FORGETTING NAMES AND PEOPLE

The slow but steady decline in memory continues, but I am full of optimism about the future. My over all health is well under control and I am still writing and doing garden things. My current project is to build a greenhouse so that we can grow vegetables.It's a very low cost affair built from pallets and wiill have transparent plastic instead of glass. The wooden structure will rest on a low brick wall which I have just completed. It will work, but it does not look like the work of a master builder! The memory loss is still eneven and I mostly remember things to do quite well, but forget things like taking tablets or where I put my keys. Wheni have hunted high and low I usually find them on a ribbon round my kneck where they should be. Names and faces are my biggest problem however and although some know of my declining memory and make allowances I expect others put it down to rudeness. We are all well now and the three dogs still make a fuss until they get their daily walk, Boysie is still the leader. Bobby the parrot is great fun, but he doesn't like the current cold weather, but many days begin very cold but become warm in the sun later, so he still gets outside a good bit. We are struggling at present with almost daily electricity cuts and because of drought water shortages are threatened. Still we thank God every day for all our blessings. David Barnato. Paarl. South Africa

The last book

After selling the farm near Wellington I wrote and published my first book 'When The Jacaranda Petals Fall.'This has sold steadily on Amazon and re-reading t I think that it is a good book, although I would have made some changes if writing it again. The sequel, 'The Devil Pays The Piper' followed and opinions on that book are extraordinarily divided. Some love it and others say that lacks the humour of the first. Other books have followed, including 'Why Billy Butcher Killed His Dad' and of course 'My Dementia and I', a book which I hoped would help others like myself who had been shocked to be told that they had dementia. More shocking was I think the discovery that dementia is merely the symptom of something much worse and for many this will be Alzheimer's. My Alzheimer's has now reached stage two and more about this can be read on my blog 'www.barnatod.blogspot.com' I think that it would be interesting to other sufferers and their carers to know about my experiences and how my specific diet definately slowed the progress down, but didn't stop it as I had hoped. The book is to be called 'Big Al, Public Enemy Number One.' All being well I should finish it in six months which means December 2015. This may be my last book as it is getting more difficult to write now. However there are many things that I discovered during my time with 'Big Al.' He is the destroyer of the brain, so no friend of ours. He is remorseless and determined and millions are already dead because of him. He perhaps should be in the Guiness Book Of Records' as the biggest mass murderer in history. Because most of us with Alzheimer's now hae more time on our hands we tend to become more inward searching and reflectve. For myself and many others this has brought about a certain gratitude for the blessings in our lives and a tendency to live every day as if it were our last. Living as I do in sunny South Africa, with a wonderful wife I am the happiest that I have ever been.We have three dogs and a parrot and a garden full of birds, squirrels and unfortunately lots of spiders. I have a big Wendy house in the garden [in English shed]. Here I work with my collection of two thousand books around me and when not working I gaze at the ever changing Drakensberg Mountains. What a wonderful life! David Barnato. Paarl. South Africa.