Keeping active and engaged with Parkinson's.

I don't know, I mean I think, it's easy to say, but I think it's, you know, I think, I understand why people don't, don't get on with part, I understand why people, you know, sit down and watch TV, like, but when, after a couple of months I was diagnosed, probably longer than that actually. About six months after I was diagnosed, my consultant said to me, you know, why are you still working, kind of thing. I said, well, because I can, you know, I can work, you know, I don't miss it. I like working, I love working, and yeah, I love where I'm working. Cornwall was a great place to finish my career, I suppose, as we did. They're great people on the whole, you know, and the more sort of senior I became, the more sort of interesting it became. I never really had people skills, but the more sort of people I interacted with on a senior level, again the more sort of difficult and challenging the the job again came. And, and then it sort of, it was gone. And I, I missed it a lot. I miss it an awful, an awful lot. I miss work. It wasn't just going to work. I mean, the work itself was, you know, pretty, pretty boring. It's interesting, but it was fairly easy. But what I really miss, you know, the banter, the social aspects, I really miss social aspects. And And then I actually started to really miss the work, you know, sort of, you know, going into meetings, you know, sort of trying to help people, find all the things, that's the work side of it. And trying to get bookings in, well, you know, you're there, but, you know, all sort of, they say routine stuff, all of a sudden it became important because I hadn't got any routine anymore. I forget days of the week Because when you have no real schedule, things like days of the week don't all go into one. There's a great line in The Big Lebowski where he says, is this a workday? And it is like that. So I miss the structure, I miss structure. There are things that I really miss, and I think if you're one of those sort of people who thinks, well, my life's over now and I sit down on the sofa and watch TV all day, I think that'd be a shame. But I understand why people do it, and I think, you know, I'm not saying for one second, you know, it's wrong, it's wrong. I think it's, people deal things in different ways and um there's no real right or wrong but I think it's a shame if people miss out on the fact that if you can still do things you should because you never know when it'll stop. It's like work really you know I never dreamt in a million years that yeah when I first joined Cromwell I never thought in a million years that I would end my career there. I thought well I'll either move on or, you know, as I got more, as I got promoted, I was thinking, you know, maybe I'll stay here and then eventually become the manager, which I sort of did. And then, you know, maybe even higher than that. And I thought, if my days here end at the Commonwealth, because I retire when I'm 65, not because, you know, not when I'm 53 or whatever it was when I I retire. I retire on my terms rather than it being forced upon me. I never dreamt that it would end there because of medical reasons. And that's, you know, again, expectations. You know, your expectations, Parkinson's changes it all. It really does. But, you know, it is what it is. I'm sitting in my den thinking about how I can probably get bananas out of my neighbour's garden. I really believe you have to push yourself in life, otherwise life will just take you out. You'll step off the track and you won't be able to get back on again. And I think, you know, staying on the track is important. It keeps me going. And also, I've got two young kids, you know, if I, if I, if I, you know, if I, if I sort of, you know, don't do anything, don't play with them or anything like that, eventually they'll lose interest and they'll lose that interaction. saying I play water fights and stuff like that. I make sure that I interact with them as much as I can. Now, sometimes I'm physically not able to, but because they know that when I can do it, I will, they don't mind.