I seem to be having some luck with the fluid reduction as my ankles are much improved, as I expected though I have three fingers on which my rings are still stuck fast. I guess they will take a large miracle of loosing weight again to shift them, or someone with a sharp pair of snips that I trust totally to remove them, as long as they don’t have to be removed, I will let them stay as they are. It has always been one of those back to front theories that drinking more and making your body flush it through, can actually remove fluid from where it shouldn’t be, but with the help of the furosemide progress is being achieved. I had hoped that there might have been extra fluid sitting around my chest but so far no change, just more pain, but I haven’t given up hope.

I know that I have always had a love of places that are desolate, places that look as though no other human could possibly have ever been there, but recently for some reason I have found myself longing to be not just see such places, but to actually be there. I have honestly never really wanted to go anywhere since it became impossible for me to, being housebound somehow allowed me to just accept my life the way it is. I suppose that isn’t really too surprising as I have always had a distinct dislike of going out and about in the city. Cities to me have just been places that we have to put up with, especially if we want to make a decent living, alone on top of snow covered mountain won’t earn anyone anything. It had been years since I was able to go to such places, just sitting in a car looking, is actually as close to hell as I can imagine, it’s like having your dream just an inch away from your figure tips, with no way of being able to extend your arms that final inch.

When I lived in Rhu our house had a mountain behind it, it was my own personal heaven. When ever I had the chance I would walk over the mountain, off the paths that others used, even squelching my way across the bog, often even though I had put on the wrong footwear. Trust me, if you have never been to such a place, there is a magic that reaches inside you and a feeling that the world is yours and yours alone. On days when I didn’t have enough time to trek that distance, I would head down to the shore, Rhu has a spit that reaches out into the middle of the loch, the channel just beyond the spit is deep enough to allow the nuclear submarines to pass from Faslane to the sea. Stood out at the end of the spit surrounded by water that is totally black, due to it’s depth, just letting the wind bounce off you, or even the rain, revitalise your soul in a way that no other situation can. Unlike most others people, it was the winter that invigorated me, when the land and water was at it’s coldest and bleakest. I just didn’t find the same feeling when the sun was shining and the sky’s were not just blue, they were clear and blankly uninteresting. The summer would find my hiding, tucked away in groves of trees, lying on the mossy ground just watching the trees and dreading the dogs which appeared bouncing and looking for fun, heralding the fact that their humans were around. I had for along time now been satisfied to just keep these places inside me, places that I could go to in my mind when I needed to, but lately something has changed.

Every time I come across a picture of a landscape where no humans would want to live, I get lost in it, just as I do when programs on TV work on evoking a bleak and ancient location, I now find myself longing to just be there. I can find no reason why I am suddenly longing for such places, why there is part of me that wants to leave my cocoon and venture out again where I can be alone, especially as I am already alone so much of my time. I am drawn to watching programs from the frozen sparsely inhabited north, I don’t care what the country is, or what the real story, I just want that feeling I used to know well. What has changed it, what has triggered this sudden need to be free, I simply don’t know, I guess it has just been waiting to happen, as no one can remain isolated I suppose for ever, without once feeling that need for freedom again. I doubt that even if I could be taken to a place like those that I see, that I would feel any freedom at all, as there is on huge problem, I would have to be taken there, people would have to be around me, supporting and ready to take me home again.

I remember one of the nurses suggesting that we might be able to get a stair climber from one of the charities, she seemed really surprised when I said that I would have no use for it, as there was no where to go. Even if I were outside my home sat in my wheelchair, there would be no freedom, by the time I was dressed and down there, I would want to go home again to sleep. If that could be managed, it was followed by the fact I would have to have assistance with me throughout, as I can’t operate my chair and I would have to be pushed, something that makes you feel like a prisoner as well. That was just the first flaw to her plan, but it was more than just that, she just couldn’t understand that my idea of hell would to be out and about in the city, that there was nothing out there of the slightest interest, shops, pubs, restaurants, theatres and so on, just filled me with dread. The choice between that and my personal sanctuary, well it takes no thought at all, I choose my home.

I know I will never have that freedom again, those dreams are all that are left, but now, right now there is a longing to just be wondering the land. I am sure like so many other feelings it will pass, but right now, well I feel it’s lose.