This one Is dedicated to Mark Swift and his true love Jenna

Well I'm not one for overdoing the status updates on Facebook but felt it would have been rude not too after the Elbow concert, it went a little like this:-

                 ".....So, Elbow gig was amazing, can't decide if the highlight was having some beers with them backstage or when Mr Garvey dedicated a song to Jen and I mid concert!!! ....all in all not too shabby really!"

This one is for Mark Swift and his true love Jenna

So yep as concerts go pretty much the best one ever really! Nice meal beforehand, got to the arena just in the nick of time, met the drummer just before they went on, nice seats (well position that is, I come complete with a seat these days!), song dedication of "This one is dedicated to Mark Swift and his true love Jenna", Nice! And then downstairs for a quick beer afterwards, again met Richard Jupp the drummer (who knows my auntie, hence the special treatment!) was an amazingly nice guy, just really normal and down to earth, but for someone so busy and in demand he was very generous with his time and then also had a chat with Guy Garvey who was much the same really, I couldn't thank them enough....basically superb! ....oh and they where kind enough to sign some lyrics for my physio Ben, the old romantic! His first dance at his wedding was 'One Day Like This' so for his first wedding anniversary (paper) he printed out the lyrics and asked me to see if I could get them signed for him, nice! Although also absolute cheapskate!! ....massive thanks though to my Auntie Jan for sorting it all out and to Mr Jupp too!

Yep so that was definitely the highlight of the past week! As that aside its been pretty quiet really...physio is on the wind down in preparation for going home! Sounds counterintuitive really (and is) but there argument is when you go home you won't have scheduled physio everyday so it gives you some time to get used to that fact! ...but I've achieved all the goals we had set so can't grumble they've done a great job, the next phase is down to me and I've got to push on with it all, pardon the pun! ....in o.t. I've been doing more car transfers and taking the chair apart, it is getting easier but remains far from easy!

I'm looking forward to hopefully having a go at driving next week as the car at the unit has adapted hand controls, so basically a lever you push and pull to accelerate and brake and a handle on the steering wheel so you can steer one handed, surprisingly you don't need to do another test or anything you're allowed to just go for it! Which is a little scary, not so much for me but more so for all you other road users! ....if you're driving round Southport I'd look out for a maroon Focus over the next couple of weeks and take a seriously wide berth if you see it!!

Cartoon by Tony Husband.  www.tonyhusband.co.uk

 And speaking of the next couple of weeks, we're down to the final week and half before I am officially discharged and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with the fact than I was a month ago as I've had that bit more time to polish up on certain things and also to spend time out of the unit to prepare for the realities of discharge at my own pace (which is a pretty slow pace these days!) ....also on the discharge front it looks as though myself and two of the other guys off my ward, Ian and Paul, are all going on the same day, which is pretty nice really so we might follow the lead of the guy from a few months ago and get the Jaegermeister in, see if we can get some of the staff drunk this time perhaps! And think any leaving do will largely feature shithead as the game has pretty much seen us through the past few months, almost to the point of playing virtually on autopilot now!! ....but no it's exciting to be leaving and nice to start thinking about Christmas and none spinal unit things!! Even started my shopping online this week!!

Thanks to all

Mark x