We have had a lot of fun doing many small things recently. The pictures below (from bottom to top) are of a nice visit we had with Ger (Rob’s Dad) in Eindhoven in May when they went to a Philip Glass concert. As you can see, Jansen also came along and we all had a lot of fun going out together.

We are convinced that Ger has more energy than we do, and we really had to keep up with him going to dinner, an Irish pub, a terrace cafe, and even a drop-in to dance to some pretty heavy live rock. That was funny, because we neglected to pay the cover charge — funny how bouncers are reluctant to go after a guy in a wheelchair with his Dad when most of the patrons were university students.

Everything is blooming like crazy here now, and it was great to share with Rob “smelling the roses” again. There is a funny story behind those roses. Last year when he was in a coma I was trying almost anything I could think of to help bring him out of it. I had heard that the sense of smell is is the most direct route between the outside world and our brains and is also tied most closely to human memory.

On our road there are wild roses, and I would stop to pluck some when I visited Rob. At that time, he was on a ventilator (tubes in mouth, nose). I asked the nurse if it was okay if I had him try to smell the roses, which he said was okay, even though flowers are not allowed in intensive care, but he let me know he would probably not be able to smell them because of all of the tubes.

So what do I do, you ask? I put the roses under his nose and was amazed when within seconds he responded. It took me a few seconds before I realised that what I had done was block off his air supply by the rose petals and he was not responding, but gasping for air! I still have to laugh about the newspaper article, that luckily did not happen, entitled “Wife kills husband with rose petals!”.

Nevertheless, it did prove to the medical folks that he could take on some air on his own, and it was not long after that he was really responding. Actually, I still think it did much more good than my other efforts of singing (those who know my singing can understand that), telling stories, and the occasional other unmentionable things that I tried.

Then there is Rob helping to cook one of his first meals. He is using the super-duper cutting board that Anne gave to him (many thanks!). And after that is us painting some of our garden furniture. As you can see, Rob is getting much more active, and we are both enjoying doing some of the simple things together.