Saturday June 10.

 It is now nearly midday, and I have just finished the usual routine for my morning. First, the struggle to get up from bed, find my way to the kitchen and have a coffee--sometimes I make myself from instant, sometimes Joan is there to give me the coffee she has brewed. Then begins the difficult struggle to pay my usual visit to the bathroom and the further struggle again to take a shower. I say 'struggle' as it is difficult and painful to get myself into and out of the bath-tub. I take it very carefully for fear of falling. After I emerge from the bathroom, I put together my standard breakfast--bran flakes, a chopped-up apple, a few blueberries, and, of course, milk. A slice of bread, butter, and Marmite. Pistachios. Then at the table, I bring up Spelling Bee on my I-Pad, and from then on eating is combined with guessing words. And, when I give up, as I usually do, it's into Wordle, which I got on the second line today--triumph.

Clear away and wash the few breakfast dishes, and then sit down to write this, with the time at 11.55am. So I have nearly dealt with the morning.

Just a word about how I get around. We have come to call it 'the gorilla walk.' I bend over from the waist, which bends my legs at the knee, and I let my arms dangle down to about knee level.

I will now adopt the 'gorilla walk' position and see how many steps I can take around the apartment.

Seventy four--but over the last ten steps my left leg became increasingly painful, and it is still very painful now I have sat down. So the 'gorilla walk' does not seem to give me any possibility of going out into the outside world.

Now to the newspaper--The Guardian on Saturday, a big thick bundle of reading, and as usual a focus in part on the LBGT community.