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After a week on the neurosurgery ward, I have been allowed home over the weekend. The staff at the hospital have been fantastic and really looked after me far better than I deserve, but it is so much better to come home and be with my family.

When I went in on Sunday evening the weather was still slightly warm as if Summer was making a last effort to stay a bit longer. When I came into the fresh air this afternoon, there was a nip in the air confirming that it is definitely Autumn. The mountain ash in our garden is making the most of the weather showing majestic colours.

I discussed a number of do’s and don’ts with the hospital staff: I am not allowed to lift any heavy objects; I interpret this as meaning no vacuum cleaning etc. Unfortunately playing the euphonium is included among the don’ts. The recorder should be ok. Running is out, but walks and shorter bike rides are allowed. I think that the hospital staff have a slightly different definition of “shorter” when considering bike rides, so I will take it a bit easy for a while.

Hospital food is far better than reputation would suggest, but after five days it is a joy to get into our own kitchen. Today’s dinner was beef with roasted veggies, simple cooking but so good. I even found an improvement on apple juice to drink.

The weekend will be dedicated to taking it easy and just being with family. We will probably take in some fresh air on a walk or two.

I have to be back in the hospital on Tuesday to remove the stitches (staples) from my head. Until then, I am not allowed to remove the bandage or wash my hair. I imagine that it will be pretty gross by Tuesday.

But Oh, didn’t he ramble (Jelly Roll Morton)

We have started a small collection towards research at Hjärnfonden, the Swedish charity for brain research, hoping to contribute 10 000 kr to their cause. This may only be a small sum of money in comparison with the huge needs in developing effective treatment strategies for the different types of tumours that can affect the brain, we believe that the symbolic value of this support is significant. Bitte thought long and hard to find a theme for our collection and landed upon “You’ll never walk alone”, as she felt that this phrase has great significance for me and captures the essence of my life philosophy. I hope that I can do some justice to this and give a little background in this article.

Growing up, as I did, on Merseyside one has to relate to the two major forces in football which dominate local sports and much of the conversations, especially after a weekend or towards the end of a long season. In general, there seems to be a divide between the catholic population, who tend to support Everton, and the protestant population, who side with Liverpool. In my case, I sided very early on with Liverpool and have been an avid fan throughout my life, although I do have a soft spot for Wrexham FC as an acknowledgement of my Welsh background. Unfortunately, Wrexham have spent a number of years way down the league system.

Liverpool have been associated with the song “You’ll never walk alone” since the mid-1960s, when it was a hit by Gerry and the Pacemakers. The supporters would sing the song to rally their team, as heard on the Pink Floyd song Fearless, from the album Meddle.

The song is, in fact, taken from the 1945 musical, Carousel, by Rogers and Hammerstein, based on the play “Liliom” by Ferenc Molnar.

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of the storm

There’s a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone You’ll never walk alone.

But context can change so much.

In 1989, Liverpool were to play a semi-final cup match against Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Football ground in Sheffield. Due to a number of traffic incidents and congestion caused by poor planning an the part of the local authorities, supporters of both clubs were arriving late to the ground. In the confusion that followed a number of poor decisions were made which resulted in the stands becoming overfilled and caused the deaths of 96 supporters of Liverpool FC. A tragedy which could have been avoided if competent people had been in charge.

After the event the authorities covered for each other through lies and deceit, and deflected the blame onto the football supporters. It took over 25 years for the truth to finally come out. Throughout this time the people of Liverpool stuck together and supported their cause against a system that had so terribly let them down. Throughout the campaign to bring out the truth, the word “You’ll never walk alone” kept people together.

Four weeks ago, my world was turned upside down by what turned out to be a malignant brain tumour. Now after surgery, the doctors are confident that the tumour has been removed in its’ entirety and that the likelihood of me making a full recovery are good. Throughout this time, I have felt the support from those around me and this has helped me remain confident and that I will not be alone on the journey forwards.

YNWA

The short version

Way back in time, shortly after Bitte and I met, we visited Bitte’s mother, Kajsa, for the first time together. This was at Kajsas garden allottment. So properly attired and topped with a Panama hat we went off to the allottment in Husbyborg. When we arrived we found that Bittes sister, Annika, and boyfriend, Lars, were already there. Lars was wearing his legendary minimalistic swimming trunks from Yves saint Laurent – I actually have no recollection of these but go along with the story as it has become folklore.

Bitte introduced me as Chris to which Kajsa demanded to know what I was called more than Chris. To this Lars quickly replied Topher. I thereby acquired the name Topher wich naturally became adjusted and changed as required to Toph, Toff (a Swedish variation) The Toph etc.

Moving on a few decades takes us to the advent of the internet and all things digital. Being a bit slow off the mark all of the suitable names, welch., topher. etc were already taken. Looking for a suitable name for an instagram account the idea of using Toph came to the fore. However, all variations on Toph were, as mentioned, already in use. Then came the stroke of genius: There is a bird which for me symbolises the arrival of Spring at its first sighting. This bird is the Northern Lapwing, or Tofsvipa, as it is known in Swedish. So we get the Toph bit into the name and take the Linnaean Latinisation to get to Vanellus, as the latin for northern lapwing is Vanellus vanellus.

Simply add a T, for Toph, and there you have the full explantion of how we arrived at tvanellus.

Thanks to Bitte for keeping you updated and to all of you for your warmth and support.

I have now gone through this part of my ordeal. The tumour was successfully isolated and removed during surgery which lasted for about two hours. We now wait patiently for the planned follow-up.

In the meantime, I arrived at the post-op department high on morphine and was apparently quite entertaining.

Sleeping with all the wires attached to me while at the same time worrying about stitches and a catheter was not easy especially as the alarm kept going off due to my low pulse.

I am now decoupled, decatheterised and determined to come through this in the best possible way.

I have a room with a view in the neurosugery ward.

It has come to my attention that I should explain the name tvanellus, and why You’ll never walk alone is so important. These ar subjects for posts later this week.

Chris mår fortsatt bra efter omständigheterna. Han har idag fått flytta från NIMA till den vanliga vårdavdelningen. Han är uppe och rör på sig en del men blir fort trött.
I dessa tider råder besöksförbud.

Jag har pratat med honom ett par gånger och han hälsar!

Vid tangentbordet: Bitte

Chris opererades på förmiddagen idag och operationen har gått bra. Chris mår utifrån omständigheterna bra och är vid gott mod. Han ligger på NIMA (neurokirurgens intermediärvårdsavdelning) och kollas regelbundet. Han kommer sedan att flyttas till en vanlig vårdavdelning, troligen imorgon. Besöksförbud råder i dessa tider.

Jag har pratat med honom och han hälsar till alla och tackar för allt stöd!

Jag passar också på att skriva, vilket Chris också bad mig om, att vi har startat en insamling på Hjärnfonden, riktad mot hjärntumörer. Insamlingen heter You’ll never walk alone. Om någon skulle vilja stödja den så uppskattas det mycket! Länk till insamlingen finns på startsidan på bloggen (“support research about brain tumours”).

Vid tangentbordet: Bitte

Tomorrow at 5 am I will be woken up to prepare for my operation. I have mixed emotions about this. Firstly nervous, but mostly glad to get it done.

My attitude is to look beyond tomorrow and to plan for new challenges. I have decided to start with a “kort klassiker” comprising 10 km running, 30 km skiing, 100 km cycling and 1 km swimming. To get things moving along I started today with a 10 km run.

The skiing will be in February. Let’s prepare for it.

Watch this space.

We were able ti harvest a single pumpkin from the four plants that we planted this Spring. It weighed in at just over 5 kg so we decided to have a family gathering with pumpkin soup and home made bread.

The soup is really easy: 1 pumpkin, 1 leek some carrots, spice with nutmeg, cayenne pepper, thyme and seasoned with salt. Add some cream just before serving.

Serve the soup with crisped cabbage, add company and you will have a great evening.

The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop even for small gatherings of people. This was definitely the case for myself and my very talented friends. Every second Tuesday I played in a brass sextet called Norbyturken (roughly translated as the Turks from Norby) and on the Tuesdays in between I played with another brass sextet called Sixten Lake (even more roughly translated as Sixten the burbot, or perhaps Lota lota Sixten). The advent of Covid-19 meant that we went into an indefinite hiatus. We did have online drinks every Tuesday just to keep in touch.

Spring and Summer came and went but the pandemic remained. Then we decided to at least have an open-air practice as Autumn approached. We gathered in the chaos of major maintenance work on our house for a couple of hours of light-hearted music.

Here is a short extract from Vaughan Williams’ “Folk Songs from Somerset” as arranged by yours truly.

As the evening progressed the sounds of baroque and renaissance recorder music came from one of our neighbours’ gardens. This was a completely unplanned coincidence which made for a wonderful evening.

The weather and evening darkness have been less conducive to repeat performances, but we are looking forwards to new possibilities in the Spring.

With only 78 days left until Christmas it is high time to make this years’ Christmas pudding. In view of the guidelines given out by the Swedish authorities, directing us to cancel all family gatherings over the festive season and beyond I feel that preparing a Christmas pudding is an act of defiance akin to Anthony Hopkins in Legends of the fall (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THP1wlGT2fA).

The recipe I use is my own combination from a number of sources and has been used by me for the paast decade or so:

Mix all the dry ingredients with the margarine to a crumbly consistency. Add all the rest and mix well. Transfer to a suitable bowl and cook in a pressure cooker for an hour or more. Store until Christmas ansd feed with rum or cognac a few times.