if falling at great speed from a plane.

My bro, the sicken sports fanatic that he is, got on amazingly well.  He did 4 “jumps” of 2.5 minutes each and manged to learn 8 out of 10 techniques of flight.  His instructor told us afterwards you’re supposed to learn one per flight, so he’d doubled the expectation and mastered most of them within his 10 minutes.  I really hate him sometimes.

Mind you, it was hilarious to watch him with his little cheeks wibbling away in the uprush of air.  He even managed to dribble upwards.  It feels a little odd when you watch people do it, because you’re the other side of a plexiglass window about 2 feet away from them, so if they lose control a little, they endup nearly head-butting you.  Nervous laughter abounds amoungst the spectators getting a little weirdly close to people the don’t know in zoo-like conditions.

It’s an amazing thing, though, the Airkix centre and I have to recommend it to anyone as a gift, or even as a treat for yourself.  It’s not cheap, I know that much, but it looked like so much fun.  I was extremely jealous, but I’ve got something else to add to my list of post-tx “must do’s” now.

After we watched his diving antics, we all headed off for a nice Tex-Mex dinner, which went down wonderfully.  By the end of it, though, I was exhausted.  Is wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that K pointed out that I’d woken up at 6.30am that morning (no reason, was just awake and couldn’t nod off again) and without a sleep in the afternoon, it was no wonder I was a touch on the snoozy-side.

This morning I woke up even earlier, 5.30am, with roaring chest pains.  After my last little pointless jaunt to casualty with over-exuberant pre-diagnosis, I decided it best just to grab some painkillers and immobilize myself for the day, so I duly took to the sofa in true grumpy-lunged sulk.

Watching the sky-diving and at the restaurant I’d gone without my O2 and I think this is my body’s way of telling me that it was distinctly unimpressed with my choice to move around quite so much without additional support. 

I’ve been a lot more comfortable this afternoon than I was when I woke up, but I know a chiding chest when I feel one, so I’m sworn to “good boy” status for the next few days to make sure I can make the most of Christmas.

It was also pointed out to me today by the lovely Lady K that my last update vaguely referred to things going on in April without any real expansion.  Apologies for the vagueness, and I promise I’ll post with full and inclusive April updates shortly, but for the record there will be a fundraiser for the CF Trust through the MKT Activ8 Youth Theatre by way of a mainstage performance in the middle of April.

More to come, so watch this space….