D is for Dementia

Drugs Update

So the Sertraline is still doing the business. I haven't exploded into a berserker's rage for weeks now. Which is nice.

Yesterday was the last session at The London Wetlands Centre. Felt a bit sad in a way. Two of the couples didn't make it in. The weather was pretty inclement too. I let them know about this blog. I read a bit out of my last post - the bit about me being a miserable bastard which made them laugh.

Drugs are good.

Maybe I shall try CBD or micro-dosing with magic mushrooms. What is there to lose?

Data-deficient

We currently have no internet so I'm, tethering this computer what I am typing 'ere through my phone to the interweb. Amazing what we can do with technology these days. Waiting for the man to come and fix it. Which as we know this can sometimes take more than one visit.

in a moment I shall be venturing into Kingston town centre to get my Covid and flu jab. What fun!

Drakkenheim update - not that you're interested, and one could hardly blame you...

Did a 6 hour session on Sunday. 6 HOURS OF DUNGEON MASTERING! Wave after wave of attacks by various monsters on a fort that the players had to defend.

It was actually really good. Markedly different to the previous session which was predominantly role-playing. That's what's so great about this game - role-playing - exploration - combat. Something for everyone.

They all went up a level too. Just rewards. But things get tougher in the game now. 

I'm loving this.

I also have to embellish their backstories which are tied in to the whole scenario - each of them has a secret or guiding reason why they're there, or what they need to do. They haven't told the other characters what they are and I need to expand and integrate these into the adventure, one-on-one with each player. 

It will get complicated so I need to keep it clear and concise or yours truly will get very muddled indeed!

Don't like readin' or speakin'

Reading less of the paper these days. I used to devour it beak to arse, but now I just read some of the comments section and do the quiz, skim the rest. Is this symptomatic of a stage I'm going through or my condition worsening? Who knows.

I stopped reading Private Eye about a year ago - just couldn't get down to reading all that dense, forensic text. I'm considering cancelling my subscription to The Times. I would miss certain writers though. A paper becomes a familiar companion, and strangely comforting. It's dependable in that it always arrives and you look forward to certain features and writers, like familiar voices. 

I'll keep it for now as it may just be a stage I'm going through. I've learned that with dementia it's rather like a wavelength. For instance yesterday I was really chatty and up when I arrived at the Wetlands Centre. By the last half hour I was withdrawn and elsewhere.

Dull

...what I am becoming. I have so few interests now: D&D, Abba, nature, politics (on the wane as the movers and shakers are so depressingly awful). The dogs are lovely. So are my friends. 

Things are quiet before Xmas. I haven't done any Xmas shopping. I don't know what to get. My creative thinking seems to have gone. My imagination can be sparked but is as responsive and inactive as our broadband is at this time of writing.

Talking of creativity, I want to run Drakkenheim until its very end. This is because I'm finding it harder to prepare and I'm not sure when it will be too much and I will no longer be able to do it. It would be a shame if we didn't get to the end. 

So that is my goal for 2023.

Drugs please.

I am a Floater

 I've been very lazy recently. This extends to wearing the same clothes day in and out, staring at YouTube waiting for one of my subscribed channels to have something new on, and prepping D&D. Haven't cleaned the house. Haven't even done a blog post for weeks.

It's not good.

J was very kind and said I needed to have a list of tasks to do. She's right. I just drift off otherwise into the astral plane, floating untethered in the mists. I need to be reeled back down to terra firma and shown which direction to go. 

Sertraline

My temper has been insane - worryingly about to boil over like a broken pressure cooker on a full heat. This was really uncomfortable physically and mentally. I'd had some Sertraline (an antidepressant prescribed by my neurologist) on my table since July 30th. I'd taken one on July 31st and it had made me do jaw-dislocating yawns. I didn't like it. It also listed the myriad side-effects and said don't drink alcohol. This was enough at the time, for me to not take them.

The anger was so worrying to me that I thought I'd start taking them anyway. I also haven't had a drink since early September.

The anger left me within an hour of taking the pill. Oh my god - the relief from the pressure was borderline euphoric.

I've heard they don't kick in until weeks after taking them, but that wasn't my experience. Something chemical happened inside me and since then I have been a far happier bunny. 

The alternative to not having these drugs was awful.

Shows

I went to see ABBA Voyage AGAIN!! This time with J and our neighbours. It was wonderful. I think Mark was initially less keen, especially when the price was factored in. But both of them loved it - said it was incredible. 

Going to this event makes me so happy. Like an old person, I'm sick and tired of comedians and popular culture where they say shock words or use pornographic language for laughs. I don't even find it offensive; I find it boring.

I can go down the pub for that.

Talking of comedy, J and I saw the play 'Spike' with my old mate Will and his partner. It's currently at The Richmond Theatre. It was okay. It was better than okay. But the casting of Spike Milligan was the problem - he didn't look like Spike, nor was he very funny. I guess we're talking about comedy from 60-70 years ago, so timing is everything. I guess if a chameleon like Benedict Cumberbatch had played him, that would have been something to see.

Culture, innit?

Dungeons and Dragons

Drakkenheim continues on Sundays apace. It is deadly. Last Sunday the characters were sent half-mad merely looking through a gate. They're exploring the city to get a sense of the geography  - this is called a sandbox adventure. What that means is rather than a linear questline of goals and achievements with no deviation and a chronological order of events, instead the party go where they like. Luckily Drakkenheim is so well written that I can quickly review a section if I haven't prepared it and run it almost immediately.

The deadly nature of this setting is making for an edge-of-the-seat gaming experience.

My Monday lot are all high-level and seem to be immortal. No matter what I throw at them - and in this case it's rooms full of giants - they seem to win every battle with merely a few scratches to show for it. 

This particular adventure is older than the players, being the first written adventure ever published by TSR - the original Dungeons and Dragons company - back in 1978, although it was first played as a competition module before then.

It's basic and brutal. Very combat-heavy. I wonder how long it will be before they get bored of it.

London Wetlands Centre

Every Monday morning I've been attending the above centre in Barnes. It's an oasis, but look to the horizon and you see the whole place is surrounded with the gray nastiness that is London. Also, every 10 minutes a gigantic AIrbus roars overhead on its way to Heathrow.

Apart from that, it's really lovely - full of Cormorants, crested Grebes, geese and ducks of many varieties, and also lots of songbirds.

There have been lots of activities there which I have not taken part in - miserable bastard that I am. But I felt I was at the Wetland Centre not to make things out of clay or carve pumpkins, but to immerse myself in the nature and fauna and look up and listen and smell the air. 

In certain parts of London it's easy to miss the seasons changing, so places like commons, parks and Barnes Wetland Centre are great barometers and places you can breathe and relax and be human again.

Here are some photos I took on my iPhone. I decided not to take my SLRs as I don't have a 600mm prime zoom.

Trying hard not to be a burden

Every Day is Nostalgia Day

My sister came up to visit briefly, in order to go to see Abba (second time for me). 

It's an extraordinary thing. Mainly middle-aged people; some older, some younger. Everyone in a party frame of mind. Many dressed up. 

The journey there was stressful only because of my condition. Once you get there it's a really lovely arena due to its pleasant staff and the calming environment of the foyer's wooden interior.

It's easy to dismiss, but this Abba show means something to people. It's the happy-sad Swedish nature of the songs - but also the time it was created. The 70s may have been bleak socially and economically, but it was very creative musically. And it was my childhood. There's a certain poignancy about the Abba songs that best reflects the time, in my opinion.

At the concert everyone stands up and dances. Especially the 'David Attenborough' guy (as my sister called him) in the row in front of us, though thankfully a few seats to our left. 

Luckily the people directly in front of us looked really square and lived up to expectations, not getting up from their seats until Dancing Queen, giving us a clear view.

So we're in the arena, sat down -I'm  feeling happy, nostalgic, sad. Such a mixture of emotions. FTD has given me a sense of melancholy - that I somehow long for my past, yet much of the past I remember is a past that admonishes me.  

I sit in cinemas watching Star Wars films with tears in my eyes throughout the whole movie, glad no one else can see me. Like a time-traveller, I switch back and forth from the present to the little boy in Swansea Odeon next to my big Dad, watching the whole film through a C-3PO mask.

I'm living my life in multiple time-lines. Everything has a resonance to a previous age - anything at any time can draw parallels with past experiences and I'm suddenly in a classroom getting told off and crying, or being a total shit to some poor girlfriend; it can be anything. The emotion generated is visceral. I cry out, swearing.

'Why are you here? Let's get back to the present.'

At last, that calm inner voice.

And I return to the present moment. Having done a Mindfulness course I'm 'mindful' enough to acknowledge my awareness in realising where I was in my mind and having the ability to return, and I give myself a pat on the back for doing so.

As an epilogue, my sister loved the Abba concert and I loved it just as much as when J and I saw it back in June.

Just as well as I'm going again in 2 weeks! 

"That's all I can see is green stuff!"

Those wonderful people at RDS have organised 6 Monday morning sessions at the London Wetlands Centre in Barnes. 

Yesterday was the second session.

Thankfully after the horrendous storms we had on Sunday, this was the breezy, bright Autumn day we needed.

We were encouraged to embrace nature. It was too far for me to go barefoot in the grass, and I've never been one to hug a tree. But I do find them enigmatic and mysterious. I've always been fascinated by what goes on under our feet, and it's only recently we're starting to discover the communication between trees and fungi.

Charlie and Raksha gave out notebooks and information leaflets. In order to give back I took lots of A-levellish photos with my iPhone. I have a ton of pro-photographic equipment which I have barely used for years as you end up being a photographer when you really should be experiencing being in the moment with nature. 

Twats.

Rather like the people who go to a concert and video the whole thing. They're missing out on the experience in order to get a third rate recording of it.

The title of this comes from a hide we were in. A dad was showing his little boy how to use the telescope to see the wildfowl. The boy was struggling and said "THAT'S ALL I CAN SEE IS GREEN STUFF!"

Made me laugh anyway.

Am I a burden?

J's having a hard time at the moment dealing with it all. Work, the future, the house, kids, the dogs, the past. I always think it's me and me alone that's the problem. I think of myself at times as the constant reminder to her that she made the wrong decision in marrying me. She asks all my friends and they say - no - he was always like this.

Thanks.

Really constructive!

Let me break this down. 

I have never been the easiest person. I am relatively thin-skinned, I am quick to anger, I am a total coward when it comes to confrontation...blah blah blah. Posts passim

However, in my 40s I had become a lot calmer. More thoughtful. Always trying to become better from my 30s, I'd read lots, been on courses, had therapy. None of us are the finished article. 

It is so hard. I have tried to get a thicker skin, be more calm, be less outspoken, think more about proffering my opinion etc.

When I met J I was in a good place: a more mature and less abrasive me. 

Then FTD. Oh the irony.

I became angrier again; with myself, with the world. Temper frayed, my intolerance worsened. My faux pas knew no limits.

I can hear my Mother's voice: 'Leopards don't change their spots!'

While an addict suppresses their addiction, the addiction is always there, and like a dormant volcano it can occasionally spring back into action.

I can't tell you how hard it is to keep it together all the time. If something angers me and it can be anything - the coping mechanisms I've created and deploy you would not believe. And it is really hard work, which adds to the tiredness people with dementia experience the whole time. Even a couple of days on holiday are tiring - and that's just talking to people you know.

So just remember that I am having to consciously deal with anything life throws at me now - when all of this used to be done unconsciously.

I am trying so hard not to lose who I am - to lose the best of me. 

I don't want things to be like this either.

Drakkenheim Continued

Sunday - a 4 1/2 hour DMing session. We had 2 special guest stars, Larry and Adrian from the other Drakkenheim group (from the games holiday) who met the Sunday players at The Bark and Buzzard Tavern in Emberwood.

From there they went to The Rat's Nest Tavern and and into the burrows, managing to defeat the hoards of Ratlings (2' tall bipedal sentient rats) and the Rat Prince and his Warlock. On the way back they chanced upon a wailing from a ruined house. It turned out to be a wretched ghost or in this context, a Warp Witch. On defeating the creature they heard a clapping behind them. 

This was a strike team of The Queen's Men - sent to duff them up and take their magic items away. 

However, by the skin of their teeth our heroes prevailed. It was a really exciting session in a really vivid setting of a shattered city, its characters and lore. 

I'm really looking forward to the next session.

My Monday session with a different group of players and the world setting is markedly different. Their characters are much higher level and are unfortunately going through giants like a dose of salts. D&D is very difficult to get the balance right at times.

And it's very tiring too, but worth it.

Never mind the heatwave, here's some bollocks

Culture

Less is going through my mind than ever before. Dungeons and Dragons - mehh. Abba - barely listen to it, and that's despite having spent hundreds more on tickets to see them twice more! I seem to be less into stuff, but on the other hand I'm very much back to exploring my old musical tastes - back to progressive music: Gentle Giant and Frank Zappa especially but lots of other interesting things too.

I love this. But then again who doesn't?

Since watching snippets of Glastonbury while on holiday in The Lakes, I've been revisiting Paul McCartney. Everyone talks about Lennon being a god but a lot of the stuff he released after The Beatles is unlistenable, especially the stuff with Yoko Ono. 

Talking of McCartney I remember when Mull of Kintyre was no 1 for 6 weeks. I was amazed to find out the song was only 4.43 long. Feels like half an hour when you listen to it. Funny how We are Sailing by Rod Stewart which was also a massive hit in the 70s never gets played any more either. 

That's a good thing.

Yes. This really is LIVE.

Plans

So not only do I have no get up and go I have a lot of stuff to do. J is away for work so I walked the dogs before the heat really sets in and now I'm writing this; not so bad so far. 

Got to do some more stuff: write some D&D notes and really get on top of things. Last night was pretty lacklustre (the heat didn't help) but I just couldn't get round to doing much in the way of prep for the session. 

I also have to have a hairdo and moustache and beard trim (which I will do next) and try and keep busy but pace myself in the heat (32' today - v hot for the UK).

Politics

Last week I was glued to the computer, radio, TV and news feeds and papers. I couldn't get enough of it.

 

It was hilarious. 

At last the worst Prime Minister in HISTORY is gone. But actually he hasn't - he's still there squatting in No 10 Downing Street. And now the most venal collection of politicians in history are all fighting for the top job espousing their credentials, integrity, and principals.

Excuse me? 

Fifty of them resigned in 36 hours to save their own necks. They were all complicit in the lies and hypocrisy of Johnson until they knew it was all over.

And the likelihood is one of these will be our next PM. 

Health

As a DEMENTED I'm supposed to crave sugar. I have had stages of eating Tangfastics and also liquorice - that was a big food fad for me. However I now get my sugar in the far more convenient and refreshing form of BEER.

The effect of this is initially pleasure and as an aid to relaxation which leads to conversation. 

According to Thomas Jefferson, "Beer, if drunk with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health." 

However having not drunk in moderation I now have a beergut. Bugger. 

This means I am no longer a SEXY.

And why do alcoholic drinks taste so good the older you get? A cruel joke of nature I'd say.

So anyway, despite the myriad gorgeous flavours waiting to be imbibed and the wonderful feelings and conversations to be experienced, I must curtail my consumption of beer. 

Bollocks.

ABBA VOYAGE Concert Review

Journey

You arrive from a little unknown station in the East End called Pudding Mill Lane. Straight out of the station and there is the Abba Arena. It seats 3000. And yet it is not an eyesore in the area at all. Maybe it was always there? Seems to have been.

We entered the foyer. Calm, all-wood vaulted structure, bars everywhere with food stalls and shops. It's crowded yet calm, just like a Nordic airport.

I can't remember if at this point I put my sunflower lanyard on.

I certainly had a beer though, and J and I bought a couple of t-shirts.

All the people working there were really happy and polite. Nothing like the feeling you get of being treated like livestock at lots of other venues.

And there's barely any queueing. 

We had a hot dog and did a bit of people-watching, as you do. Some people had dressed up. J was wearing something or other and looked spectacular. The feeling was really friendly. Everyone on earth seemed to be represented here, young and old. And we were all here for one thing.

So we go into the auditorium and there is a large cinema like screen showing an animated forest scene with the occasional will o' wisp  in the background. Snow gently falls. Ambient music plays.

We chat to the people next to us. I'm looking at my watch.

WOW!

And the concert starts  - everything is pitch black, and the 4 members of Abba rise through the floor. It must be said that the light on the figures is key to the look. It really makes them look as thought they are actual corporeal figures right there in the show. Holograms are translucent and rather washed out. These are NOT HOLOGRAMS, but 2D projections onto glass, created by George Lucas's effects company Industrial Light and Magic (ILM).

The attention to detail is astonishing, and the movement with the lighting is incredible. 

They are there, real, right in front of us.

Frida is wearing a red feathery cape, and Agnetha a blue one. There are big projections to the side of the stage which show them close-up. It must be said Agnetha is the least convincing. Slightly rubbery and not as pretty as she was. Benny is the most convincing as I guess his face isn't as expressive and he has a beard. It kind of distracts from the figures on stage at times, which is where the realness is.

Oddly enough, I didn't cry. The lady to my right did, and Jacqui cried 4 times I think. I guess I'd been through it so many times in my head and built it up so much that I was somehow over it. 

Other things - there's a large animation section in an Anime style which covers 2 songs and didn't seem to fit in to the rest of it. We were all there to see the ABBAtars - not a pop video without the ABBA members in.

However, when all is said and done, none of this detracts from it being a 5 star experience. I'd built it up so much I was expecting perfection, and nothing is of course. This is totally state of the art, with 5 (?) costume changes and a BRILLIANT band who play live to give it that punch of energy you need at a concert. The light show is incredible and the figures dance and move as ABBA because THEY ARE ABBA!

Highlight for me was 'Lay all your Love on Me' which they performed in their Tron outfits. No figures on stage at this point, and shot as if a drone was moving around above them And then from close up it zooms out on Frida and Agnetha and a Tron-like maze of vector graphics starts to appear on the ground beneath them.

Then the whole gigantic display appears to flip 90' back to the horizontal and all 4 members are on stage performing, on another planet. It was jaw-dropping.

Wow.

Conclusion

It is an incredible experience. I shall be going back AT LEAST TWICE. I need to take more people to see it and experience it with me and wallow together in the wonder of it all.

As they did with their pop music back in the 70s, ABBA have set the bar to an entirely new level. Go and see it. It's ...well, maybe a new word will have to be created to describe it.

Benjamin Buitoni

Reversal/Nostalgia

So I'm going backwards. I'm obsessional about Dungeons and Dragons - a game I played as a teenager which I recently took up again (as a lot of people have done) when the latest edition came out in 2014.

I've got back in touch with old school-friends as they were happy days for me. Precious memories. 

Well, the sixth-form was at least.

My favourite group is now Abba. As a boy I hated them, though did I secretly like them? I don't know. I remember thinking they were soppy as they sang about love and relationships. I was 12 when they split up, so I guess I was too young and/or the wrong sex. 

For some reason their music completely resonates with 52 year old me. Björn Ulvaeus says there's a happy/sad that that's part of the Swedish character, and that is very prevalent in their music. Lots of other studies show that the verse/chorus patterns and the sing-a-long-ability of their songs also resonates in our brains.

(However, some of the songs are deceptively difficult to sing and the harmonies very, very difficult!)

Jacqui and I are going to see them on Sunday. I'm wearing my sunflower lanyard for the first time as I think I will be an emotional mess. The concert is apparently incredibly immersive and emotional. 

I don't think, I KNOW I will be an emotional mess.

NOT holograms. Okay?

Dining Realisation

Last week J and I went for lunch in a lovely restaurant in Surbiton. We were the only ones when we arrived. Some soft funk/fusion music played in the background. It was really agreeable.

We hadn't been for a meal like this since before lockdown.

I was very much in the moment and realised how much I'd deteriorated. So much visual and aural information bombarding me. My brain foggier than ever. Smiling Jacqui in front of me looking so pretty. I was happy but I realised at that point I have about 5 or 6 years left. 

My grandmother used to say stuff like that at Christmas dinner. Lol. 

This realisation didn't make me sad. Those things don't anymore. It's just the way it is.

I'm DEFINITELY retiring after the bay window in Teddington (scheduled for July 22) and liquidating the business. Time to find something else to do, and enjoy what's left while I still can.

Lazy

One part of the realisation above is that I'm finding it harder and harder to motivate myself.

That feeling you get when you know you should be doing something but you're doing nothing instead. When you think of all the friends you haven't spoken to for ages and you still don't contact them. I know that I should clear the back of the van, but I don't. I know I should vacuum the house, order a skip, chase up the DVLA etc etc.

Nothing happens.

I should read that particular book in preparation for Sunday's session. 

I just about manage to do this, still.

I know, I know. You do that exact same thing too. 

Sure you do.