i suppose I am grateful to have this view when I look towards the north. This is probably all about thanksgiving, but I have never had to celebrate a thanksgiving. Great Britain was not a colony, we were invaded by everything from the Romans through the Normans and even a little bit of Viking. We are still being invaded from people from our various colonies. Perhaps they are grateful to be there. I left the country to invade another.

I can say that where I am today is because I took it all in my own hands. I wanted something more than just living in London and so I looked for it and found it in another country. To be quite honest, the country is not the important thing, just somewhere else. My country became Switzerland because I had the opportunity to work there. I left my family and travelled and I stayed. Mum gave me a couple of months at the most, and the couple of months became 50 years with a Swiss husband and Swiss kids and even Swiss citizenship.

Am I grateful? No, because no-one gave it to me, I had to work on it, to build up a new life and the Swiss nation did not actually say “welcome, make yourself at home, we will look after you”. I worked and learned the language and the way of life, because I wanted to. Forget the turkeys here. You can buy them in the supermarket and they are not cheap: born to be killed and eaten. I do not think the turkeys are very grateful for that one.

It was not all smooth running, but life isn’t smooth running. At the age of 20 you have your life in front of you, and today, 50 years later, the life has arrived. Old age plays its tricks, but you have to come to terms with them. My fate was MS, but not the end. I adapt. When  I got my wheelchair the doc was surprised that I did such a thing. They like you to do it step by step and not so drastic perhaps. Today I say it was the best thing I ever did. I had some money saved and I used it for my new “toy”. I can walk (hobble) and move around at home, but distances have become difficult. With my wheelchair I can go places and see things. I think here I am grateful to other people that meet me with consideration. I am often asked if they can help. I am not grateful to our local road builders who constructed a new road in our village and made the steps so high that I get vibrations through my body when I cross the road.

I am not ungrateful, but to be quite frank, I do not have the time to be grateful. I am always planning the next move.

RDP Thursday: Grateful