Who’s in the garden this morning?
- 9 warthogs – inc. Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Fred, and Ethyl
- 11 bushbucks – inc. Chewy and Thick Neck
- 2 wildebeest – inc. Hal and CF (aka Crooked Face)
- 25 mongoose
- Frank and The Misses
Over the past week, when the worst of the virus I contracted from where, I don’t know, I’ve struggled to do the posts each day. My thoughts were scattered, my photos were few, and I had difficulty coming up with a topic to encompass most of the text each day.
Today isn’t a lot different. I am still a bit foggy and under the weather, although the sore throat, breathing issues, and cough have improved dramatically in the past few days. Unfortunately, tonight, we’ve had to cancel our dinner reservation with Rita and Gerhard at Jabula. I am not up to going out yet. So instead, we’ll do takeaway from Jabula for the items we’d have ordered at the restaurant.
It will be an easy day for me with laundry dried, folded, and put away and nothing to cook for dinner. Of course, Tom had been more than willing to do “my jobs” all week, but I felt I needed to keep moving to recover sooner. Laying in bed while sick is not my thing. So I always try to do a little around the house.
My biggest problem these past 11 days since this virus began; each day, I considered posting a notice that read, “Sorry, readers. Due to illness, there won’t be a post today” I didn’t want to lie and say there was another reason. After all, we have always promised to be transparent here, and there have been few exceptions.
I didn’t mention being sick on a few occasions, realizing that our readers may be “sick and tired” of reading about me being “sick and tired.” I get that. When we began our world travels, we knew that with my past less-than-ideal health issues, due to genetics, certainly not a lifestyle, that this risk existed that I’d be sick from time to time.
We never once had a doctor’s appointment the first few years, even with the countless times we both became ill with viruses we caught while cruising. We managed it all on our own, mentioning some of the cases, but not all. We didn’t want to lose readers from complaining about illness.
But, let’s face it, as we age, we are all subject to becoming ill. Ask a person over 65 how often they’ve visited their family practice physician or a specialist in a typical year. Of course, fewer people took the risk of being at their doctor’s office during the pandemic, fearful of Covid-19, and rightfully so.
Yes, I am stuck with bad genetics. Regardless of how hard I’ve worked on improving my lifestyle, eating a suitable diet for me, exercising, and avoiding stress, I still can’t avoid becoming ill from time to time. Although I don’t smoke, drink in excess, only consume small amounts of low alcohol wine, avoid unnecessary risks, I can’t prevent days such as I experienced beginning a week ago Tuesday when the virus symptoms began.
Why would we keep wanting to travel the world with this fact in mind? Simply put, because we want to. That’s not me. I have no desire to become a perpetual patient, living in a retirement facility, going to see the doctor once a month or more. That’s not us. After all, I survived major open-heart surgery here in South Africa 27 months ago, and we’ve since been able to do considerable traveling, enjoying every new experience along the way. Happiness surely must account for a portion of good health.
Yes, we both accept the reality that we’ll have to stop traveling sometime in the next several years. But, the thoughts hover in our minds that perhaps we’ll be able to travel to some degree when that time comes. But, like always, we’ll figure it out then, not now. So, now, we’re living life on our terms, with the only thing over our heads at the moment is the fact that we need to go somewhere for our visa stamps in 33 days. We’ll figure it all out.
We hope you are healthy and enjoying life on your terms. Happy day!
Photo from one year ago today, May 29, 2020:
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| Tom had to duck his head to enter the house at the Connemara Heritage and History Center. For more photos posted one year ago, please click here. |