Back in the groove

 It has been more than three months since my open heart surgeries and I am now beginning to reclaim my new life.

My general practitioner has a decent grasp on things (after seeing me so regularly) and mostly agrees with my requests.Sleep eludes me no matter what is prescribed for sleep so I'm looking at having the offending medication changed and I will be resisting starting any new medicines unless the doc can justify it with evidence.

Pain control has been greatly improved since my GP put me on amytriptaline for the nerve pain. My nerves, muscles and tendons are trying to regrow and reconnect which means my chest is supremely sensitive in negative ways.  The amytriptaline takes the edge off the pain, resulting in my ability to just get on with life while I am healing.

Playing bass is super important to me and so getting back into that was a top priority. After 7 weeks I started practising sitting down with my cheap and light chinese bass. By 9 weeks I could play my heavy Fender Jazz Pro2 while standing up. At 14 weeks I have successfully performed 3 times at Sharkey's Bar and am hoping to perform at Rolleston this coming Sunday.

I was chuffed to discover that Suzi Quatro turned 72 this month and plays the same Fender bass as I do. Such good company.

Along with progress in bass playing you can find me back in my garden  mowing, trimming, weeding, raking. Yes folks, last week I managed to mow both my lawns and do the edges all by myself. It took longer than it used to but I am being cautious, listening to my body and not pushing things, other than mowers, about.

Yesterday I got to exercise my democratic rights. I went to the Alliance Française to vote in France's legislative elections, from New Zealand. I was too busy recovering from surgery to take part in the presidential elections a few months ago so I was determined not to miss out this time. I have dual nationality and was voting for who would represent French expats around the world, I consider it a real privilege of my citizenship to be able to vote in French elections for the rest of my life. NZ does not afford its citizens the same rights. If you are overseas and don't come back regularly for holidays you lose your right to vote after only 3 years. I never had the money to come back here when I lived in France so I lost the right to vote in NZ elections. It should be an automatic right as a citizen but I find NZ's rules on many things quite draconian and harmful.

It was a pleasure to enter the 'French World' again. I had to present my National Identity card, then a kind lady let me look at the candidate pages on her laptop because those two candidates had not been my original choice so I had to choose again. Luckily I can read French fairly quickly. Then I had to take the voting slips for the second round candidates (only 2 left) choose one and place it in the brown envelope and ditch the other in the rubbish bin. One then posts the envelope in the plastic receptacle and you sign your name on the electoral role for French expats. I accidently started to sign as I normally do and had to scribble it out as I had forgotten that France handles all administration in my maiden name and I could no longer remember how to sign that as I haven't had that surname since 1976. So I had to make up a signature. Normally there are two rounds of voting but NZ is so far away from everything that consular mail from  the French overseas department never gets here

in time for us to vote in the first round. I enjoyed speaking a bit of French yesterday. It perked me up for the rest of the day, feeling at ease being bilingual in that special world even if my vote won't count for much. It's still great to have it. So far the abstention rate is a heavy 54%. At least I'm not part of that. Emmanuel Macron's parliamentary majority seems to have disappeared so a lot of his politicians may be looking for jobs.

I was startled to be contacted by a couple of headhunters recently, looking for someone to do communications work at my local council. I should have been ideal, I redid my CV and was given an interview at the HR agency only to have it cancelled suddenly that day. They said they had now resourced it. Hmm, I smell a rat. Contact with that agency wasn't friendly or competent from their end but I was still disappointed. The usual job application nonsense means you never hear if your candidature is received, if anything positive or negative came of all the time you put in to redoing your CV and writing a unique cover letter. Agencies are as bad as dealing with companies directly. There is one more opportunity possible from a different agency which sounds much more friendly and helpful. We'll see, it's for about a year's duration - a big commitment.

I'm keenly aware that my social life revolves around musical activities which I love and I am most grateful to those musicians who have made the effort to prepare songs with me, perform and support me and be endearing friends. Unfortunately that's not enough and I haven't found a significant other since JC in 2011. I spend most of my days pottering at home and now that I am feeling more energetic I decided I should make one more attempt at finding a special companion. Music will always have an important place in my life but opportunities to play are very infrequent or unreliable in nature so I have decided to look for the best sort of company - someone special through online dating. I've been down this road before as long-time readers will know. I am very aware of the pitfalls and disappointments, the scams, the discourtesies but there is no other alternative. I need to remain optimistic and cautious at the same time. If I don't try I can't succeed in challenges. As the cold weather really settles in I'd love to have more indoor social options to add more richness to my life. Here's hoping I find just that.