KOBLENZ-FINAL PHOTOGRAPHS

I had not realised I had taken so many pictures of Koblenz.  There are many that I have not published.  Note the rainbow flag.  I was really surprised to see it.

   

BUG

It turns out that I have a bug after all! I was up several times last night and I had the shivers as well. I feel very washed out that I am feeling better this morning. I did not get away with my fall after all! My hip started playing its tune last evening and got very loud during the night so that I had to keep moving. I feel relieved to realise that I have actually had a bug because the diarrhoea was really beginning to worry me. 

It started Monday morning after a night of cramps and I have been having to go to the loo at least a dozen times each day with very little warning.  Yet I felt well.  Of course I do not mean well I mean that I didn’t feel any different to usual.  However last night it became obvious to me that I actually was sick because of the shivering.  I only had to go to the loo once during the night and I am feeling much better now as regards my intestines.

I have a rather vivid imagination and I was imagining all sorts of things usually involving imminent death.  I even wondered if this was drug withdrawal! Despite the fact that I have not stopped taking them! My logic being that some days I take more than others and I was wondering if my body had got used to a certain amount and was now suffering withdrawal! I tell you I can be my own worst enemy and I cause myself anxieties for no reason! Occasionally, my living waiting for the other foot to fall as I did most of my life, comes back at times of vulnerability.

Still it means I have had plenty of time to just sit and read and watch DVD! I am watching the the sixth and final series of Nip / Tuck.  This is an excellent satire and it makes them very serious observations depending on how one watches I suppose.It is full of truly dysfunctional people

I have also been reading The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest during the day.  I am going to miss Lisbeth and Mikael when I have finished this.  Millennium I, II  and III are really just one long story I guess split into three books to make them saleable.  I find these books really remarkable and certainly have never read anything like it before and never will again. The other author who has grabbed me in a very similar way is Minette Walters.

I think I have enough food in the freezer so that I don’t have to go out until John gets home on Friday night.

MORE KOBLENZ

What really impressed us with the graffiti on the walls in the underpass was that no one had defaced it!

KOBLENZ PART TWO

 This is a photograph of our hotel taken from the riverboat cruise that we went on. The other pictures are views from the same riverboat trip.   

GIVING OFFENCE

It is quite a frequent occurrence for fundamentalist Christians who either read my blog, read my e-mails on a number of knitting this that I belong to, or read me on Facebook, get indignant with me and go off in an offended hump.

I communicate with anybody.  As long as they remain civil with me and respectful I will continue to do so. 

However, let me tell you something: I am deeply, deeply hurt and offended by these people. Their arrogance and their self-centredness appals me.  They simply have no idea how hurtful and offensive they are and I should think they do not care because they firmly believe they have right on their side.

I have to say that as these people would prefer that I do not exist, I don’t quite understand why they want anything to do with me.  I imagine the way I feel, the amount of trust I have these people, would not be this similar to the way a true would feel toward their ‘friends’ who held to the Nazi ideology.

My knowledge and experience of Christianity, especially the fundamentalist kind, tells me in no uncertain terms that the followers of such ideology want me and others like me to not exist.  In my case on two counts: I do not believe in their ideology and I am homosexual.  In their eyes are both these things guarantee that I am an evil person destined for Hell.

I know that some of these people would protest that they love me and do not want to see me dead but they are lying even if they are also lying to themselves.  They do not love me because they hate homosexuals.  They will say that they do not, that what they hate is homosexual behaviour.  In their ignorance they believe that one’s sexuality is purely about sex.  It is not.  If I were not homosexual, I would not be Colin.  The Colin that you and I know would not exist.  In just the same way, my heterosexual fellows cannot help but behave heterosexually! Likewise, if they were not heterosexual they would not be who they are and therefore they would not exist because they would be somebody else.

So if you hate my sexuality, then you hate me, and you prefer that I do not exist.  How on earth can you expect me to be okay with that?

Imagine, though I doubt that you can, being brought up in a society that condemns you for your feelings of love and attraction.  Imagine growing up being told that you are sick and evil just for being who you are.  I think perhaps the closest any heterosexual people can get to this feeling is those who have fallen in love with unacceptable people.  By this I mean imagine a Jew falling in love with a Muslim. A white person from a racist family falling in love with a black person, or a black person from a racist family falling in love with a nonblack person.  The people who are involved in this way KNOW that their feelings are not wrong but that does not mean that they will not suffer the pain of rejection and condemnation of those around them who disapprove.

It is very difficult to live in a world that you are not welcome in.  I know that I have a small number of true friends who truly accept me as I am.  However there are 6 billion people on this planet and the majority of them don’t want me and others like me to exist.

I wonder if anyone understands how it feels to be taught about the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust and not also be taught that homosexuals suffered the same fate. When one digs deeper one discovers that not only was this the case but homosexual survivors were not compensated as other survivors were because we deserved it.

Really, the offence taken by some because of my attitude towards their ideology is nothing in comparison to the offence pain and suffering they cause on a daily basis to millions of people. I really could not care less.  It is their ego that causes them to feel aggrieved.  It is their choice to believe in evil.  It is their choice to be self-righteous.  It is their choice to spread hate.

When I hear the Religious Right (interestingly here fundamentalists tend toward the left politically) speaking their hatred in the name of love I am reminded of the words of the man they profess to follow;

FORGIVE THEM FATHER, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.

In the world today, with the rise of religious fundamentalism, I feel increasingly fearful and wonder if I will reach old age.  I fear another Holocaust.

KOBLENZ AUGUST 2010

 

The grapes were our bedstead!

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN FROM OUR 9TH FLOOR HOTEL ROOM.

TRULY A STAR

It was such a pleasure this morning to find that I have started to receive my favourite type of comment again.  Those pathetic wicked minded bits of prose that confirm for my fragile ego that I have fans! I need so much to have confirmation of how important I am and it is good to know that I’m important enough to have twisted stalkers.  That puts me right up there with the stars.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I truly love you all.  Thank you thank you thank you.

You never know, from my lofty position, I may one day make YOUR day, and actually publish one of these delightful drops of acid.  Stay tuned.

STRANGE FOLK

Whilst I was away three people decided to choose then to upset me!  It is bad enough that they would choose to do this let alone whilst they knew I was on holiday.

One of them wrote on my Facebook wall how I should stop thinking that everyone is out to get me! Writing such nonsense on my wall is inappropriate enough but to do so when she clearly does not know me was just offensive.  Anyone who reads my blog and my e-mails know that I’m a positive optimistic person.  Quite what possessed her to write this I do not know.  I deleted it and I also de-friended her. For my trouble I then got an indignant e-mail from her! No, of course she did not look at what she’d written and thought she may have been wrong!

And then another Facebook person who got rather offensive.  Quite what a person with such bigoted religious views is doing following me I have no idea since it is clear where I stand.  One of the things that she berated me for was the use of Xtian instead of Christian. X is a symbol for Christ and has been for a very long time! The rest of her diatribe was equally based on her ignorance. She seemed completely unaware that we in Britain have been subject to terrorist attacks for 40 odd years, both from Muslims and the IRA.  She also seemed unaware that the IRA were supported financially by fundraising in the USA! This paid for the weapons they then used against us!

Finally, another person insisted on sending me anti-Muslim rhetoric which I had asked several times that she stopped doing.  She had no respect for me as was clearly shown by the fact that she continued to send me such posts.  I took her off my Facebook list, explaining why.  I had hoped that that was the end of it but then she started to harass me via my private e-mail.  I then remembered that I could block e-mail from people that I do not want to receive e-mail from.

This last person is the one that I feel regret about.  Do not misunderstand me I did the right thing in blocking her.  I just regret that she became irrational and that I had to block her.  I know that her health is not good at all.  We spoke quite a lot about her health and I tried to help her as best as I could regarding drugs.  She was prescribed drugs that I take and she was frightened to take them and I tried to reassure her.  I am sad that it had to end the way that it did.

I still am most surprised that all three of these people chose to attack me whilst I was on holiday.  I do not like to think so but this seems to me that it may well have been calculated.

One thing that irks me! I am generally a positive and optimistic person.  On the odd occasion when I have had enough of my physical pain and fatigue, and I choose to bitch about it in print, it almost always results in me being told off and having someone tell me I should not be so negative!!! WTF is it with some people? I am quite certain that if these people experienced 24/7 pain and fatigue we would not hear the end of it! Grrr!

I believe that I’m an easy-going person and I tolerate quite a lot.  However, I will not be disrespected and I will not be abused.  I have not come out of the dark hole I was in with the same willingness to accept abuse and disrespect! HTF do you think I got out of that hole?

I was asleep by 11 PM last night and I did not get up until eight today. I slept really well and painlessly. I cannot recall the last time I slept like that.  To day I have been knitting John’s cashmere/silk sweater.  I think I am going to have a period of machine knitting.  I have not been into it for quite some time and I realise I need the change from handknitting in order to get my Mojo going again.

HOME AGAIN

I had not realised that I did not blog during the final week away.  I think this is possibly the longest time I have been without blogging.

We arrived back on Saturday afternoon to a rapturous welcome from the dogs.  It was so lovely to see them again and to be home.

I very much enjoyed our trip even though I discovered that my disease has progressed to the point that trips like this are not really feasible any more.  I am not happy about this but what can I do?

The first place we stopped was Koblenz.  We left Calais at around 10:30 in the morning on Monday and arrived at our hotel at about 4 PM.  I did not drive again until approximately 11 AM on Wednesday morning when we proceeded to Dresden once again arriving around 4 PM.  The both of these drives with just over 300 miles each and I really did not anticipate any problems.  However I was left fatigued and in pain despite the drugs. Needless to say this really pissed me off. On the days of not driving all I did was wheel around in Big Daniel and yet even this I found very tiring.  On the Friday we drove 193 miles to Nuremberg and then on the Sunday 150 miles to Mannheim.  I still found it exhausting.

We think that our next holidays we will just go to Mannheim and stay there for the whole holiday.  We have friends in the area and there is also much to see that we have not yet seen.  I admit to finding the idea that I cannot continue with our road trips upsetting but I have to face facts.  I have been planning to visit friends in Sweden with a bitch for mating but I am not at all sure that I can do that now as I am fairly confident that physically it is now beyond me.  Bugger!

I went for my swim this morning the first swim in just over two weeks and it knackered me to say the least.  I was very surprised at how stiff I was. I knew I would not find it easy but the degree of difficulty took me by surprise. I am sure that by the end of the week it will be back to normal.

I also discovered that the spasms I get when I am asleep I also get when I am driving or at any time when I spent too long with my back against something.  I am going to see my doctor about this to see if there is something that can be done about this.  I do not mean in the way of drugs as I know that that will not help.  I need some sort of padding.

This is my German knitting friend Nana. The photograph was taken outside a yarn shop in Heidelberg. This is Lia and myself inside Lia’s house where Lia is helping me wind my balls.