What did you do in rehab today?

This morning I found myself sitting in the bar of a rather run-down 5-a-side football club beside a dual carriageway, watching in dismay as a handful of old men dribbled in and sat down. One of the men seemed younger than the others, but the taut, slightly startled expression was a bit of a giveaway. I think he may have succumbed to the pastic surgeon's knife. Certainly he looked and sounded like a man who spent a lot of time moisturising.I was the only woman there. Apart from face-lift man, I was younger than all the others in the group by at least 15 years, 25 years in some cases.

It was obvious that nobody there (except face-lift man) understood what was meant by, 'wear something you can exercise in.' They were all wearing old-man trousers pulled up to their armpits and buttoned-up shirts, socks and highly polished leather lace-up shoes. I was in a loose T-shirt, cropped trousers and trainers.

Imagine, if you can, three women aged between 19 and 45, all on the chunky side, extolling the virtues of exercise in voices that are normally used in a play-group. A powerpoint slide show presentation was given and, in case any of us couldn't read, it was read out to us. Very slowly. I spent the time looking at the spelling, punctuation and layout mistakes and trying to remind myself that two of these women were nurses, not secretaries, and the 19-year-old was ... well, she was probably good at PE at school and ended up being 'an exercise professional'. Whatever that is.

The more I thought about being there, the more depressed I became. When we'd listened to the presentation and been asked questions about it ('So, can any of you tell me what the benefits are of exercise?' 'Yes,' laughed one old geezer. 'It gets me away from the wife.') we then went into our exercise programme. Walking on the spot. Swinging our arms. Walking around the room. Bending our knees.

'Come along, get those knees up!' one of the jolly nurses said. 'Try a little jogging on the spot!'

With size H boobs? In front of 7 elderly men with heart disease? I did them all a favour and refused. I didn't want the shock to kill them.

By the time we broke for a drink of water I was so angry at being there I was close to tears. Oldest nurse asked me how I was. Well, I'm nothing if not honest.

'I really resent being here, having to be here. Everyone else is retired and treating this like an outing. I have to go to work after this. I feel better and fitter than I have done for at least two years but I've been told I can't go back to the gym before I've completed this ... this ... programme and all I want to do is get back to a normal life, not waste my time here.'

To her credit, she didn't try and jolly me along (or I think I'd have walked out there and then) and did seem sympathetic. I guess she was surprised to see someone my age in a cardiac rehab group, and she did say that I could probably leave after week 6 instead of waiting until week 8.

I might have felt a little better if there had been some other women in the group, or at least someone my own age. As it was, I spent two hours surrounded by elderly men, most of whom didn't appear to have heard of deoderant. To add insult to injury, the showers were out of order.

It's going to be a very, very long five weeks.

They tried to make me go to rehab ...

I went for my 'Cardiac Rehab' session a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would just be a question of,

'How are you feeling?'
'Fine, thanks.'
'Good, on your way then, and try to cut down on the cholesterol.'

Turns out it was a lot more serious than that. Instead of carrying on as normal (after all, the statins I'm taking now combat the cholesterol, so where's the problem?) I've got to make some major life-style changes and complete an eight-week cardiac rehab programme - every Tuesday morning from 8 July onwards I have to attend a gym where I will exercise under the close scrutiny of cardiac nurses to check I'm actually as well as I now feel. I'm too young to have heart disease but as every member of my Dad's side of the family has/had it, I guess I wasn't ever going to escape. I resent the lifestyle changes I am going to have to make, but hey, it's better than the alternative of dying young, isn't it? Isn't it?

Although the good old NHS has had almost 2 weeks to send me details of this enforced activity (whilst forbidding me to go back to my regular gym - which I have to carry on paying for) I have had no letter from them. I 'phoned them last week at 4pm only to be told that there was no-one there. The person who answered the 'phone did take my number and promise that the cardiac nurse would call me back the next day. She didn't.

So, I still don't know where I'm supposed to go, what time I'm supposed to turn up, whether I should wear loose clothing for the exercise, if there are showers there and if should I bring my own towel? My boss has said not to worry, that we'd work around it, but to be honest, if I were the employer, I'd expect to see some kind of official document about the fact I'm going to have to take off every Tuesday morning until the end of August.

When I had the angiogram earlier this year I was told that I could go back to the gym 10 days later. At that time I still had a severely blocked artery and angina pains. Now that I've had the op I am fitter than I have been in at least 2 years, so why have I been told I can't go back to the gym? It makes no sense. If I haven't had my letter by Monday night, I'm not going to their bloody rehab.

So there.

Hut decoration ... the next stage

Having seen a hut neighbour make a bit of a pig's ear of her stencilling (fortunately on the inside, and not the outside) I was determined to do a better job of mine. Instead of holding the stencil in place and using the paint straight onto it - which I did a few years ago: the 'low-tack' tape to hold the stencil in place stuck like fury to the paintwork and I never managed to get it off - I drew the shape of the stencil with a pencil and then in-filled with a very fine paintbrush. I hope you'll agree that the results are pretty good!

The painting at the top of the hut (above the door) still has to be done, but I need someone taller than me on the ladder to be able to reach. I'm hoping my next-door hut neighbour will lend a hand this coming weekend, and then it will be finished!

It's just as well I had something to distract me from what was going on on the beach ... and just as well I've had my heart op, otherwise I may well have blown a blood vessel. Not one, not two, but eight kite-surfers descended on the beach and decided to set up their rigs in front of my hut. It made even contemplating swimming suicidal - they hurtle along the water at such speeds and with so little control of their boards that they'd never be able to avoid someone in the water, so I was unable to go for a swim all day. Photos below to give you an idea of the size of the rigs - which range from 6 - 12m2. The lines from kite to harness are up to 27m long, so you can imagine how much space they take up on the beach - in front of my hut. I did ask the 'ring leader' a couple of years ago why he couldn't just walk about 50 yards further along the beach, where there are no huts and no swimmers, so as not to be in the way, and I got a torrent of abuse back. Now I'm sure they do it on purpose. Anyway, a series of photos and a letter is going off to the local council suggesting they ban the use of kite-boards in front of the huts, and set up a designated area further along the beach, out of the way.

I'll let you know if I get anywhere with the council. I have a strong feeling that I won't even get a reply ...

The Naming of the Hut

Springtime is repair and repaint time. I've always referred to the hut simply as 'the hut' but as it now has a new roof covering and smart new front panels, I thought I might give it a name and what better than The Sand Bar? When the tide is out, you can wander for miles along the sand bar, and when I have visitors, they usually bring a bottle of wine (in fact, it is a requirement of all visitors to contribute something, and chilled white wine is always acceptable!) so it seemed very appropriate.

After trying to think of various ways of getting the font I wanted transferred onto the wood (thought of having a custom-made stencil, or using white carbon paper, or chalk) I finally went for freehand, and I think the results are pretty good. I hope that it looks as good once it's in situ: more photos to come when it's fixed to the hut!

Hut decoration

Last year I tried in vain to find someone to re-roof my hut - I contacted 3 people, one of whom even came down and measured up - but none of them came back to me with a quote or responded to my follow-up calls.


The roofing felt was almost all gone from one side of the roof and when I went down for the first time this year the inside of the hut was very wet and all the towels etc damp and musty. Someone had poked a card through the door offering repair services, so I called him the next day to explian what needed to be done. The following day he called back with a quote, and, on Monday, he did the work! I went down at the weekend and painted the sides (before he'd had a chance to put the new roofing and front on) and the above photo is how I found it when I went down last night - new roof, new front panels either side of the doors, and new fascia to the front. Fantastic! So, I set to work immediately, and this is how it looked by the time I left at 8.30pm :

As you can see I've painted the panels beside the doors in the same blue as the sides of the hut. The lighter stripe you can see (probably only on the left side) is going to be painted white. The panel above the door is going to be white and I can't quite decide if the diagonal pieces are going to be blue with the diamond shape where they meet (see next picture) in white, or vice versa. Decisions, decisions!



I've got a piece of driftwood that I'm going to sand down and paint (blue background, white lettering) with the number of the hut - 10 - and the name. The hut doesn't have an official name, but I've decided I'd quite like one. I shan't tell you what it is, though, until I've finished the project, then I'll post a picture.

Touch wood, weather permitting, I shall go down at the weekend and finish off the painting, sand down the doors and paint them white as well, and put new galvanised bolts on that won't rust and drip ginger stains all down the new paint work! And hopefully, in amongst all that activity, I shall find some time for a swim (if only to get the paint off me!) Oh, and I need to throughly clean out the inside, because when they ripped off the old manky roofing felt and put on the new, lots of horrible lumps of tar and felt of varying sizes fell through the gaps between the planks and covered everything.

I wouldn't have had the energy to do all this last year!

More pictures to come after the weekend!

For the squeamish, don't worry, this is an animation, not an actual person! It does show, however, the procedure I had done on 22 May.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvRtP3wl_AY

The operation was done under local anaesthetic and, they said, a bit of sedation, although I didn't feel at all sedated! They had warned me it may get a 'bit uncomfortable' which is stiff-upper-lip speak for 'really painful and scary'. I had what felt like an angina attack whilst the procedure was being done and felt very panicky, but after about 20 minutes in the recovery suite I was much better and was wheeled back up to the ward. I had to lie flat for 2 hours, then half-lying for another hour before I could finally sit up. People kept coming along and asking, 'May I check your groin?' Had I been feeling up to it, I'd have asked if they were actually hospital staff or just visiting someone, but for once in my life I didn't really feel like joking.

After a more or less sleepless night and a final check on my groin, I was allowed to leave around midday, so I came home and slept. From then on, though, I've been feeling a lot more energetic, less breathless and not so exhaused that I could do with a nap every four hours! So, all in all, it seems to have worked!

I'm now back at work (shame, I was enjoying the time off, the flowers, and the visitors!) feeling ten times better - or possibly more, it's difficult to tell - than before.

I was going to put in photographs of the 'before and after' X-rays, showing where the artery was narrowed, and what it looks like now the stent is in place, but the scanner automatically saves pictures in a format that Blogger doesn't accept, so you're spared the detail!

Differences I've noticed so far :

• I can walk for more than 50 yards without getting a pain in my chest;
• I can climb stairs without having to stop at 30 to get my breath back;
• I can wander around a stately home and gardens for 2 hours without needing to sit down every 20 minutes;
• I can spend a whole weekend awake now, without having to have a 3-4 hour afternoon nap;
• My heartburn/indigestion has improved significantly;
• My feet and ankles are a normal colour - a strange one this. They were quite blotchy, and while I was in hospital I noticed that my feet were almost purple (it wasn't with cold). They are now normal flesh colour;
• I can paint the beach-hut! I did this on Sunday, with lots of bending and stretching from the paint tray on the ground, up to the roof, with no ladder. I did the hut in about an hour and I know that last time I did it - about 3 years ago - I felt really breathless and tired and it took me longer because I had to keep stopping to rest.

All in all, I think I've been poorly for a lot longer than I realised, so I'm looking forward to having more energy and being able to do all the things doctors always recommend, like taking more exercise. We'll see after I've been back to the gym for a few sessions!

I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Dive's Revenge

Those of you who have been with me from the very beginning may recall 'Dive', the next-door neighbour of the Chelsea Flower Show standard front garden (see details of his encounter with Bella here http://lindamusing.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html). He has now exacted his revenge in a totally unexpected way. He has built an extension.

This may not seem an obvious act of revenge, indeed, digging up and paving over his pristine lawn makes my patch of garden look less like a wasteland. No, the revenge comes in two forms: he rebuilt the garden wall between our two properties and told me proudly he was going to 'finish it off neatly with a trench of pea shingle'. 'Whatever,' I thought. What wasn't clear - until I got home one evening - was that he meant my side of the wall! OK, that means the nettles that were neatly positioned by the driver's door were no longer a threat to my bare summer legs, but it also means I've lost lily of the valley, snowdrops, daffodils, day lilies and valerian. I was not a happy person that day, I can tell you. Fortunately his windows were closed and he didn't hear me cursing, 'Where are my fucking flowers?!?!?!?!?!' in my stage whisper ...

This trench of pea shingle is like one huge outdoor litter tray for the neighbourhood. I can almost hear him thinking as he planned the extension: 'That'll teach her to let her cat piss on my trousers. Every other cat can crap in her garden now.'

And the extension itself? Well, it's been built up to within a gnat's crotchet away from my garage wall and the additional rain water going into my guttering (which he damaged when he moved it) is bouncing off the 'litter tray' and splashing back up the garage wall, causing vast amounts of damp.

Thank goodness Bella only pee'd on him. What would he have done if she'd taken a more, um, solid approach?

Neighbours, eh. Can't live with 'em, not allowed to shoot 'em ...

Time wasting in the NHS ...

The NHS being the NHS, certain procedures have to be followed - even if this delays things ...

When I had my angiogram, I was told that the angioplasty would be 6 - 8 weeks later. I was also asked if I had a preference for which hospital to go to. I said at the time that I preferred the hospital in my home town. They told me that it was all part of 'Patient Choice', and that I would be receiving a letter. The letter arrived 3 weeks later, and I rang the number to say (again) that I preferred the hospital in my home town.

'We'll put you on the waiting list now that we know where you want your procedure done,' trilled the Patient Choice lady.

'So, I didn't immediately go on the waiting list 4 weeks ago when I first said that I wanted to be in Southampton General?' I asked.

'No, we had to send you a letter,' she said. 'It will be 6 - 8 weeks from now.'

And so it is. 22 May is the date for the angioplasty. My angiogram was 29 February, so actually the waiting time has been 12 weeks, all because they had to tick the box marked 'sent letter', even though they had had the information required in that letter on 29 February. I'm wondering why it took them three months to send me the letter in the first place ...

So my bank holiday weekend is buggered up - no beach-hut for me as I'm not allowed to drive for a week - but at least there is a reasonable chance of a week of good weather. I shall have to spend it in the garden instead ...

The revenge of the BCSFH

'Shirley' from EastEnders bears more than a passing resemblance to the BCSFH, in appearance as well as manner and attitude, except that BCSFH is harder.

I thought there must be something in the air because she smiled at me on Monday and I even came back to my desk and said, 'Something's up. She smiled at me!' And I was right. The following day she set me up for a prize fall. I guess I'm just too straightforward and honest and I don't see the devious, twisted, malicious plots she hatches until I'm up to my neck in sh*t.

After a horrible night of anxiety and anger dreams, and palpitations, I finally persuaded myself to come to work and face the inevitable music. My boss poured oil on troubled waters and had a word - again - with BCSFH's boss, and that will be that. For now.

Broke but warm(er)

I had a quote for a new boiler that was £1,300 cheaper than British Gas and, although the engineer didn't offer the 'easy' payment terms that BG did, I had some promotional credit card cheques through the post a couple of days before the work was done. The rate was 5.9% for the life of the balance, so that's a lot cheaper than the credit option with BG would have been. So, all in all, I'm broke (as usual) but shouldn't be broke for as long now as I would have been with British Gas, if that all makes sense!

Of course, nothing goes totally smoothly, does it? The previous owners of the house installed a cheapie central heating system with small bore pipes. That's why they'd cut the flow of water to the bedroom radiator - because if the upstairs rads are on, it's harder for the water to be pumped downstairs, so I can either have warm upstairs and tepid downstairs, or vice versa, or I can have medium everywhere. I'm still playing with the thermostat valves to see what works best, but in the meantime I'm grateful for the warmer spell that has hit!

I'm putting my faith in the future and I'm going to have the new suite as well. What the hell, if I'm going to die young of heart disease I want to enjoy myself and have nice things around me! To make room for the new suite (which is a lot bigger than the old one) I'm having to have a major clear-out, and I hate throwing things away. I did take my tropical fish and my solitary goldfish back to the pet shop, and they took them in (a bit like an orphanage for pets!) so the two tanks are now in the garage, awaiting thorough cleaning before being put on Ebay. That's given a lot more space so I'm slowly getting there!

Once the lounge is totally presentable and the new suite has arrived, I'll post a picture!

Freezing cold and chat rooms

I've had no central heating for 3 weeks now. I've managed to borrow an electric heater for the lounge, but I'm not able to carry it upstairs, so if I need to do anything on the computer I have to type quickly before my fingers freeze. Even now, I can't feel my face!

I thought I'd forget my ice extremities and go and have a chat in a chat room somewhere, but what's happened? I used to be able to go into AOL and chat with other 40-somethings, or visit the 'Pub' for a game of trivia, but there seem to be no chat rooms at all, only message boards! Nothing to take my mind off my popsicle toes ... Forgive the ManTran reference :)

So I'm off to bed, so cold that it will take me until morning to thaw ... I may have to put my bobble hat on ...

Happy Easter! Hope you are warmer than I am!

The price of warmth ...

... is very high! I spent a couple of hours with British Gas Man yesterday, going through the various pros and cons of combi boilers vs traditional heating systems, and the good news is that they can come next week and sort out my freezing home. The bad news is that it's going to cost over £3,000. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have £3,000 lying around so I'm going to have to take out the payment plan. Can't really afford that either, but something will turn up - it will have to! Shame I've just paid the deposit on a new suite ...

I am going to get another quote, but the people who are quoting won't be able to offer me 'easy' payment terms, so I guess British Gas is going to get the job, despite the high price.

So this isn't a very jolly post, but as you can imagine, I'm not feeling very jolly at the moment, and I have the prospect of a few more years of being broke to look forward to as well!

Ho hum, maybe I'd better do the lottery on Saturday ...

Life in the freezer

When I got back home after my post-hospital stay at my brother's last week (not allowed to be alone for the first night after the angio in case I bled to death!) I went straight to bed again. I got up around 5pm to a rapidly cooling house, and a strange vibration coming from the airing cupboard. Yes, you've guessed, just as a cold spell hits, my boiler packs up! A friend came to have a look at it on Monday and identified the problem - gas valve - but as the seal's gone on the boiler, and there is a water leak that has mercifully plugged itself with limescale (hurrah for being in a hard water area!) it looks like a new boiler is going to be the most sensible solution. He's giving me a few days to think about it (and him a chance to find a 2nd hand gas valve) but I've been so cold in the evenings I'm going to have to say to hell with the cost, and go for a new boiler. I know, I know, it's March, and we've only got another 6 weeks of central heating, but I just can't cope with having to cocoon myself in a duvet while I watch television in the evening. So, it's belt-tightening time, folks, no treats, no extras, no nothing! Just hours and hours of taking photographs of my stuff to sell on Ebay ...

... where did I put those 800 wooden rosebuds?

Hard-hearted?

Hard hearted, me? Well, technically speaking, there are parts of my heart that are hard. Take my arteries, for instance. On Friday I was lying on a trolley in a hospital with a tube going up my femoral artery to my heart: it was then pumped full of dye to show where my arteries are causing a problem (the problem being angina) and how bad it is.

I've had plenty of time to get used to the idea of having heart disease. My father had his first heart attack when he was in his thirties. His brother and sister have had heart attacks. His father died of a heart attack, so did his uncle, and so did his grandfather. It was safe to assume that I would one day develop the heart disease that every member of his family has had, but somehow I didn't think it would be just yet. After all, women are supposed to be protected by their hormones from heart disease, at least until the menopause, and I'm a long way off that. I guess that's why I tried not to think about the pains in my chest last summer. I thought it was because I was unfit, so I joined a gym. Didn't get any pain while I was there, but when I stopped going because I had a bad cough the pains started up again, and were worse than before. I finally went to the doctor just after Christmas and after a load of tests, got the 'good news'. Ah well, it's not the end of the world. My aunt and uncle are still alive and kicking (although the uncle looks as if it's the bucket he's going to be kicking pretty soon) and they're well over 20 years older than me. I've found out earlier than they did, so am taking preventive steps (and pills. Lots and lots of pills. And more exercise ...) so I'll probably outlive them all. Having said that, it was still a shock and I've felt pretty depressed ever since.

Friday's angiogram showed narrowing of one of the 3 major arteries, so I'm going to have to go back for another procedure and have angioplasty, and have a stent fitted. That involves another tube, this time containing a balloon and a mesh (the stent), being guided up to my heart. Once it's in place, the balloon will be inflated. This will expand the mesh, which will hold open the artery. The balloon is then deflated and removed.

I'm trying very hard to adopt a 'Whatever' attitude, rather than a 'What the fuck?' attitude - I need to save my emotional energy for fights that are worth it, instead of getting worked up about people who leave dirty spoons in the sink at work, instead of putting them in the dishwasher (or washing them!) and the fact that I am expected to help out other departments, when no other bugger in any other department will lend me a hand. It's simpler to just do it and shut up than to argue, but it's a lesson I'm finding very hard to learn.

Of course, timing is not good. The angioplasty is due in about 4 weeks - the same time as I'm supposed to be going to London for the weekend, and the same time that my new suite is due to arrive. Ah well, no point in getting worked up about it.

He moves in mysterious ways ....

I know I shouldn't laugh at someone else's misfortune, but ...

Those of you who are familiar with the BCSFH, really the only fly in the ointment here where I work, may smile with me when I tell you that she's accompanying the management team to their conference to a sunny island off the coast of the US ... and the airline chose her luggage to lose ...

Sorry, I can't say any more, I'm laughing too much!

What are you giving up for Lent?

Every year I give up something for Lent, with varying degrees of success. This year (as for the last few) I am giving up alcohol, crisps and I was going to give up chocolate, but there were some Mingles left over from Christmas that needed to be finished up, so .... just alcohol and crisps.

Oh, and left-overs from company lunches. We have really good caterers who deliver sandwiches, crisps, fruit and muffins for business lunches. They are very generous and there are invariably a few sandwiches left over. I can't bear waste, so I generally eat them or take them home to have later. It's going to be very, very hard to ignore the lovely tortilla wraps and fresh bread sandwiches with their yummy fillings, but I must stay strong! It's only for 40 days, after all ...

What are you giving up for Lent?

Recce to Gran Canaria

Sunrise outside my hotel window in Gran Canaria

After Marseille was my ‘recce’ to Gran Canaria. It was tough, having to stay in a 5-star hotel and visit several others and go out dolphin-watching and trying out nice restaurants … I’d never been to the Canary Islands before and I didn’t really know what to expect, and I would like to have more time there to look around. It was quite lonely, really, and I did stick out like a sore thumb in the hotel dining room – the only woman on her own. It was funny how the waiters gave me a wide berth, obviously thinking I must be waiting for someone and therefore not ready to order! A friend of mine, in her early fifties, said that when you get to a certain age you become invisible. I don’t like that idea at all!

The conference itself commences 17 December. I still have so much to do! The hardest part is getting restaurants for the group in the evening: when I was out there for my 'inspection' tour I ate in the hotel restaurants every lunchtime except one day, and that restaurant is too far away to choose as an evening venue, so I'm booking based on internet reviews and just hoping that I can get through to them - so far no joy with emails and faxes, so I'm just going to have to pick up the 'phone and say 'hola' and hope to find someone on the other end who speaks English! I've booked myself a Reiki massage at the hotel the day after the conference, because I think I shall be in serious need of stress relief by the time it's over!

Catch-up on Marseille

Oh, so much has happened since I last blogged! So this is just a short catch-up on my trip to Marseille in early October.

Of course, when I booked the flight, I didn't know that the rugby was on that weekend, which was why it was so hard to get a room. The hotel we did find, however, was great. Small, clean, simple, cheap(ish) and about 50 yards from the port - we couldn't have been better placed. It was hot and sunny, so there was a lot of sitting down at pavement cafés to drink something refreshing (panaché, white wine or kir did the trick - frequently!) as well as a little bit of sight-seeing. We went across the the Chateau d'If, the French equivalent to Alcatraz, and then to another small island for a leisurely lunch (and a drink!) before heading back to the mainland.

It seems a long time ago now, but it was great, and I would definitely go back again. With the schedule of flights, it is possible to go there for lunch and back in the same day!

Hello!

For some reason, I keep getting German prompts saying 'You have successfully published your post.' Trouble is that I didn't post anything except the first letter of something terribly witty before the internet took over and posted 'stuff' in my name.

Never mind. I'm off on holiday! I'm going to Marseille and NO, I had NO idea about the rugby when I book my flight. I wondered why it was so hard to get an hotel. Anyway, I'll post when I get back!

End of an era

I lived and worked in Paris for 6 years in the 80s. It was a time of high unemployment in the UK, and although I was ready to come back to England, I wanted to have a job to come to. In January of 1987 I had an interview with Thierry Cabanne, who ran a small winebrokers in Winchester, and by the time I had returned to my office in Paris, he had already rung my boss there to get a reference. This was a little embarrassing, as I hadn't told my boss I was thinking of leaving! I had 3 months' notice to give on my flat, so during April my brother and future sister-in-law came over in a van to take my stuff back to England. For the last couple of weeks I slept on a roll-up mattress on the floor, then packed up my final belongings and returned to Southampton at the end of the month, and started work with Thierry's and Tatham on Tuesday 4 May, after the bank holiday Monday.

The early years were great fun, and although the last few months there were traumatic because of people I won't name and for reasons I won't go into here, on the whole I loved my time at Thierry's. I met some great people, some of whom I am still in touch with 20 years later, and my five years there paved the way to further work in the wine trade, where I made more good friends.

Last night I learned that Thierry Cabanne had been killed in a car accident last week, and it's made me very sad. Although it's been 15 years since I left, the company was always there, Thierry was there, and that meant, to me at least, that a part of my history was still alive. I never knew the current crop of directors there: now Thierry has gone, so have all my links with the company, and with that era of my life.

RIP Thierry. I really enjoyed working with you when you were starting out and there were 9 of us in a renovated pub in Winchester. Happy days! The wine world will miss you, and so will I.