Keeping spirits up

There’s a difficult week ahead and I’m feeling quite fragile with the side effects of the drugs post surgery. Both the rabbit and I are needing a little TLC after the general anaesthetic.

However, no matter how I feel there are good wishes coming through every day. Ray meets people in the village who ask after me and I received some beautiful flowers from a lovely lady who was on one of Ray’s courses. She and her husband had wanted to take us out to dinner but as her little daughter had been ill, I had to refuse. I have to keep to a very tight schedule now and can’t afford to be ill. Fortunately, she understood as I really don’t want to offend anyone.

Ray and I take pleasure in the fact that we can still run the business and we meet such great people. We even have a really good bank manager who seems to understand what Ray has been through with the accident and now caring for me. Mostly I have not only been able to take care of myself but play an active role in the business. However, now other people are having to step in. Actually since an important part of the course is the business element as well as the photography, Ray’s students can see that we can cope and can pass on some good advice since all people who run small businesses have to cope with difficulties in their private lives at some point.

What I am missing is singing. I sing, always have, and it’s given me such pleasure. I started out as a child in the church choir, took part as a soloist in operas at school, then later on as an adult in concerts, shows and operas. I gained my Licentiate in Music but decided not to pursue singing as a career partly because I think you have to be very single-minded and also more talented. However, I have never lost the thrill of floating a soprano sound over an orchestra even though now I am once more back to the church choir.

During both bouts of chemo in 2008 and 2009 my voice was affected and my larynx has been affected once again by my sinus problems. But the voice does come back. At first it takes a lot of work to produce the sound across the whole register and breath control is difficult. Then comes a day when the voice just floats out again. My son has a good baritone voice so perhaps my father, whoever he was, could sing. I am told he was musical and singing depends on one’s physiology which can be inherited as well as musicality. But to sing well requires spirit and joy to be alive. That spirit is difficult to suppress even during a drug regime so hopefully I shall sing again.