Sun 5th April
Andrew continues to get a little stronger; yesterday he went for a slow walk of around 4 miles around Woburn on a beautiful sunny afternoon with friends Rory and Doreen. We saw the first swallow of the year ( well Rory did and then the rest of us did). He was tired at the end and went to bed early, but I do feel this is quite an achievement.
He has also walked into Leighton Buzzard this week to do shopping, a round trip of around 2-2.5 miles, carrying shopping on the way back, and various other walks of around 1-2 miles. He often says that he feels "normal" or that "everything is clear" when he is outside, though a early trip to the Tiddenfoot on Thursday when it was cold had him scurrying back to bed where he stayed for 4 hours.
This week Andrew has also had 3 guitar or bass playing sessions with Chris Wilkinson, John Howarth and Richard and Delia, who also felt that he was much improved.
A highlight of the week was a trip to The Stables to see Bassekou Kouyate. BK is from Mali and plays the ngoni, a sort of lute-type instrument, as do 3 others in his band, who play different sizes of ngoni; BK is a sort of Jimmy Hendrix of the ngoni. They were very good; and Andrew enjoyed this very much.
A trip to a session in Buckingham next week has been cancelled because yesterday, out of the blue, a letter arrived saying that an appointment has been made for Andrew to see a haematologist at the Royal Free on Thursday. The appointment is in the "lysosomal storage disorders" unit. The letter also advises not taking too much notice of anything that is on the internet, as not all of it is accurate. I did look up what lysosomal storage disorders are anyway, and as it covers a huge spectrum of things, most of which clearly don't apply to Andrew, I'm going to take their advice. However, we do have to get to the Belsize Park area by 10.30, which means that we will have to get up quite early, which can be a bit of a challenge for Andrew so I need to plan an early night to make it easier for him.

Love to you all
Gill
xx