Day 7

As I took my aerobic enhancing dog walk, my heart pounding and my breath coming in rather alarming gasps, wondering , if I had a heart attack, how long it would take to find me and whether the dogs would sit guarding my dead body as it went cold, or trot off to eat some horse shit or find a stick to fight over, I forced myself to ponder on cheerier subjects. Walking always generates these kind of random thoughts.

Well, the weather was obviously not going to be one of them, but our samba drumming experience of the day before, was. Potentially, it was not a cheery venue, being a home for brain damaged young and older adults. These people, on the surface, really haven't got much going for them. They are locked in their sometimes twisted and gnarled, sometimes completely normal bodies. Their faces change expression constantly or remain totally impassive, vacant almost. It's hard to gauge how they feel and I had to stifle the tendency to talk to them as if they were morons. Take Cyril, who liked to shout and definitely had an eye for the ladies. As we played he shouted 'Shut the fuck up, shut the fucking noise up' and when we ended he would shout 'Play some more fucking music, fucking hell'. 'Just ignore Cyril, he's always like that', his carers assured us with a fond smile in his direction.

And Sammy who couldn't stop grinning as soon as she heard the music and kept shouting for 'more' everytime we stopped. A plea we found difficult to ignore. And the man who, apparently, rarely responds to anything, but ended up jiggling around in his wheelchair. By the end of the day, I felt supremely humbled, grateful for all I had and full of incredible admiration for the people that dedicate their lives, for very little money, to giving those members of our society whom most of us wish to ignore, lives full of love and humour.