engineers and Mrs Gaskell

Hallo! Here I am again!
I've just come down for coffee (10 a.m.) having spent the first hour of the day in my study sorting out the bridge club accounts. I am treasurer. Eerything taks me so much longer now and at times I feel like giving it up, but so what if it does take longer?
Yesterday was interesting. My lovely husband(mlh) has got a VERY IMPORTANT JOB and this involves among other things the collection of many expensive and usually large and often unwieldy pieces of equipment. He has a study where he should unpack and keep his equipment. However, since my last relapse (caused by the flu jab and temporary I hope) he has decided to do his work in the sitting room to keep me company (temporary I hope). He sits there surrounded by discarded sturdy brown wrapping paper, attache cases with foam in for sending off instruments, books, old post and assorted stationery. (statinnary car – as we were taught at school as a means of remembering which stationery is the clutter).
Me So how are you?
Him No reply
Me Are you OK?
Him No repy
Me What are you doing?
Him sorry I'm just reading the instruction manual
The latest is that he cannot see well enough to do his work, and read his instruction manuals. This is because of the conservatory adjoining.. I thinkhe is angling to set up shop in the conservatory as I have banned him from cluttering that up as well
Now, he is on the phone making enquiries about tasteful fluorescent lights! Hasn't he heard of subdued lighting? Fluorescent lighting Over my dead body (which those of you who have been reading this blog may think could be a possibility given the number of 'accidents' that occur'
He said 'I think you are writing about me in your blog aren't you Later having read it he said 'I'm going to have to watch what I say and do aren't I? I'll have to be nice to you. Reading between the lines he means he'll have to stop tipping me out of the wheelchair and leaving me out in the rain now it is it in the public domain.
I have been listening to Mrs Gaskell's North and South. I treated myself to the DVD of the TV series which I watched a few years ago. I missed so much then. The way the programme makers jump sbout and don't explain things is quite alarmng and I only know what is going on because I am listening to the book. Mrs Gaskell's stories and method of expression are as good as Jane Austen and Thomas Hardyand I wonder why they are not as widely read and studied. They tell so much about our agricltural background and the influence of the industrial reolution. North and South ! is a love story (a genre I like) However there is much more to it than that)) The two main characters represent the industrial working class north and the rural middle class south. The protagonists have irreconcilable differences to start with but as every good romantic fiction writer knows conflict and its resolution is a requisite part of the plot development. I seem to remember this resolution takes place on a station platform with the hero and heroine going in opposite dirctions and meeting by chance at night and the whole thing was so romantic and well done that Richard Armitage (the hero) achieved a following as great as Colin Firth pin the persona of Mr Darcy (in the wet shirt.
My dad wrote history books for secondary modern schoolchildren ( He was a teacher and we still et royalties from photocopying 30 years after his deathSadly I did not ead the books when he was alive but I often dip into them now for facts. Facts were important then in the teaching of history. From trying to help my daughter with her istory homework I realize that now opinions are all that matter which is hard to formulate wgen you don't know what happened
Having compared Elizabeth Gaskel lto Jane Austen reminds me that I bhave borrowed the wet shirt Pride and Prejudice from a friend and intend to read that again and watch it next. I love reading good books again but mlh can't understand why. Once is enough for him but he is a scientist and needs the time to unpack his big instruments.
I have to tell you as this is an MS blog and so that you will know why mlh is mlh.He has to take me to the toilet immediately every time I signal on my intercom on my sliding wheelchair that fits over the toilet. When my relapse first happened we were trying to take the ordinary wheelchair into the loob but there was no enough room cand I was trying to transfer to the toilet when I could not move my right leg. (falling over and banging my head ///fortunately one of the bricklayers who was building the conseratory helped mlh to put me on my feet, which was more than twice as easy as mlh doing it by himself (and obviating the opportunity for more surreptitious harming Anyway the occupational therapist provided us with this great piece of equipment which makes the whole experience fairly slick with the help of mlh (see I told you he wasn all bad – I've put that in in case he reads the blog again.)