France: A step in the right direction

We’re moving into autumn here in Eguisheim, as the harvest is all done and the vines are changing colour. We’re still benefitting from some late September warm weather, and still plagued by the mosquitoes that appear to love my ankles…

Health update

It’s a lovely thing to be told you are looking more healthy by a number of people, and that has been happening consistently over the past week or so.

Of course, this is bad news for Rachel as all my worst behaviours have returned, despite my assertions that her saintliness in looking after me meant I could never go back to my ‘naughty and cheeky’ ways. Ah well…

Releasing the Nanobots

Getting a nurse to visit the house to administer the Nanobots was far harder to achieve than anticipated. Nurses here tend to operate on the phone only, so limited language skills made this a challenge to crack. Home visits also seem to be across a very limited area for each Infirmerie so trying to book via Doctolib ended in failure each time.

In the end we opted to visit an Infirmerie in Wettolsheim (our nearest neighbour village) which was OK to book after a quick pre-emptive note to the nurse on what we were looking for.

And the injection process itself was over in seconds and completely painless! I was amazed - so nothing like Pulp Fiction then? The delivery pen does all the work, so I should be OK to do this in future.

We made the mistake of going straight off to do the shopping and I lasted about 15 mins before coming over all dizzy, so I went straight back to bed for a few hours. After that I was fine again. But one to watch for in future injections.

Turning the corner?

It seems ambitious to say the least to declare that within just one week of the new treatment I am seeing results, but that is in fact the case. It’s likely a combination of the arthritis flare-up dying down and the Nanobots starting to do their thing, but frankly I don’t care which as I am definitely improving.

The most obvious and telling metric here is the distance and frequency of my daily steps. These were languishing at an average of 5,500 per day a couple of weeks ago, but have now increased to 8,300. Peak numbers have also hit 12,000 for any one day.

This improvement is also reflected in the distances I can manage. I’d set myself some objectives, the first of which was being able to walk into the village centre and back to buy a fresh baguette each morning (how French is that?) which I’m not only achieving every day now, but usually taking a longer route through the beautiful vineyards that surround us.

(talking of which, it’s time I nipped out to perform my daily duty now before all the bread goes!)

As my distances have increased I set another target of being able to walk to our neighbouring village of Wettolsheim and back (around 4km), which we did together last Sunday.

The real target for me next is to be able to get back on my bicycle and travel further and quicker, but with my hands still being a pain point (hey, it’s further for those Nanobots to travel I guess - give them time) that may have to wait until the next injection takes hold.

Cat health

If it wasn’t enough for one of the family to be ill, our cat Nero started up as well in the past few weeks.

Being a flat-faced cat he’s often experienced respiratory problems, and before we made the move to France he had been under treatment for some aggressive snuffling and spraying behaviour. Repeated treatments there didn’t seem to really make a difference, so when things kicked off again here I wasn’t confident that any real solution proposed would be effective.

However, a new vet brought a new perspective, so a programme of antibiotics (by tablet, not easy), inhaler (using one for a baby human!) and - I kid you not - aromatherapy was prescribed.

We’ve settled into more of a routine of administering all this now, and yesterday felt like a turning point for him as the snuffling/spraying has abated, and he is behaving more like himself. We still need to get his weight back up through more regular eating, but Rachel has been diving in to administer hand feeding.

Events

We’re getting near to the end of the annual events, at least until the BIG ones at Christmas.

Colmar Jazz Festival

Our attendance at the Jazz Festival was limited to one free event in a park area in the afternoon, the others being paid events in harder-to-reach locations and later at night than my condition allows currently. This included the very cool-sounding Sula Bassana with a fusion of electro and jazz. Maybe next year.

The event we did attend was great fun and had a decent audience in the end. The Blue Heaven Stompers pushed out some very nice, accessible New Orleans jazz, and we reclined in deckchairs taking it all in.

It was also good reading about the plans for the park itself, which wasn’t in a great state but could be very cool indeed if everything goes ahead.

La Fête du Vin Nouveau

I’d heard of Beaujolais Nouveau before, which looks to be an international event each year, but it turns out Eguisheim has its own local version too.

The Nouveau itself is a partially fermented grape juice that is naturally sweet, slightly fizzy, and low in alcohol. It was nice enough to try, but to be honest I wasn’t that bothered. Still, it’s more an excuse for the village to get together, listen to bad music and eat magnificent potato salad. And we did just that.

Our lovely friend Helene was on duty on one of the stands taking money, as the whole thing is organised and paid for by the local businesses here. She told us that it’s held to help raise funding for the security costs of the Christmas markets, which seems like a bit of a cop-out by Le Marie given the number of visitors this is said to draw in.

Oktoberfest

Sadly we had to give up our plans of getting to Germany to attend one of the many Ocktoberfest events nearby (or even in Munich) as travelling that far is still a little out of reach for me currently.

However, we were really delighted in finding a fantastic beer outlet in Bennwihr which sold beer by the crate, including our beloved Paulaner Oktoberfest beer.

So once again we shall mark the month by working our way through the crate we bought. But next year…..