Ebola - out of the news?

Have you noticed that the deadly disease Ebola is no longer in the news? This started to cease to be newsworthy around Christmas last year.  I guess the BBC decided there were more important issues like Nigel Farage, he says with a great deal of sarcasm.

The disease is still present in some West African nations but others have reported no new cases in some time now. I think the world was late to "wake up" to the real dangers of this condition. Luckily, it managed to be contained in West Africa, in the main. It could have spread so easily to western nations and been a real public health catastrophe.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa .

Churches blog updated

See http://eachurches.blogspot.co.uk/ .

Today we visited North Norfolk and called in at Cley and Wiveton churches. I have updated the churches blog with Cley church. Wiveton church will be added shortly. A few more images will also be added later.

Lawns cut

Today I managed to cut both our front and rear lawns and drink a can of "Old Speckled Hen" beer.  In the past this would have been trivial, but since the cerebellum brain bleed this is an achievement, especially as I needed no breaks whilst doing them. Mind you, I was pretty tired by the end.

Most of the blossom has now gone - so ephemeral - but the Californian lilac is in flower as is next door's lilac bush.  I expect both will soon be gone!

Spelling

One of the after-effects of my cerebellum brain bleed seems to be an inability to quickly spot spelling mistakes. In the end I tend to notice these, but often long after an email has been sent. As an example, I had "an" instead of "am" in an email sent this afternoon. It really is not that important, but I seem slower to pick up this sort of mistake than before.

A second large earthquake in Nepal

News is just breaking that a second large earthquake has struck eastern Nepal. This was a 7.3 magnitude quake and it must have been so frightening for those poor people already struggling to come to terms with the first earthquake a few weeks ago. It must be so hard for the children.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32701385 .

Heading home

After a long weekend visiting our son and family near Canterbury, today we head home. It was lovely to see them all and they are all coming up to us at half-term in 2 weeks time.

Stroke and spelling

About  19 months after my cerebellum brain bleed and operation I am still far from right. My symptoms that I had last year are still there although, on average, I feel a little less tired than I did. Some days are still bad and I feel totally exhausted.

My other issues are feeling drunk when walking (but I do not fall), poor speech and poor thin liquid swallow. These have improved very little if I am honest. Life is still very hard and I find stress harder to cope with. I still feel unwell and still a long way from my old self.

One thing that I am attributing to my stroke is poor spelling. It is not that I make lots of mistakes but rather it seems to take longer for me to realise when I have made an error. Some of these are keyboard typos but some are genuine errors that I am sure are a more recent thing.

An example: yesterday I really struggled with "bare" and "bear". There are other examples but in the past these would not have been a problem. Also, I find I am more forgetful too. Although my wife can remember who has called to see me in the past, I sometimes forget who has, and has not, called, say last year. A few weeks ago I posted something on Twitter but I have no recollection of doing this, at all.

Overall,I still feel in a bit of a fog.  Oh for my old self!