Well I… I think to myself that I’ve got to be extra careful. And I… the last thing I want is another fall. But apart from that, I well, I’ve spent the months since I’ve been back here since January just trying to get back to a normal life again. But it’s been a slow job.
Do you feel frustrated by it or …?
I do. I found it very difficult to sit about and not do things. So that to quite an extent I suppose I have tried to push myself.
In which ways?
Well I had to get back on my feet and walk again. And so I have whatever the weather, made myself go out for a walk, everyday without fail.
And in the early days when I found it very difficult, I had a friend who went with me. And I could hold her arm. And we went a little bit further every day. So that I could feel that I was making progress. Because I just didn’t want to sit in the chair and let the days go by and not feel that I was getting better. And so, as I say sometimes it was an effort to go out during the winter days when it was cold and horrid. But I did feel it was important to go. And so we did.
I think you do need somebody. I mean if I hadn’t had this friend here who was wiling to sacrifice an hour say, or roughly an hour by the time she’d got here and you know, every day.
I wouldn’t been hard pressed to do, I wouldn’t, I don’t I would’ve wanted to do it on my own. But fortunately friends here were very good.
And it did enable me to really get going again. Now I don’t use a stick at all in the house. But I do take, always have one when I go out because this city's pavements aren’t brilliant [laughs].
I’ve got two, two grandchildren, two sons, two grandsons. They’re from the French daughter. And well not, she isn’t French but you know what I mean, she lives in France. And one of them is at university here. So I do see him from time to time. And in fact when I came, after I came back and I was, and I was up and thing, he did come and cook me lunch one day. He, well, he rang me up and said could he come to lunch. And I said, “Yes, but you’ll have to bring it. I’ll pay, you buy it.” And I was highly amused because I thought he’d probably go to [supermarket] and buy you know something that he could, but he didn’t, he went to the [name] market and he bought fresh sea bass and vegetables in the covered market and then he went to, I think it was [supermarket] well he went somewhere anyway and bought crème caramels for us for pudding [laughs] I thought he did extremely well. And he came and he cooked it.
And he washed up, well he cleared it up and put it in the dishwasher afterwards. You wouldn’t have known he’d been here afterwards. So, I rang my daughter in France and said, “Well you certainly brought that one up properly.” [laughs].
