Toyah, wedding anniversary and pickle juice

As part of my blog you'll perhaps remember I said plenty of my writing would be about my experience living with Parkinson's. Well, this is not the first experience I've written about but it's the first 'live' experience I've written about i.e. I'm writing as it is happening.

Yesterday, Lynne & I went to see Toyah Wilcox at the Waterside, Sale, Manchester. The venue is really nice, a smart theatre type place, all seated which is just as well given the average age of the audience being somewhat advanced.

After a meal at the Slug and Lettuce (barely satisfactory), we went to an adjacent pub (equally lacking) and were relieved when we could get into the venue and relax a bit. It was our 39th wedding anniversary. Yes, thirty nine! Hard to believe.

Now, whenever I go out these days (especially theatres), I worry about the size of the seating, especially the leg-room, due to the restless leg syndrome I've written about previously, and in this case it really was restricted. It was also a full house / sold out show, so there was no option but to take my seat and see what occurred. I did quite well until around 10 minutes before the interval and that familiar pain started up in the front of my thighs, accompanied by the irresistible urge to stretch out which of course in the circumstances I was not able to do. Any possible exit was blocked by 4 rows in-front of me and 7 good people to my left so I hung on until the interval and we went to the bar.

During the interval I approached one of the theatre staff at the box office, explained my situation and asked if I could be allowed to watch the second half of the show in the corridor (stage right from our viewpoint). To my surprise the lady I spoke to agreed, provided me with a separate chair which I could use or stand if I preferred, provided I didn't block a fire escape. So, first of all every possible due credit to the venue staff. 10/10. I was very relieved that I was able to watch the rest of the show from my shadowy corner just in-front of the stage, whilst Lynne returned to her regular seat on row 5.

The show by Toyah was really entertaining, a mix of live music, including her first big hit 'It's A Mystery', with a couple of guitarists (not her husband Robert Fripp, the inventor of prog who she said would be home in bed!), but also a storytellers' style of Q and A. At the interval we, the audience, were encouraged to write our questions down on a card and place them in a box side-stage. Unknown to me Lynne had posted her 'question' in the box, she returned to her regular seat and I to my chair in-front of the stage. The second half began and along the way in the Q and A, I heard Toyah announce something like this...

Toyah "Lynne would like to wish happy anniversary to her husband Mark. 39 years! Where's Lynne?"

Lynne puts her hand in the air from the fifth row and waves at Toyah, calling out "Here!"

Toyah "Congratulations. And are you here with your husband tonight and where is he?"

Lynne points at me in my shadowy corner in-front of the stage the whole audience turns to look at me as Toyah says "What have you done Mark?" Big laughs from Toyah and all the audience as I wave my hands in the air and say "I don't know!"

We'll definitely remember and laugh about that for years to come.

Turning back to restless legs, around 30 minutes ago it started again here at home. That horrible dull ache in my thighs and that desperate need to stretch. So I tried again the pickle juice solution I wrote about in my blog 'Restless Legs' on 26th March. I have just eaten 2 large gherkins and taken 2 swigs of the juice they were pickled in and you know what? - to my surprise the symptom has started to ease. Not disappeared, but certainly eased... I really don't know if it truly works or not... it's a mystery!