Listen Again Links

Phew - I am just so relieved to receive a few supportive comments after the the Radio Scotland interview aired. (I'm still without the Internet at home, so I was unable to email pals in my address book to tell them about the programme). Anyway, I agreed to do it, then worried afterwards about the possible response(s). As you do...

For one week only the interview is available to listen to online. (My mum and my dear friend Stuart also take part). The poetry is cut off from the start of the recording, but hey ho.

To Listen Again, click here , then scroll down and click on Give Me a Voice.

For the Medical Matters follow-up click here (also one week only).

More blogging if I ever get my blimmin' Internet fixed! Talk about Chinese water torture...

Thanks to the producers at Radio Scotland for their hard work and enthusiasm.

-C

Give Me a Voice - Radio Scotland

Greetings Amigos. I copied this info from the Radio Scotland website - (for those living outside Scotland, the programs will be available on Listen Again links on the Radio Scotland website for one week only. I'll try and do you a direct link when it becomes available).

Wednesday Special double feature as Radio Scotland explores one of the most misunderstood and controversial of diseases – ME.

1105-1130
Give Me A Voice
Continuing the series where BBC Radio Scotland gives a voice to another issue from a very personal point of view. Ciara MacLaverty talks frankly about how she has lived with ME for the past 20 years. She reveals how she's fighting a devastating illness as well as battling with the public's misunderstanding of her condition.
1130-1200
Medical Matters
Following on from Ciara MacLaverty's experiences, Cathy MacDonald reveals the cutting edge research aimed at finding a cure for ME. Tackling the difficult nature of the disease head on, she explores the widespread conceptions about it and some of the alternative therapies which have proved helpful for some sufferers.

Me again, folks- I hope that I don't let anyone down with the content of the interview. I tried to tell-it-like-it-is and then I mentioned briefly that I think Mickel Therapy is helping me and this is a vast surprise to me. I know this is controversial in the ME world. Anyway, I can only be truthful about my experiences of the last 20 years...and I have been. As I said, I hope it is of help to others somewhere along the line.

-C

Get that investigated in'tae

Well, any jolly posts are suspended, replace with IT Rage posts as I still can't get online at home. Having no access to the Internet from the bosom of my bedroom makes me feel like a day old kitten being pulled away from it's mother's belly - hear my squeaky miaow and see my tiny claws paw the air.

The Techie Help man says my wireless router probably needs reconfigured and he can't do it from afar. How gloriously dull! How did it get unconfigured? I try to wrestle with these things. Impatiently I follow all the step by step processes. I told the Indian woman on the helpline, I'd get my dinner first. Yes, she said, better to get your dinner first.

Apologies for slow email replies. I await a modem in the post.

-C

What is going on?

Dear Readers, I am in a low grade grump. I can't get on line at home and have been trying for two days. Sorry that I can't reply to emails. (Is online one word or two?)

I have also been plugging away at the Mickel Therapy, but recently (post holiday?) I feel stuck. I am frightened of the law of diminishing returns. Today I am so drowsy, I feel as if I have accidentally swallowed a couple of horse tranquilisers. All this has made me tetchy. Tetcherama! I will endeavour to exorcise said frustrations and try to turn them into constructive action, if possible.

The radio programme I took part in goes online (one word) in a week. I hope it is of help to others. I'll let you know the details when I can.

-C

Things you don't know at the time

I didn't know when I drove along island roads as a 17 year old, in amber sunsets listening to Dire Straits sing check out Guitar George, he knows all the fancy chords, that Guitar George was a real person and 21 years later I'd be eating strawberries at his wedding and hearing how he is descended from Russian aristocracy, including Rachmaninoff. I'd be sitting beside Nice Man, (whose band Guitar George roadied for) and I'd be thinking that I'd been lucky in love.

And when I heard that song on the radio today, I remembered those island sunsets, when the sea went glassy and the curlews cried out in the dusk and it made me think I've been lucky in the whole damn lot.

(PS...apart from the hideous ME, of course, but I'll think past that today).

-C

The Lovely South Uist

Of course I emailed you..

During the two week email block out, I got disillusioned with not knowing if any mails were getting through. Another ISP happened to phone and offer me a deal, and normally I get annoyed at such sales calls, but this time I ran into their open arms - metaphorically, telephonically. Oh, the chemistry. Of course, I'll sign.

Anyway, it's been a funny, muddle-along week and I'm still not sure if any of my outgoing emails are disappearing into cyber voids. I may have emailed you 36 times, dear reader, and you remain unaware! I have decided to leave the whole pile of internet insecurity until I return from holiday.

On Sunday I am flying to the Outer Hebrides with Nice Man (birthplace of Nice Man ancestry). Think miles of empty beaches, remote cottages, at least one friendly sheep dog, surely? I must pray for decent weather and/or pray for the capacity to be philosophical in the face of Atlantic rain.

How is my health? It is hard to say. I had the return of horrible inflammo-head yesterday. I had forgotten how painful and wretched it could be. However, I am still trying to find paths of progress, and steer myself gently away from over-thinking. Ha, ha, she says, over-thinking what I can write as the end of this post. That's it, enough! I must go and drape my laundry over radiators.

-C

Still no email

Sorry for my lack of email replies. I can send them, but they haven't reached their destination. I know because none of my test emails to myself are getting through. At first I'd write test in the subject line, then test 4 or test 6, eventually I wrote things like grrrrr and feck's sake, come on.

I have a yahoo account but I don't have all my addresses there and it doesn't feel like home.

I saw a great film recently with the unusual name of Jindabyne. It was based on the Raymond Carver story called So much water, so close to home. Now that's a better title, huh?

I tried to clean my bedroom this morning. I seemed to have escorted the dust from the bedside tables on to my keyboard and other locations, as yet undiscovered.

-C