Food porn...

... guaranteed to cheer you up. Lean bacon and melted brie with salad and cranberry sauce in toasted granary bread, with fat home-made chips on the side and washed down with a cup of strong black coffee. Does it for me, especially after a traumatic session with the hospital physio, who, after the usual apparent attempt to unscrew my ankle, next got me to practise balancing on a wobble-board. I could more-or-less do it if I stared at my feet and concentrated really hard, but if I looked up, or worse still, closed my eyes, I fell off immediately. He did say that balance depends on many factors, including vision, the small muscles of the lower leg (mine being somewhat shot) and the fluid in the inner ear which can be affected by damage to the head, so I'm buggered on two counts. My chauffeuse, friend R., who is recovering from a broken toe and was a bit worse for wear herself after too much wine last night, and I must have looked a sight both limping around the charity shops of Prescot (a favourite pastime - she always manages to find grotty-looking jewellery which turns out to be silver, gold, or gemstones when cleaned up). However, lunch at Mrs. Ray's Coffee Shop did much to restore our spirits.

Yesterday I was complaining of being grumpy, but the nice comments on here pulled me out of that, and a trip to Neurosupport in the evening helped too. It was the quarterly meeting of the Brain Haemorrhage Support Group, which doesn't sound like a bundle of laughs but in fact was. Being with a couple of dozen other funny, courageous (and batty) people who have survived the same injury is strangely therapeutic, as is not having to apologise for memory lapses or all the other "stuff". There was a lot of self-deprecating humour about that, and a lot of genuine people showing care and concern for each other, all making the best of things in the face of an "invisible" condition.