Happy Halloween!

WeeJune would like to wish you all a Happy Halloween - if such an event can be "happy". Watch your teeth on all those sweets!

Things that go BUMP at my work....spooky stories for Halloween

Spooky But True

Another Halloween is upon us it seems. “Hmmmm”, thought I. “A perfect time to share my numerous true ghosty stories with anyone out there who cares to read them”. And so it comes to pass......

Ghosts. Pah! Just scary see-through things that appear on Scooby Doo and scare Shaggy witless. They don't exist. At least that's what I did think until I started working in hospitals. Especially at night. And even more so when there had been a death on the ward. Then things feel distinctly spooky. Eerie. Chilly. It's hard to explain.

One nursing colleague of mine had had a nerve-racking ghostly encounter. She had looked after this elderly lady who took an intense dislike to her and told this nurse that she would haunt her after her death. The nurse “laughed off” this statement as just a bit of an eccentricity. The old lady died during one day shift. Once the formalities had happened, the nurse went to wash down the bed for the next patient. She had just finished making it, when, without reason, the bedcovers all ruffled up and the bed flew out from the wall. The picture behind the bed fell to the floor with a crash too. Weird things happened whenever this one particular nurse was dealing with that one bed. In the end, the nurse left.

Personally I have had a few ghostly encounters, mainly when I worked in the haunted Research Unit. It was a war-time gastro-intestinal ward, and it was reported to be haunted by the White Lady. In fact, very often the junior doctors experienced her presence in the on-call room above my research unit.

You know when you go into a place and you are alone, but you feel like there is someone else there watching you? I had that a LOT. I remember the first time I was spooked was when, one morning I went into work especially early, at 6.30am (I wasn't due to start until 8 but I had a lot of paperwork to do). I went down the unit, unlocking all the doors (after I had switched the alarm off) and was checking the resus trolley when I heard a shower turning on. I knew I was the only one in the unit, so I went to the shower room next door to the common room (that trial volunteers could play pool in, watch tv, that kind of thing whilst on a clinical trial), and there was no-one there but it was icily cold. I switched the shower off and went back to the resus trolley. In less than 2 minutes, there was the shower turning on again, and a noise of something banging the window. I was very very spooked by now, but the adrenaline was pumping and I thought I had better check. I went through all the shower cubicles and toilets but no-one was there. Just this extreme coldness. I decided the resus trolley had had enough attention and scurried back to my office at the other end of the unit until my colleagues came in.

Strangely enough, the shower incident repeated itself one night shift when some of my colleagues from the nurse bank were in supervising a group of “macho” (or so they thought) clinical trials volunteers. The shower had turned itself on during the night whilst one of the men was in the toilet. He got so scared he had almost had an adverse reaction!!!

A similar thing happened with the TV in the volunteers' common room. It would switch itself on by itself, even though it was switched off at the plug..........

Another time, I was again on my own at work early. I had unlocked the small lab room where the centrifuge lived and where we dealt with blood samples. It was just after Christmas holidays, and there was a Christmas tree in the corner of the wall opposite the lab room. I was doing the routine job of making sure the drugs testing kits were in working order before being used on that morning's volunteer screening, when I heard this frantic tinkling noise and then a smash. I went to the door and found the Christmas tree had been pushed over to quite an acute angle, and one of the baubles had smashed. I just thought it had maybe been because the tree was feeling the worst of being two weeks in a research unit without being watered and had decided to collapse, but there was that chilly coldness again and the tree HAD been straight when I had gone into that room........

Another time I was actually in company. A colleague and I had arrived at work at about 7.30am to get started on paperwork before the phones started ringing. Her desk was opposite mine and we were both typing away on our respective papers. As it was early, the office felt very chilly. Then there was a sudden strong aroma of lavender. I asked my colleague what perfume that was she was wearing as it was very strong – I didn't know of any lavender perfumes. She said she wasn't wearing any; she had been in too much of a rush to get to work she hadn't even put her make-up on. The scent of lavender got stronger, and I had to check around the office in case anyone had put a lavender pot pourri in it or something. Then all of a sudden it vanished. I went and made a cup of coffee and came back to my desk. I was just about finished with the piece of paperwork I had done when all of a sudden my mug of coffee knocked itself over with quite a force – yes, my desk was empty and I hadn't knocked it. The scent of lavender came back briefly and then died away. When I mentioned it to one of the doctors, he said that it would have been the Lavender Lady aka the White Lady, who stalked the Doctors on-call room at night. It would explain the coldness around my desk area right enough. I thought he was winding me up, but there was always something at the back of my mind that made me uneasy. Over time, I came to call the ghost Betty, and if ever I got into work early, I would shout good morning to Betty.

The last I “saw” of Betty was when I was interviewing a prospective clinical trial volunteer in a room out of the unit but along the corridor. This room was always freezing cold. I had to do an ECG on this patient as he had an uncertain heart history, and when I came to plug the ECG machine in, the plug came straight out of the wall again. Every time. I kid you not. Needless to say, a spare bed was found in the Research Unit itself for this ECG to be performed, and the room was never more used for our interviews nor medicals.

As I used to leave work often, along the empty corridor (which used to be a ward but was at that time deserted) a patient call bell would go off outside that room. No-one else was about. It was quite freaky. Even the cleaners were spooked. They would go in and switch the call bell off, but within minutes it would go off again. Medical physics came up and tested it numerous times, no fault was found.......in the end a priest was sent for to exorcise the room, as the deserted ward was to be used once again. And that was the last I knew of the Lavender Lady/White Lady.

And by the way, these are ALL true.....I have imagination but not THAT good an imagination. Don't have nightmares.......

Never, never, never give up: my cancer story

Never, never, never give up; my cancer story

You know how life rolls – everything seems to be going well, you're in a “happy place”, life is great and couldn't get much better – and then it seems to bowl you a googly which takes you by surprise and turns your whole world upside down.

My story starts in late 1991. I had just turned 20, had just started my second year of my nursing degree, and life was great. Nursing wasn't a career I had thought about doing; my first choice would have been an English degree, but I thought that I had better job prospects in nursing – so I undertook a four-and-a-half year Degree if it meant that I could end up like Nurse Duffy or Charlie Fairhead on “Casualty”.

The course was tough, the placements tougher, but I was enjoying it. I had recently got a little Mini to get me to and from all the Hospitals I had to work in, and I had a large group of friends both on my Uni course and in general, so my social life was non-stop. In a nutshell, life was pretty good. In fact, if one song could sum up my life at that point it would be Queen's “Don't Stop Me Now”.

Late autumn 1991 arrives. I had a very heavy placement – both physically and emotionally – in a young chronic sick ward. The patients here were all under 50 and had very debilitating illnesses many of which meant that they were utterly helpless. As a result, there was a huge amount of moving patients – mostly using hoists, but sometimes with two nurses physically hoiking patients up the bed. In those days, many of the patient moving techniques that are banned nowadays through Health and Safety, were very much in use. So it came as no surprise that after a few weeks of working in this environment, I felt a dull ache in my sternum. I put this down to having strained myself whilst looking after my patients, and that eventually, probably when my placement finished, it would go away. I thought nothing more of it, and continued as I had been doing to the best of my ability despite being aware that this ache was hampering my practice a little.

Roll forward to spring 1992. Life was still “a blast”. I had had a term in Uni learning all I needed to know about Mental Health nursing to equip me for the next placement which was to be in a mental hospital. During one of my lectures, I had felt my neck a bit tense, so was giving it a rub when I felt a large lump on the right hand side diagonally down from where one's “Adam's apple” is. At first I thought it was just a swollen gland meaning I was in for some sort of infection, but then again it wasn't sore like those glands tend to be. I felt otherwise healthy – the dull sternal ache was still there in the background – but aside from that I was much as I always was.

A week later the lump was still there, but slightly more noticeable. It looked like I had a rather large grape stored under my skin at the base of my neck. I was living at home at the time, so I told my parents who advised me to see the GP about it; I had had Glandular Fever two years previously, and maybe this was it recurring, but there would be no harm in getting it checked out. So I made an appointment and saw my GP a couple of days later; the outcome of which was that I was sent away from the surgery with the words “it's a strange virus but I'll prescribe you antibiotics”. Which was weird because I actually felt fine.

It was the week before my 21^st birthday and my Mental Health placement arrived. I travelled the 14 miles to Bangour Village Hospital for my 2 month initiation into the world of mental illness. Although I had been extremely apprehensive about this, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Two things didn't seem right though. I had completed the course of antibiotics my GP had prescribed, and the lump in my neck hadn't gone away; and also the sternal pain, (which had been very much in the background over the past few months), suddenly got agonising. It was similar to the pain one gets when breathing through the mouth on a very cold day for a prolonged time, except worse. In fact the sternal pain was so bad I couldn't put the car seatbelt on, as the pressure of the belt on my chest was very uncomfortable. My next rostered day off (which happened to be the day before my 21^st birthday) saw me at the GP surgery again, this time seeing a different physician who immediately sent me to get a chest x-ray. From thence, things happened very very quickly.

That evening I got a phone call from my GP to tell me that the x-ray had “shown something”, and my blood sample was “abnormal” and that I was to go to the haematology clinic the next day. I had to go there via the GP surgery to pick up a letter the doctor had written to the consultant. He wasn't sure, but there was a likelihood that I had some form of blood cancer. He didn't want to scare me, but he was referring me to a Haematologist just in case. So that was it. My 21^st birthday present was to be a scary hospital visit when I would be told if I had cancer or not. With this news, I cancelled the small do that my friends had planned for me – I had to be careful not to tell them why, but to think up another feasible reason – and spent the evening in a kind of blank.

My parents accompanied me to the hospital the next day, they were fantastic in their moral support. After what seemed an age in the waiting room, I was called through to the consultant. Now at this stage in my nursing career I had not come across “haematology” nor many of the terms used within this medical specialty, so I was as clueless as the next person – maybe that was a blessing! The consultant then proceeded to tell me that I was to go for a biopsy on the “node” on my neck – that would tell him what kind of cancer I had. The sternal pain seemed to be linked to this as well, and he was keen to know how long I had had it. Within the next couple of days I was back in hospital for my biopsy – my consultant wasted absolutely no time at all – the result of which indicated that I had Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

I had never heard of HL before, except that a character on Eastenders had just been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and was dying. Was that the same thing? The consultant took his time to explain that HL was different from NHL, and had a better prognosis. HL was usually found in older people, he said – and treatment would be decided once they had done a bone marrow biopsy on me. The next day, on my placement, I told the staff my news. It turned out that one of the male nurses had had a brother who had died of Hodgkins several years before, but that he could tell I would beat it. This nurse ended up being my “brother figure” during this placement, always encouraging me, always looking out for me. The staff in the unit were all awesome – I will never forget how kind they were. One of the patients had crocheted me a blanket for my 21^st birthday, I still have it.

Within a few days, I was back in the Day Bed Ward, this time getting what was the most painful thing done to me – that is, the bone marrow biopsy. To be honest, that was the most painful thing in the whole of my cancer experience. They put local anaesthetic into your back (similar to a lumbar puncture) and, using a syringe, they draw out some of your bone marrow which they analyse. This then gives the doctors a picture of how advanced the cancer is: Stage 1 being very early to Stage 4 being very advanced. My bone marrow result showed that my cancer was at Stage 2, and the haematologist prescribed me twenty fractions of radiotherapy (Mon – Fri for a month).

To be honest, these events sped by so quickly that I had no time to think about them. I don't remember ever thinking of death or experiencing fear; I was going to be ok – I was determined I was – so I just felt like I was being treated for flu or some normal minor ailment. Other people seemed more worried about it than I was. My friends avoided me – they didn't know what to say to me, or how to cope with someone their age with cancer; my parents and brother always seemed so strong, and never let their true emotions show. I wanted to carry on with normal life – still do my placements and go to the Youth Group I loved. This weird cancer I hadn't heard of was NOT going to beat me. Even if it meant being radioactive for a month.

The radiotherapy itself was a blur. I lay down on this table and lead “blocks” (the radiographers called it a “mantle”) were placed above my organs so they wouldn't get irradiated. Then I had to lie for a few minutes whilst this machine buzzed and zapped at the nasty cancer cells in my mediastinum. And that was it. Painless procedure, but it did make me feel a little nauseous, very tired, and also gave me a stonking fake “sunburn” on my neck, but that was it. It's funny, but even now there are some songs that were popular at the time that I can't listen to now without feeling “seedy”.

By this time I was meant to be on a Care of the Elderly placement, and in the month following my radiotherapy I got so shattered doing nothing, that I had to contact the Uni and cancel this placement. My Uni friends all clubbed together and bought me a lovely big cuddly toy and a card; my Director of Studies visited with flowers from the Uni Staff. I was also attending Jan de Vries' homeopathy clinic, where a lovely doctor, Dr Tan, prescribed me a mistletoe concoction which had tumour shrinking abilities – so armed with that, and the radiotherapy, I was going to win this battle. Unfortunately, my Finals (which happened in Third Year) happened during this period of radiotherapy induced fatigue, and determined as I was to live life normally, I still sat them. Admittedly, I didn't do as well in them as I had hoped – but I did my best. I was so tired that it was an effort to remember things, and I recall going home with the realisation I had “duffed” my exams.

At my follow-up visit at the haematology clinic a few weeks later, my consultant was delighted at how much the tumour had shrunk, and everything indicated that my HL had gone. The pain in my sternum was no more, and the gland in my neck had vanished. I had beaten it! It almost made me feel like some kind of superhero!

It was then that through the Lymphoma Association, I set up and ran the first and only support group in Edinburgh for Lymphoma and Melanoma patients. It took a lot of hard work, but it ended up a complete success – we had about 15 – 20 people each meeting. Through this group I met Karen, a lass a few years older than me, who had advanced NHL and was fighting for interferon treatment – as this was the last chance she had of hope. She invited me to her wedding – she looked so well at it despite her failing health – and sadly died a few months later. This made me realise how fortunate I was to still be very much alive. Shortly after that, I became hot news in the press – I had newspapers photographing and interviewing me for my story of hope (I appeared in several national papers) and even Prima magazine snapped up my story and dolled me up for a photo shoot at a local castle to accompany an article on me about my Hodgkins experience and work thereafter.

As is usual with cancer cases, patients get followed up for up to ten years after the diagnosis of cancer. I graduated with a 2.1 Honours Degree in Nursing (which amazed me considering how much I knew I had duffed up my Finals), and worked for a short spell in Oncology and then in Pharmacological Research. My consultant's office was just two floors below my office and he would often come up to see me and check I was doing ok.

After one follow-up visit four years later, I was met at work by my consultant. This wasn't usual, I thought. He called me down to his office where he explained that the bloods taken at the clinic a day or two before indicated that cancer, in some form, had returned. He wasn't sure if it was a HL recurrence, or if I had developed NHL or leukaemia. I knew the drill, and I faced his next words with dread......yup, I had to go for yet another painful bone marrow aspiration so that the type of cancer and stage could be determined. This completely caught me off guard, as I was feeling absolutely fine – apart from a cough that I had struggled to shake off from a cold, I was feeling better than I had in years. No pain, no lumps. Was he sure?

The next day, I was back in for the old bone marrow punishment – yes, it was as sore as I remembered it, and an appointment was booked for me to visit the clinic the next Thursday where I would be told the awful truth.

I took what I thought would be 30 minutes from work, and slipped downstairs to the clinic that next Thursday. It turned out that I wouldn't be returning to work that day, nor for several months afterwards. At the clinic I was told that my HL had returned, and this time it was concentrated in my lung (hence the persistent cough), and that I was to start chemotherapy right then. This chemotherapy would last six months. If after this time it had proved not to be effective then a stem cell transplant would be on the cards. I knew from my oncology nursing experience that patients who get that far only have about a year prognosis – but yet I don't remember being “phased” by this – I beat it once, I thought, I sure as heck can do it again. The chemo I was to have was one injection and a battery of pills. This would mean my hair would be unlikely to fall out but I would be unlikely to have children. At the time I had only started going out with my boyfriend (now my husband) and kids were the last thing on my mind, as I was doing well professionally, so this didn't seem too bad a deal. I was glad to keep my long hair – it was my pride and joy! It makes me laugh to think of the frivolous things I thought about at the time.

The chemo was tough – no denying that. The injection made me so sick that at one point I ended up in hospital, as the anti-emetics couldn't relieve it. The pills made me feel even more nauseous, and the steroids had me up during the night doing the ironing! I couldn't go to work, so took sick leave. Some days I felt fine, then others I usually ended up desperately sick but I was determined to beat it. Each time I ended up becoming intimate with the WC, I thought “at least I'm getting the cancer out of me”. Once again, my family were pillars of strength – they never showed their distress in front of me, it must have been a total nightmare for them. One lovely man, an elder at the church that we were all members of, visited every Friday evening to support my parents through this time which helped them (and me) immensely.

After six months of chemo (which went on a little longer as one of my sessions had to be cancelled due to low blood counts), I went back to work part-time. Follow-up visits became more and more hopeful. I got married 7 months after my treatment finished – during which time I had been told I was going through a chemotherapy-induced premature menopause. This wasn't a shock – the haematology consultant had warned me that I wouldn't be able to have children because of the treatment drugs. It was one of the things I would have to sacrifice in order to stay alive. So life started looking up again. I felt better than I had in years, I loved my job, and I was enjoying married life and setting up a new home. This time I knew, I just KNEW, I had seen the last of HL.

My haematology consultant, to whom I owe my life, was delighted when I brought my new baby son to visit him just before he retired. I was blessed to have had such a fantastic medical team looking after me, an amazing family giving me support, and now a child of my own – followed by a second (my daughter) two years later. Talk about little miracles!

These experiences have been a big huge learning curve – but I have been able to use them in my nursing career. When no-one else can comfort a patient about their fears of radiotherapy, I can and have. When no-one else can inform a patient about how it feels and what to expect from chemotherapy, I can and have. When no-one else can help newly diagnosed cancer patients with coping strategies and how to apply them, I can and have.

I was right – doing the Nursing degree was the right move after all, and I would like to think my experiences with the Big C made me better at my job. Fifteen years on from the last diagnosis, I am officially cured.

“The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it” C.C.Scott

“A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug” Patricia Neal

“The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart” Lenin

The Way I See Things.....

The Way I See Things

I didn't realise that I perceive the world in a different way to the majority of other people until fairly recently. I thought everyone saw colours in music and letters. I thought everyone could taste the flavour of names. And it never dawned on me that the “Average Joe” didn't think of individual letters and numbers as each having a distinct personality. It was only after I made a comment about a certain piece of music being a certain colour that it was pointed out to me that evidently things were not perceived by others as they are by myself. “June, are you OK?” was the comment. Then I discovered this “thing” had a name. Synaesthesia. In Greek it means “a union of the senses”, and according to Scholarpedia, it affects 4% of the global population. It is not a neurological condition, but is often seen as a “gift” that only a few people can take advantage of. So in a way I'm kind of special – or so I like to think!

Trawling research on the web, there appears to be 54 types of synaesthesia, appearing equally in men and women. There are also suggestions of a family link. I have to admit as to not having read an abundance of material about it, but I seem to have several different synaesthetic experiences that occur in different ways in everyday life. Some people have asked me to share these, so here goes......and honestly, I am not mad!

Colour and Personality associations

I have always thought of days of the week as colours: Monday is Yellow; Tuesday is Orange; Wednesday Green; Thursday Purple; Friday Pink; Saturday Red and Sunday is Blue.

I have very strong likes/dislikes of colours, and have always liked Wednesdays the least, as I really don't like green. Sometimes, without thinking about it, I will wear clothes whose colour corresponds to the day of the week - at least when that happens I don't forget what day it is!

As well as days of the week having colours, individual letters and numbers have their own colours. This used to make spelling tests and maths a lot of fun when I was a child, as I seemed to form a rainbow of colours on the page when I wrote things down. To further complicate things, these individual letters and numbers each have a distinct personality as well....

NUMBER	COLOUR	PERSONALITY
1	Red	Fun, light-hearted
2	Blue	Naughty/mischievous
3	Yellow	Drunkard
4	Green	Elderly
5	Orange	Happy, slightly smug
6	Pink	Nervous/highly-strung. Easily scared
7	Purple	An Academic
8	Black	Banker
9	Brown	Bored teenager
0	Grey	Ghostly/shadowy

And the same with the alphabet whether in upper or lower case:

LETTER	COLOUR	PERSONALITY
A	Red	Perfectionist
B	Magenta	Shy
C	Orange	Lazy
D	Light blue	Easily bored
E	Yellow	Fitness freak
F	Indigo	Flippant
G	Silver	Self-confident
H	Dark Green	Earthy
I	Grey	Snob
J	Gold	Outgoing
K	Purple	Untidy
L	Pinky orange	Sleazy
M	Green	Bipolar/Moody
N	Dark Grey	Geeky
O	Peach	Singer
P	Beige	Rebellious
Q	Terracotta	Dependent
R	Olive Green	Adventurer
S	Dark blue	Jolly
T	Baby pink	Pretentious
U	Lilac	Caring
V	Dark red	Aristocratic
W	Pink	Excitable
X	Turquoise	Eccentric
Y	Amber	Introverted
Z	Black	Sad

Strangely enough, in my case, individual letters and numbers do not have their own tastes – whereas the words they form often do. More of that later.

I do have an irrational dislike to certain letters of the alphabet.... I would refuse to buy a used car if it had a P or U on its number plate. Unfortunately for me, the family car we currently have was sold to us with a temporary number plate on it – and when the original was put back on, it had a P among the letters. It may seem crazy, but it gets on my nerves!!!

Are you still with me? It gets better.......

Seeing sounds

When growing up, I wasn't aware of this branch of my synaesthesia. Being a child and young adult who listened to 80s/90s pop chart music via the radio, this link was absent. Synthetic drum machine music didn't evoke any colour associations; neither did Heavy Rock. In saying this, however, I do recall Nena's song “99 red balloons” confusing me, as the song was yellow in my opinion. New Order's “Blue Monday” definitely was not blue – it was an emerald green colour. It was not until I started listening to classical music that the whole kaleidoscopic spectrum of patterns made themselves evident. For instance: Taverner's “The Lamb” and Vaughan-Williams' “Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis” are what I call sunset songs – when I hear them I visually see orange, golds, pinks and a hint of navy blue weaving mellow patterns in my mind. Paganini is a light blue, summer sky with wispy white clouds. Vaughan-Williams' “The Lark Ascending” is a definite green piece – and because of its colour I don't like it! Karl Jenkins Adiemus pieces are composed of most colours in darkened hues, but never black, with the odd slither of gold or silver. Beethoven's music tends to be darker; Mozart produces playful pastel shades. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is of the Cubism art genre with the three primary colours only featuring, in bold form. Einaudi is similar to Mozart – bright and pastel shades of the lighter colours in the spectrum, often in a gingham-style pattern. More on Einaudi later – he is more complicated! In fact, I cannot drive my car with classical music playing, or else I wouldn't be able to “see” properly, and would likely end up in a crash!

Aside from classical music, the only other obvious colour – music synaesthetic experiences I have had have been whilst listening to the rock group Pink Floyd, which is interesting as the Founder of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, is thought to have been a synaesthete. The “Dark Side of the Moon” album is an extraordinary cacophony of pink, purple, burgundy and blue with other bold colours darting in and out of the patterns – but these colours are always blurred.

In an orchestra, groups of instruments emit different colours – I also tend to group them into temperature....don't ask me why!

INSTRUMENT	COLOUR	TEMPERATURE/MOOD
Violin	Pale blue	Cool/lightweight, wispy
Cello/double bass	Brown	Tepid/Stark, earthy
Flute	Green	Cool/lush, damp
Oboe/clarinet/bassoon	Olive green – dark green	Cool/damp, dreary
Trumpet/trombone	Dark red – crimson	Warm/outgoing, self-important
French horn/tuba etc	Red	Cool/ sharp
Piano	Pastel shades/gingham pattern	Warm
Harp	Gold/orange	Warm/flowing
Xylophone	Silver	Cool/Sharp, frosty
Choral	Dark yellow/orange/pink	Warm
Guitar	Yellow	Warm/sunny

Seeing sound is an extremely relaxing and pleasant experience (unless one is driving) and I wish that everyone could share it. It's like having your own son et lumiere show in your mind!

Tasting sounds

Tasting words and sounds doesn't happen to me as much as the seeing sounds does. On listening to an Einaudi album recently, every piece tasted of a different pastry, cake and even lemon meringue pie! By the end of the album I felt as if I had eaten a whole baker's shop, and didn't want any lunch. That has not happened on any other classical album, yet, but it was pretty amazing at the time!

Names and how I experience them

My facebook and twitter pages are ablaze with sounds and tastes just by looking down my friends' lists. Some names are tastes, some are sounds, some are moods or colours and some are objects. Some are pleasant, some are not. Most are rather silly and amusing. Here are some examples. If your name is among these, please do not be offended by how things appear to me – I can't help it! (I'm picking names at random from friends' lists here....).

The name Graham tastes of liver, whereas Lesley is freshly squeezed fruit juice. Lucy is a squeaky supermarket trolley wheel, Sheila has the sound of a lavatory flushing (sorry!). Emma is a misty summer morning at dawn, while Eve is a dark wintry evening round the fire. Steve is bass guitar, Sam is a tambourine. The name Dave conjures up corduroy material, whereas Darren is plastic and Emily is lace. There is no rhyme nor reason for these associations – it is how I experience the senses that make up the names. So if your name is Sarah, I would remember you as a hairbrush. See, I warned you some of them were ridiculous!

So, in a nutshell, that is my “take” on the world. I see all this as a positive thing – in fact, if my synaesthesia was somehow taken away from me, I would miss it hugely. I only wish more people could enjoy the world with this “extra sense” - it brings things into a whole new dimension. And no, I'm not mad!

Turning 40

Turning 40

The day has come, the time is here,

The occasion filled with dread.

The next zero birthday has arrived,

My heart feels just like lead.

A brand new decade, scary stuff,

I'm no longer a "young pup",

'Cos from today I'm expected to

Act like a real grown-up.

The clothes shop now will be a 'mare,

My wardrobe is a sham

As all the trendy stuff I own

Screams "mutton dressed as lamb".

Apparently life begins at it - 

At least that's what is said;

But my visions of being 40

Involve grey hair and mid-life spread.

Others say it's "over the hill"; 

A lot of sense that makes.

But in this car on life's short journey

They've not fitted the brakes.

I will try to forget all this

And face things with a smile,

But truthfully, deep down in my heart

I'm totally in denial.

I guess I'm still the same old me

Who likes to have much fun.

Ach, forget being an ageing forty,

I'll always be twenty-one!

A Parody on an Election Speech, written for the 2010 General Election

Parody on an Election Speech

Friends, Britons, countrymen, lend me your beers, 

I come to suffer Clegg, not to praise him.

The voting that men do lives after them;

The MPs are oft destroyed by their decisions;

So let it be with the Lib Dems. The noble Cameron

Hath told you Clegg was ambitious;

If it were so, it was an unfortunate fault,

And badly Clegg hath borne it.

Here, under leave of the electorate and the rest - 

For the electorate are honourable beings;

So are they all, relatively normal people - 

Come I to speak at Clegg's demise.

He was charismatic, vocal in the coalition;

But Cameron said he was ambitious;

And the electorate are honourable folks.

They hath brought many candidates to the polls

Whose votes did they of the public seek;

Did this in Clegg seem ambitious?

When the AV vote fails, Clegg will weep;

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff;

Yet Cameron said he was ambitious;

And the electorate are moderately reliable folks.

You all did see that on the television

Cameron once offered him a depute PMship

Which he did accept; was this ambition?

Yet Cameron said he was ambitious;

And sure, the electorate are so-so.

I speak not to disprove what the electorate have shown

But I am here to speak what I do know.

You all did like him once, after the Leaders' Debates:

What cause withholds you then, to be upset for him?

O judgement! Thou are fled along with the referendum

And men have lost their faith. Bear with me;

My votes are in the bucket, there with my hopes,

And I must pause 'til I can find them.

(originally written 29-05-10)

An Ode to Network Sites

An Ode To Network Sites in the style of Rabbie Burns

(best read in a broad Scottish accent)

Oh the byspale joys of Facebook and Twitter,

The maist addictive things ohn ma compitter.

Ye mak me smile, ye mak me laugh,

But aince ahm ohn, ah cannae git aff.

 Ah, the bletheration that aboonds,

The bletherskates aa doin their roonds,

They really are a cantie bunch,

Taukin aboot wha they are hawin fir lunch.

Or mibby they're feelin a bit peelie-wallie,

Or they're haein a nicht oot at the ballet.

They post up their photies wi' a peerie wee tag

Fir aithers to "like", or jist tae brag.

Ah should hae been aff here a long while sin

But the clashmaclavers keep drawin me in.

Ma hoose is a midden, the dishes need done,

But time spent netwurkin' is much mair fun.

Getting there.....

I'm slowly getting to grips with this blogging malarky, and have now got this central page from which my mad musings can dissipate to anyone who cares to read them.......work is in progress.......