An Alpha Beta Gamma of the species..??? 18 9 10 (9) 25 2 1

You know when I was a young guy really young I used to reflect whether I was a full shilling as the modern saying goes these days back in UK where I grew up, and so on, such is the insecurity of the young? Now as I approach the other extreme I have no such doubts as to who I am, or who I was, for most of the intervening years, though throughout those years there was but little introspection…

Now I have just returned from our local health centre where I met three young ladies the first of whom, the receptionist, with a feeling of some trepidation for though youngish, say in her 30s, she is not the happiest of people, whilst the second person was the delightful SS who is my diabetes nurse, who invited me for a long term blood glucose test at 10am ahead of my appointment at 10:10 with my doctor, TS who was also most engaging for the hero in my blog title today..?

I was struck the last time I met SS, either in her late 20s or early 30s, how as a health carer she couldn’t be more punctilious and how impressed I was how with only 10 minutes of spare time in her scheduled she decided to squeeze me in before I kept an appointment arranged some time earlier to see my doctor to ensure the doctor was fully up to speed with my condition…

Well otherwise I have been engaged these past weeks selecting pics for my latest photograph album from the year 2009 and so far have reviewed all the pics I took from 2009 1 1 to mid-July, where at present I am reviewing the pics I took with my wife during that year’s visit to the mountains of Scotland and in particular the shot of two guys with ropes rock-climbing the Old Man of Stoer, a classic route graded Hard Severe to Very Severe depending on whether the first VS pitch is avoided.

This in turn got me reviewing my meeting with my wife 52 years ago this last weekend and how during our first two years she got to observe me doing some death-defying climbs not as committed as this last named climb but the climb up Nape’s Needle on Great Gable in the English Lake District for example with a one-time friend who partnered me for most of the rock climbs I undertook, this my last real and only really classic route graded Very Difficult for which we lead through: meaning I lead the first pitch and when he came second, he followed through to lead the second final and crux pitch on our joint climbing rope.

With my doctor she recalled during my consultation that I climbed mountains for my hobby and told how this year she had visited the mountains of Norway when I was able to inject the name Jotunheimen when she talked of her visit there, and how she should also visit Scotland: when she asked when she should visit and where and what time of year, when I told her she should visit in May before the midges wake up and visit the area of Fort William where the mountains are more precipitous and prettier than in the east of the country where the mountains are more rounded as in Finnish Lapland, noting how she carefully wrote down my advice on a scrap of paper, and yes the area was good for mountain-biking which apparently is one of her young person's hobbies…

I guess throughout I was maybe overly assertive and a wee bit boastful but overall most grateful she has so far treated me for a kidney stone which I got to pass without an operation, and also how she so far has succeeded in reducing my diabetes medication first from 3 to 2 and now from 2 to 1 x 750mg tablet of the dose I was over-prescribed, it now appears, some years ago by my male doctor, NK, at the time.

It also got me reflecting how my wife has throughout taken all these activities in her stride too and without comment, never criticising or praising, just falling in with the activity herself and shining, maybe herself an alpha female do you suppose? hahaha