1.4.17 ‘The Way of Heart Failure…’ Yesterday was one of those days… It began with breakfast in a coffee house with the evocative name of ‘Coffee with Art’. One of those other-worldly places you might sneak into with someone you shouldn’t really be with…! But the coffee, the ambience and the staff are like no […]

12.3.17 ‘The Letter…’ The day after I received that letter from my cardiologist I took my grandson to school. When my wife Teresa takes him, the journey is a quick ten-minute dash and it’s all done. However, as Jackson and I set off, he declares, as he selects an audio-book CD: “Take the long way, […]

4.3.17 ‘Four Directions…’ As I may have mentioned before, Thursday afternoons are set aside for my grandson and I to have our own special time together. I forget how this tradition began, but it is an unassailable highlight of my week. I collect him from school and we head into town to one of three […]

19.2.17 ‘Alpha and Omega…’ We’ve just had half-term week here. My grandson, these days, is ultra-involved with various sporting activities but sometimes he comes to stay over or he spends a day with us if his parents are working. Such times together are always precious. Then again, I get to catch up on people that […]

12.2.17  ‘And what now…?’ It’s been a few days since my recent heart failure assessment and I’m feeling stronger, more determined and even more ‘cheeky’. My future horizons are shifting somewhat. I feel I have more energy. I’m more assertive even… I’m walking into town. It’s proper ‘claggy’ weather here – low cloud, mist and […]

5.2.17 ‘Vision…’ I am sat in my favourite café in the town where I live. It’s called ‘Café Noir’ and it’s the kind of place you can hide away from the world, even for a little while. I had come to just be alone and lose myself in a newspaper. I’d happened to buy The […]

3.2.17 ‘Take me to the river…’ I am three days away from my heart transplant assessment. I am still of the mind-set I chose when my cardiologist first raised this possibility, back in October – ‘if it’s necessary then let’s do it…!’ I have not changed this view and it has been calmly reflected back […]

14.1.17 “Choices…” We are ‘baby-sitting’ our grandson’s dog Cici this weekend. I took her out for a walk this afternoon, in the blinding glare of the setting sun. Her nose was avidly down at pavement-level, relishing in every animal scent she could detect. Thus, she was free from the mid-winter glare that I was having […]

31.12.16 ‘Like a Pool in a Forest…’ Today we made our annual visit to a family in the town we used to live in. Over the eight years we have been moved away, this has become our habit – we visit but once a year, always at Christmas time and it is always a good […]

25.12.16 ‘The Beating Heart of Christmas…’ Christmas Eve and I am showing some of the Wolf Tales to our daughter Sonia. Just to give her an insight into the nature of our ‘heart failure world’. I do not show her the Facebook page itself, as that is confidential. She just reads the tales – and […]

23.12.16 ‘The Gift…’ Bustling down the high street in my little Northamptonshire town this afternoon, I do a double take. What is that shape in the dark alley way, lurking in the gathering gloom? I casually make my back, trying to look as if I have just remembered another gift I need and that I […]

‘Card Sharps…’ ‘You’re not much good at this either, are you?’ I look up sharply. Sometimes that gruff, growly smugly-smiling voice just gets under my skin. Spending a lifetime being oversensitive and hyper-alert to suspected put-downs is one thing. But when you must take it from a wolf – well, that’s maybe a step too […]

3.12.17 ‘Wolf music…’ Sometimes, my friend Wolf has no sense of timing or decorum. The other evening, upon returning home in the slow dusk of winter, I stepped out of my car, only to be confronted by his ominous shape. My mind recoiled in primeval fashion as my eyes took in the wolf outline and […]

24.11.16 “Hanging with the Bluesman…” Driving home from Papworth Hospital the other night, I was just letting the news settle down inside me. Transplant maybe or maybe not. Other surgery maybe and so on. Relaxed but not sorted. Relieved but still ready. Calm but not totally. Inside the car, it suddenly got colder. That could […]

19.11.16 ‘Look Me in the Eye…’ I have begun sharing the story of the new options in my heart’s future. Surgery in one of three movements: keyhole, invasive or transplant. I share not for effect but to try and ‘normalise’ that which is anything but. People’s reactions are varied. Some tune in and just ‘get […]