Day fifty seven

My nose has stopped running. I am trying to think what exercise I should take up to replace that!

A bad joke to start the day. I am not in much pain today at the moment. There is always hope, but there is expectation as well. I expect it to to get worse as the day goes on. Yesterday evening I endured an ongoing bad headache with sore eyes to add to my other pains. My feet are still OK.

My general feelings are OK at the moment. I am feeling fairly positive, until I think about going back to work. Then I start to wonder if I can do it. My appointment here lasts for another 19 months. After that I will be 18 months away from being able to claim my State Pension. I never intended to retire. I would have liked to have completed 40 years (that would be 2030) , Or, to follow Douglas Adams, 42 (when I would be 70 in 2032). At the moment that doesn't look possible.

I've always found it amusing that the Methodist Church continues counting the years after a minister has retired, so that someone who did 10 years in ministry can have it recorded in their obituary that they died in the 26th year of their ministry because they died 16 years after they retired. I prefer honesty. I will stop counting when I stop being a full-time working minister.

I had to present a 50 year certificate to a local Preacher, in one of my circuits, who hadn't preached for the previous 2 years, but because it was 50 years since he had become a preacher he got the certificate. That didn't seem fair on those who actually did the time.

These are the things I think about as I sit here with time on my hands.

I was going to talk about depression, but I'll save that for another day. I have a story to tell about that, but as I'm feeling positive today I'll leave it for now.

I will say that at my first meeting with Occupational Health I mentioned that I first became depressed when I was 19 and he recorded that I have been depressed since I was 19 - do you see what I mean? The date was 1981, so from then until 2025 is 44 years of depression!

Sometimes honesty rather than numbers is better.