I’m having one of those reflective mornings. I got up early to start knitting (I am making something special). With a cup of tea I watched for the hare that comes by our window at first light, and listened to the final chapters of Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk (worth reading). I think I might look back on these months and find them interesting: it seems a time of changes, some larger, some more subtle. In terms of my post-stroke well being, I think its interesting that I have recently felt some improvements in recovery: I find I do not need quite as much sleep as I did previously. That is to say, where I definitely needed ten to twelve hours to stay on an even keel, I find I can now just about get by with eight. Though I still have the odd day in which I’m laid low with weird, unaccountable fatigue, these are happily much rarer. My body feels less tired too: actions such as descending hills and steps seem less clunky and troublesome, and two weeks of daily swimming in Portugal has made my left side a little stronger. Having enjoyed swimming in the sea once again, I intend to try some open water swimming closer to home. But I have to say that none this means I am feeling like my ‘old self’ or ‘as I was’ or anything. In some ways, the more ‘recovered’ I feel, the more profoundly aware I am of the distance between me and my post-stroke body. That is to say, that now, five years after my stroke, I have come to accept my body, but I never feel completely comfortable in it. I feel like I am inhabiting it, but it never feels like “me”. I think I thought I would stop being conscious of the difference of it, that its actions would become unconscious, that I would perhaps be able to stop making an effort to tell it what to do, but this has never happened. I honestly don’t think it ever will. I often wonder whether this sensation of alienation is just about the fact that I feel mild physical discomfort most of the time (because my body is uncomfortable, I am aware of it) or whether its because part of my brain is missing (the neurons that controlled my left side no longer exist, and the left side of my body now operates by grace of the same bit of my brain that controls my right). Either way, I suppose I am starting to get used to this body, even though I often feel removed from it.

But this is definitely a time of positive changes. The photograph at the top of this post is of Finlaggan – a place that is very special to Tom and I. In a few weeks time we shall be married there. After sixteen years together, and unable to imagine ever being apart, it is probably the right moment. Bruce will be there too, of course, and I shall be wearing something I’ve knitted. I have never really been that bothered by weddings – I’ve never had a hankering for white dresses or occasions – but I have to say that knitting my thing, and thinking about marrying Tom this morning is making me very happy. We are setting the seal on a life we’ve built together. In some ways little will alter, but it also feels quietly momentous. I promise I’ll show you the thing I’m making after we’re married. The yarn I’m working with is pretty special too.

Back to the knitting. Have a lovely weekend. xx