Brain Dead

This picture sums up my week.

Nothing is going right, I have not got out, been forced to do two washings and live among the damp results.  Knees ache, too little football to watch, and the gas man has put £7 on the bill.  

The brain dead feeling means I have no energy to write, research, read or do anything worth while.

Tomorrow morning I must away to Tesco for sme brain food....

 

Normal Saturday

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The Shortest Day

At last!  The darkness has descended and the night has begun!  At last the days will begun to stay around that little bit longer.  At last the year is turning and Spring is on the way, after a couple of months of hail, snow, wind and freezing weather of course!  How lovely to think there will be more light, buds on trees, blossoms and gaiety all around once more.  The shortest day celebrated the fact by almost allowing the sun to shine.  The rain fell where it belonged, elsewhere, and when I sauntered around the town the clouds had a bright golden edge to them.  

I wanted to do a post full of insight and significance but the bug has worn me out again.  My little brain is dull tonight, and wasn't much better this morning.  As I did the women's work today, hoovering and such like, I left the front door ajar.  An ambulance paramedic approached enquiring for a shop selling hot food.  When I have a bug the mind often blocks things and as I attempted to send her to the bakers shops for overpriced pies and soup I could not remember the shops name, it has only come to mind now I write this, 'Greggs.'  It has taken all day to arrive, and possibly it has taken the ambulance crew all day to find the shop after my directions!  Why does this 'block' happen I wonder?  I am sure my mother had this, and I suspect it runs in the family, like debt.  

I am worried about my week away over Christmas.  I will not be able to take the laptop as they use Sky and not Talk Talk.  There is growing within me a sensation of desperation here.  A week without fingertapping on this wee keyboard.  A week without emails, a week without anon spamming me, a week without contact with the real world.  A week in which I will have to talk to people!  Oooooh.  I think I am off to bed, I feel giddy.....

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Brain Training?

According to the BBC News Item, all those folks spending their cash on games designed to improve the brain are wasting their time. 'Which', the consumer organisation, have done a study of these games and concluded that doing a crossword is just as useful if you wish to avoid Alzheimer's or just going 'Ga-Ga' as you get older. Some of you out there, you know who you are, will be happy to here this! No more spending up to a £100 for a game plus console, now all you need do is borrow someones paper and do their crossword for them. They will be pleased.
The main reason they are pushed by celebrities, and they know ways to make money that would embarrass even a banker, is to line their pockets by assuring you that a healthy brain will keep you sane until death. After that you are on your own! They are so clever that they know you will listen to them because they are believable - proof indeed that you need to train your brain and quickly! My mother is 94, she would not know, nor wish to know how to use one of these machines, but her brain is still working OK. She does crosswords and watches quiz shows and then wastes her life watching 'soaps!' Had she avoided the latter she would have worked out how to become rich by now!

The brain is a fantastic creation. Some years ago I worked in a hospital that specialised in neurology and neurosurgery - brain operations and nerve diseases to you. Obviously I was low down the importance scale, but not too far down for passing doctors to look in my ear and whisper, "I can't see your problem," as they passed by. Why one of them hung the sign, 'Out of order please do not use,' on my jacket button one day was never explained. However reading the books and relevant notes when possible, it was interesting to see just how powerful the brain actually is, and how little of this machine we actually use! Operations led to the destruction of many brain cells, and often patients had to relearn how to read - by using the other side of their brain! The damaged brain showed awful results in some cases, and years of care were needed for some. They often were the lucky ones. I came across this site tonight and it looks a great read. Once we have worked our way through that we will not need Carol Vorderman making money out of us to keep the 'little gray cells' alive.