The Things You Learn

 I don't often talk about my health issues here but I'm making an exception today. I have macular degeneration which means I am slowly losing my vision. I'm lucky that in my case it has been very slow but over the past year I've been beginning to really notice deficiencies in what I can see. Macular degeneration is when the macula, which is the part of the retina that gives you clear vision through your line of sight, disintegrates meaning you lose the central part of your vision. In my case at the moment this means I have blurred bits in the middle of whatever I'm focussing on and other things are distorted. So far it's not too bad because my peripheral vision in my better eye is compensating to some degree but this isn't always the case so sometimes I can see with only slight blurring but on a bad day I might not be able see the face of someone who is only a a relatively short distance away from me. This can change quite fast so at one time I can see relatively well but within minutes it can change so much of the world is a blur. Because it's so erratic I've had to give up driving because I can't be certain that I'll be able to see consistently enough to drive safely. 

All this makes life more complicated and I'm having to find ways to live with this condition. These are things like making sure that everything is put away in the same place in the pantry for instance so that on a bad day I can still find it and insisting that nothing is left out where it can be tripped over. I'm not yet at the point where I need much assistance but things like reading can be problematic if the font is small for instance. My laptop and Kindle are a great help here because I can enlarge the font and I've put magnifying glasses strategically around the house, even carrying a small one in my handbag, to make this easier.

Largely I've been working out these things for myself but now I've had a visit from an occupational therapist who works with those who have mobility and vision problems and I can see  a whole new world opening up. One thing she suggested was to upgrade our lighting and she made her point by bringing in a lamp with a much stronger whiter light than we've generally got around here. I'm still in shock as to how much difference this made. I had thought the lighting around here was perfectly adequate but it seems I was wrong The reading sheet she had me do at the beginning of the session where I struggled to read the last lines became clear enough for me to read them, not perfectly clear but good enough. This was only part of what she suggested and we now have a list of changes to work through. Some are expensive but most are relatively cheap. Who'd have thought there was so much we could do to live with this condition.

The OT was also very helpful with regard to my back problems which have morphed over the last few months from somewhat painful which is inconvenient but manageable to very painful and debilitating. It turns out there are things out there which she thinks will help and I have to say I hope she's right. One of these is a new bed. Apparently mattresses only last seven years.  I've no intention of telling you how old mine is but let's say it's quite a lot older than that. There's also a stool that I could use in the kitchen for less standing and she says I need a new office chair (that last is not a surprise but I realise now I cannot put it off any longer). There was much other food for thought and I'm actually looking forward to my next appointment which is to be at a speciality shop aptly named The Back Shop.

Modern Warfare

Remembrance Day got me thinking. This day always seems especially poignant for me because it marks the end of the war where, apart from the tragic loss of life, everything related to warfare changed. For the first time war involved large scale mechanisation. There had been the beginnings of this back in the smaller wars of the later part of the nineteenth century but the Great War (as it was known at the time but which we now know as World War One) was when machine guns had been refined to be even greater mass killing weapons, tanks were first used, enormous ships brought soldiers in huge numbers in from all over the world to the battle fields of Europe and the Middle East, trains were used extensively for transport with temporary lines being laid and taken up and aerial warfare began. As well there was the first large scale chemical warfare with the use of gases such as chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas as weapons. It was a long way from poisoning water sources or tossing contaminated items at the enemy to infect them with disease. While it's now forbidden under the bizarrely named Rules of War quite recently the president of Syria used gas against his own people in the on-going civil war in that country and I'd be very surprised that this would be the last time.

This war was when modern warfare really changed. Although war had always been horrific in the numbers of dead and injured and disrupted lives caused by actual fighting as well as all the other problems which civilian populations endure - looting, destruction of crops and homes leading to mass starvation and murder and rape by rampaging troops full of blood lust to name only a few - the distancing that mechanisation provides makes it even easier to lose sight of the actual people involved. I'm not saying there aren't times when we have to fight to defend ourselves - obviously that can and does happen - but there's been a great change in the way we fight wars. It's no longer men armed with a spear or a sword face to face or even canon fire and arrows where there are limits to how far they can reach. Mechanisation has changed that and now we have drone strikes and autonomous weapons that put war at an even greater distance from those waging it. Even worse are the rockets which can travel half way around the globe carrying hugely destructive weapons that can wipe out entire cities. 

I grew up during the Cold War where even in as isolated part of the world as Western Australia we lived in fear of nuclear war. That these weapons and the technology to make them still exist is scary because while they do they may fall into the hands of despotic leaders or other extremists. When they're combined with weapons that are autonomous it's a frightening prospect for the future. Artificial intelligence is only as good as its programming and I for one am not convinced that we are as good at doing that as we like to think we are. 

Remembrance Day

 Lest we forget.

Pond Life

A few weeks ago you might remember that Miss Five and Mr Two "helped" their father to reline and fill the pond in the garden. I intend to stock it with local Western pygmy perch to keep down the mosquito population - they also co-exist with frogs, which is important here. 

The advice was to leave the water to get rid of any nasties for 4-6 weeks which I did. Turns out this was not a great idea without first stocking it with plants because it was soon a glorious - I joke of course - green with an algae bloom the likes of which I've never seen before in a garden pond. So now I have started over with clean water and some water plants.  

The first of these plants is nardoo. 

This is a native water fern the spores of which when properly prepared were used by our First Nations people as part of their diet particularly in inland areas. The important part here is properly prepared because it can be toxic unless correctly treated. As I have no plans of growing enough to eat I'm not particularly concerned about this aspect. 

The other one so far is a water forget me not.

I'm not at all sure if this was a good choice as it may get to be too big but we shall see. Somewhat urgently now I need to make a visit to a local nursery that specialises in all things aquatic to invest in some water lilies and pygmy perch to prevent another algal disaster.

I thought the frog which has taken up residence in the pond might be unhappy about my disruption to his home but it seems I was worrying unnecessarily because he's out there making himself heard as I write and has been doing that pretty much all day.  "Hello, ladies," he's saying. "Come and make beautiful babies." Even if a female goes to investigate she's unlikely to mate and lay her eggs there because two quite small water plants are hardly going to be enough to provide suitable anchors for them.  He, though, remains optimistic. Good luck to him I say.