physiotherapy

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Whitby, Cropredy and a persistent running injury. And Brexit?

WHITBY

Four days in Yorkshire. We visited Whitby where Bram Stoker’s Dracula landed on a deserted ship and bounded up the 199 steps, in the form of a large black dog, to the ruined Whitby abbey on the cliff top. Whitby is now a port of call (pun intended) for all Goths, past and present. These two Goth girl were hardly out of place.

 

Very atmospheric. The weather was warm and sunny but on a cold, misty, gloomy day it would be easy to appreciate why Stoker knew Whitby was the appropriate location for Dracula to disembark from his cursed ship.

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Cropredy, Oxfordshire. Fairport Convention hold an annual reunion festival here. They are a folk rock band which originally formed in 1967 and they are still going with original members and old members regularly returning. They have a loyal following which is just as well because the weather conditions were testing for long standing fans. Except we weren’t standing much. Such is our collective advanced age camp chairs is de rigueur even if the weather is good. This time around we endured a chilling wind, low temperatures and bouts of rain. It felt God was attempting to cull us!

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I’m being persecuted by another chicken. She turns up each day waiting to be fed then does giant poo which we duly tread on. She even became violent, pecking Lorna’s unprotected toes. We’re trying to become predominantly vegetarians but she’s trying our patience.

I’m alive but still not running My knee injury is still persisting and I’ve stopped running altogether. Still not sure of the exact nature of the injury. I had assumed it was a tear or bruising to the miniscus but now I’m not so sure. I’ve had a couple of private physiotherapy sessions and still awaiting a NHS referral for physiotherapy for which there is a fourteen week waiting list. This is not a service. Such a timescale for assessment and treatment will ensure that either the average person’s  problem will have resolved over time or will have become chronic. How has the physiotherapy service allowed itself to become so degraded and marginal? My GP, appparently, is not able to refer me for a scan to accurately diagnose my knee injury. That responsibility is now devolved to the physiotherapy servce, who if they feel a diagnostic scan is required, refer me onto another team who then make that decision. This will take forever. It is taking forever. A good example of NHS cuts and resource rationing. or softening up the NHS for private providers. Or simply dropping a treatment option. Is the NHS safe with the evil Tories? If you are credulous, yes, of course.

Brexit! Divisive or what? Remain or leave, your preference strips bare a predictable set of values and beliefs. In general the remainers live in a world with balmy weather and warm breezes where good humour and friendliness, co-operation and fairness are the norms and everyone is accepted without prejudice. The leavers, in general, inhabit a gloomy, sunless world, permanently chilled and inhospitable, where xenophobia, meaness of spirit, absence of empathy, lack of charity and self interest are endemic. Oh dear!

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I am a fallen runnning god

Here I am, an erstwhile running god (minor), reduced to taking a selfie to remind myself that the sun can still back light my long hair. Unfortunately just after this shot, I was restrained, transported to a local barber not known for his sympathy towards “elderly gentlemen with long locks” and shorn forthwith. His parting shot to Lorna was “Unfortunately we get a lot like your husband. They don’t want to grow up, see?”

Fact or fiction? Reader, you decide. What isn’t up for conjecture is the imposition of further injuries. Nine days ago, following rest, physio, a relaxed 48 minute run, further rest and no problems identified, I did parkrun and put effort into it. Result? My hamstring pain returned with a vengeance and has lasted. I didn’t do parkrun this Saturday nor a 10k Hoohaah race the following day. To add insult to injury I have developed a neck ache and caught a cold. To a highly tuned running machine like myself, this is not good news. What will I do? I’ll discuss it with my physio and rest until next weekend when I’ll do parkrun again. I’m due to do another 4 mile run directly after parkrun in anothe village. I might do them both and take it easy. I might do one. If the injury returns, I think I’ll stop running for three or four weeks.

The Windrush scandal! The evil Tories have imposed an immigration policy, since around 2010, when Theresa May was Home Secretary, which has the clearly stated intention of creating a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants. In their haste to ingratiate themselves with the gutter press, the credulous electorate and the substantial numbers of unthinking xenophobics, they targeted numbers of the Windrush generation. These are the thousands of Caribbean people who were encouraged to come to Great Britain in the 1950’s and 60’s to work in transport, hospitals, nursing homes and the Post Office. Now, their children having lived their life in this country and not having the required paperwork to prove their legal residency (because the government has lost or shredded it), are under threat of deportation, cannot access services or treatment on the NHS or benefits, cannnot work, are detained and lose their housing rights, despite working in Great Britain for decades.

The evil Tories are now squirming and Amber Rudd, Home Secretary, has resigned only because this scandal has now blown up, thanks to the Guardian, despite going on for a considerable period of time. I take it as read that the Tories, as a whole, do not have a moral compass and will run roughshod over the most vulnerable groups without compunction. What is different about the Windrush situation are the blatent lies uttered by Rudd as she scrambed to put the blame on over zealous officials and civil servants. They were hers and May’s policies which advocated the “hostile environment” and keenness to wrack up the numbers of enforced deportations.Nevertheless, she professed no knowledge of the egregious consequences until leaked documents showed she was lying. The Tories simply don’t care, along with large swathes of Tory voters and Mail readers. The bar for veracity and compassion is now so low for Tory politicians that most people will see Rudd’s demise as just a bit of political fallout. She should be banned from politics and acknowledged to be a public disgrace.