The Antics of AsH

Our GP Dr Newley  confirmed that I have a  'good heart', after an ECG two weeks ago.  I had decided that during this time back in Leicester I need to submit myself to the equivalent  of an MOT, which is a test check for a vehicle to make sure it is in  roadworthy condition.  Despite the results of the ECG, and despite doubling the blood pressure medication, the breathlessness did not go away.  Went for another visit, only to be told I had an infection and thus given a week of antibiotics.  Tomorrow I'll be taking a test for asthma to check on my 'heavy breathing' - which happens when I'm up and about, but not on the telephone hee hee.

I was advised by Dr Newley to get out of my comfort zone and undertake exercises, as if I don't get enough walking into the City Centre and running around and going up and down the stairs doing domestic chores.  A lot of the time I moan  and wish that Rodiah, our home-help in Setiawangsa, was just a  bus journey away.

Our outdoor gym at Victoria Park,  a Zone of Discomfort.

AsH getting out of her comfort zone, being supervised by the spouse (in the shadow).  Note the handbag between the shadow  and Ash.

Old age sneaks up on you when your back is turned.  It is no fun even though my brother-in-law Harun  (Abang Long), who is slowly losing his eyesight to glaucoma, said to me before we left Kuala Lumpur:  "No, old age is beautiful".    Bless him and his wisdom.

Deep in me, I accept and appreciate the life I have and all its blessings, and its up and downs.  But for one who has led a pretty active and mobile life, losing my precious ability to walk and walk and walk on God's earth requires some forbearance.

See that handbag in the picture above?  Four and a half hours' ago, it was stolen while we were having lunch at British Home Stores.  It was placed just next to me, either on the floor or draped on my chair.  The most worrying loss was the Debit Card, the National Insurance Card and my Bus Pass and the whole set of our house keys.

For the first time since I was 60, I had to pay for my bus fare - GBP 1.90 (for just over a mile).  When I first came to Leicester in 1984, it was just 22p!  The police were very kind and helpful.  After reporting the theft on the phone (undertaken by the HSBC staff), I received two calls from Leicestershire Police as they needed more details and to record the information.  Just 10 minutes ago I was informed that they had gone to  BHS to make an inquiry.  BHS  it seemed, had no CCTV camera in the restaurant.  I was then given some advice about handbag security for a pensioner.  It's a sign of our times that even restful places like a restaurant have to install a CCTV camera!

There you are 'Bang Long - you would not have had that nasty experience in Kuala Lumpur. We have wandered in the streets of Mumbai, twice in the mid-1980s, and had no such problem.   At the turn of the century, in South Africa, we  took the local 'pirate taxi' in Port Elizabeth to get to the city centre, where  we  walked about in an all-Black and near-ghetto area looking for bookshops - and we suffered no such grief.

But the world today, to put it mildly, is not a nice place.  There are people who want too much without having or wanting, to do the hard work  for instance, the bankers and those in the investment industry.  With the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the have-nots are desirous and seduced into grabbing what they can to savour the 'good life'  of the well-heeled.  The media and the communication industry are culpable - titillating the appetite for all the gimmicky baggage of a materialistic lifestyle.  The sense of shame and accountabilty  -  personal or otherwise -  is just non-existent today.  Greed Rules OK.  But isn't that what an old fogey like me would say?

In half an hour's time the locksmith is coming to change the locks so that we can go to bed tonight feeling safe and sound.  Tomorrow we will go to the City Council to replace the Bus Pass.  As for the National Insurance Card that will have to wait.  We know there's a lucrative racket going on for selling National Insurance Cards.  It's a valuable item to gain, enabling you to get a job in UK without any questions asked.

P.S. I had planned this posting to be a riposte on one of the comments in a previous posting.  But that will have to wait - again!