Log Blog

I'm phoning up Chief Executive's , if only they could see me. Hair tossled, shorts and tshirt, unshaven, Linda in agony, the dog needing a walk- badly, but there's all these emails addressed to the newly elected Chair- me.

So there I am, finding my way to Norwich cathedral this week, for a strategy meeting with my team.

Grassroots. 28p an hour I get as a full-time carer. But so many years running my own training and development company. I know what I am doing. I use all my skills, the magic that is still there. We say, with passion and anger : No More - not another minute, this is changing.

Some are fighting for their children, some for themselves, barely able to sit up don't you know; this is for us and Joss , Carol , Nigel , Pearl, Theresa , Hilary....I tell you.

A few of us, that's all, dwarfed by the mighty Cathedral spire, a speck in time. A spark , a revolution.

It's good to be back !!!

Log Blog

I only had to hold the brush in angry hands and splatter red paint in protest . I did not have to paint this picture this morning; only strip the canvas naked and scream.

The day was worse. Too much pain by far, for anyone to handle. Thirteen years and another few hours spent holding her, pressing my body up against hers, under the quilt, holding her head as if to protect her.

It is bad, ME. It is this serious.

This picture; so serene isn't it ?

I am too far gone to care anymore, so I will tell you what it reminds me off.

The Crucifixion.

Log Blog

Someone once pointed out that Jesus promised those that follow him three things : that they would be absurdly happy, utterly fearless and always in trouble.

The daily reality for my wife and I is constant illness, grinding pain and poverty, so our happiness seems absurd , yet it is bubbling over.

As for being fearless, well the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. The prerequisite to effective activism is to fall in love first, it is said, for you are much more likely to be coming from a whole position.

My own ongoing battle with fear and inadequacy is testament , you could argue, to where I am on the spiritual path !

It is the third promise though, that I find most interesting : "always in trouble". For that , I can see, is at the heart of so much of my self-imposed limitations.

A constant, deep level is that feeling that I have done something wrong, Ever since I have been married - and probably long before, there is a nagging feeling that I have not come up to my family's expectations : to take care of them, I think.

So my relationship with my family is not real. And that is a great shame - in all senses of the word.

Also I discover that if you take a stand in life and genuinely try to fight for a cause, as I and so many others are doing, you are quickly made to feel you are in some kind of trouble :

for your views
your actions
your dreams even

and this more often than not, from your own side, rather than the opposition.

Again and again it is fear - fear of change, fear of risk, fear of failure.

So they will betray you with a kiss.

Even so, love is triumphant !

Log Blog

I just had to go to the sea last night. On a deserted beach, our backs to the wind I breathed deeply.

They say you are never closer to God that when you are enthusiastic : en-theos, filled with the Spirit . For you are following your call. Even so, one needs much more than enthusiasm to keep going more than a few steps

I am riddled with doubt and fear.

I have taken on a major leadership role in the fight for ME recognition. My enthusiasm for the task is white hot.

I know I have much to offer.

Yet so many old fears ; Abraham Maslow calls it the Jonah Comples :

"The evasion of one's own growth, the setting of low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self-crippling, pseudo-stupidity, mock humility."

For the ego wants to protect itself. Play safe. Find a good excuse to crawl under the blankets and give up, especially now I have started.

So yes, I am wracked with all kind of worries that I am going to get it wrong and mess up.

But I sit on this beach with the one I love and I know have done some things right.

Maybe it is because I am a bit older and wiser .

I distinctly see the tricky troubler for who he is and I am wise to his game.

Log Blog

My children's book; this is the main character. It was an extraordinary experience to bring him, and some of the others to life through oils. I worked incredibly fast and the face simply emerged, looking at me with pleading eyes. Let me live ! He asks,

that's all...

I try my best. But I need a better routine. The book is almost complete - yet there are miles to go yet. It is very rough and ready. So exciting though. He has faced , is still undergoing all manner of nail biting dilemmas. Of course he comes through; at the time none of us know how.

The writing process is beyond conscious thought. If I stand back , I will often find myself saying, this is too far-fetched, come on, but, if, when I dare to enter into the adventure, it creates the unexpected and that is when the story sings along.

What a place to be !

The unexpected.

Truly the characters tell their stories through the fingers; I place my head to one side to listen and my fingers are flying. I have never been taught to type but these fingers know where each key is, without conscious thought. How do they do that ? How does one write a book ? How does one live their dream ?

How do you fall in love deeper and deeper without end ?

If I thought about it, I could not tell you.

But I know someone who can !!

Log Blog

These pebbles , hundreds of millions of years old will still be smiling in the sun ten thousand years from now ;

us ?

I think of all that has got in the way of my enjoying these stones ; religion,

education,

family :

they have all f' .ed me up; in God's name.

Old story .

Christ, there is much more to taking God's name in vain than simply swearing.

So it has taken me a long, long time to stand here. To realise that the love I have for this place and the woman by my side, my never ending love affair with the sea and the sky,

my music, my art,

my defiance,

mad Smithy,

(all thanks to lixtroll for the life-changing insight !)

that this where God is;

the Heart of Love,

that this is what prayer is .



In ten thousand years

these pebbles

will still be smiling.

A Practice blog from my wife.

Sometimes the best place is just where you are, because just where you are is incredibly special - it’s the place to be .

Often we imagine that we want to do something particular , to go some other place, to be doing some other thing. It is probably the motivating factor to movement!

But when you have ME, life changes in its nature. It has to become much more simple and totally and utterly flexible. What you want ,hope ,imagine or think you want to do ,are not necessarily achievable or possible for you any time soon or ever, even simple things, like washing your hair, having a bath, going to a restaurant, walking down your street, posting a letter or making a phone call. Even seeing the sun rise.

Life then may seem utterly frustrating, totally hopeless and almost impossible to bear, and it is like that if you cannot enter into every moment and say thank you God, this is an opportunity, not a limitation. I don’t have to do that particular thing afterall, I will do whatever it is I can achieve right now, even if that is, in appearance ,absolteluy nothing. To not do anything is a way to find inner peace and calm. It is infact to bless the universe and all people even if you can’t get out to meet any of them.

My husband is one such person who approaches each day with enthusiasm and excitement. He has to be infinitely flexible because I cannot predict anything I can do. He has to be spontaneous. He has to respond in the moment or the moment is lost often. Yet he always does this with the most beautiful radiant smile on his face. He always looks for the highest path in any moment. He always and I mean always responds in love ...and it is that which has made all the difference to me coping with my illness. I desperately wanted to go out today. There were about twominutes if that , when it seemed I possibly could go.

Unfortunately he was unavailable and I ended up back in bed unable to breathe, unable to stand or sit even and completely dizzy and disorientated. Realistically , of course , I could not have gone out anyway , i would have got in the car and 2 seconds later , even if I had got that far , he would have had to stop and turn back and I would have ended up in bed anyway.

Disappointment can alwaysbe turned to joy though, when held in the heart of love - and truly that is where he holds me - for he waited and he held me and when I was able , he made me a lovely snack and a cafetiere of piping hot coffee and we sat in our ‘Cottage Cafe ‘garden - and we had such a lovely precious time. No other place would have done. We were here all the time. And it was just perfect......

Log Blog

There is only the sea and the beach. No one else, just us two and dog, coffee and a blanket.

There is only the wind and the sun and the feel of my body running, the bark of the dog. Gulls.

The day left behind, the book on hold, but not the pain.

Seeking some escape, where there is none. But I hold her, young with the power of the ocean, her face aglow. And the sea is so much bigger.

Two cups of coffee on the pebbles.

My feet too cold to feel; here let me warm them for you, she says.

Just after five.

Log Blog

One accessory you will never see featured in Country Living : cheap plastic flowers, bunches of 'em. Skirmishing my way past the stall, I looked down my nose.

Who buys these things ?

Well, country folk , they must do. And the rubbish cakes, the brassy clothing and the hotdogs. Throw in another five pound extra love for only 50p .

Oi love you take your clothes and I'll take mine orf !! Country folk laughing and applauding the auctioneer. Some character, he shifts the biggest load of faded toys, broken printers, knackered chairs so skilfully you wish you had a pound on you.

For it is not often we do. We share a packet of chips, open, and one fishcake. By the time we have brought a delphinium plant, a few seeds four kitchen rolls and chews for the dog , we are wiped out .

I pop into Woolworths and think what CD I will buy one day.

Swaffham market , not Burnham Market, plastic flowers not David Austin.

Country living mate.

Log Blog

I thought all I have to do is keep going until the middle of April; this blog may have started off as just a competition entry but it has turned into an affair of great value and worth.

Mornings begin very early, with coffee on the table in the photograph. There surrounded by seedlings, beans, soaked in the peace and spirituality of Walsingham, perhaps an early Church bell in the distance, sometimes even hymns on the breeze, and birdsong , I am at one.

Inevitably, these days, my mind turns to the B’ og. What to say - I love the little challenge of thinking what to write about. There is not an obvious thing of interest, yet little incidents, insights begin to stir ; there is buried treasure in even a trip to Tescos and what a joy to find it.

Much more than that. I am finding the Blog a huge impetus to my own creativity. Yesterday's sparked of an important project that I spent all day working on and getting out.

Since last October I have been campaigning on YouTube for proper services and recognition of ME. It is staggering to sit here and reach out instantly all around the world. As on PurpleCoo, though much more restrained, a community has grown up, spanning every continent.

People have been urging me recently to enter an International Video Advocacy Contest. The closing date is Monday.

I just could not think of a structure. The rules restrict the film-maker to just three minutes. Apart from boil an egg....well..??

I reckoned without PurpleCoo. All those folk baring their bottoms yesterday on the front page, the Janitor's predicament - play , combined with the creative process , sent me tumbling. In a flash, as I was scrawling my blog, I could see the whole video, its flow and its message, laid out before me.

If you like, you can view the results for yourself on :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayFPLBaRpJU

How many people would guess that this was inspired by Matron's knickers ?

Log Blog

This seagull up on the cliffs yesterday; "Fly my love, fly !" I thought.

There are so many challenges in my life at the moment , especially a new opportunity to get involved at the very highest levels, fighting for services for people with ME. On a practical level I have no idea how I will be able to manage it, for my wife is far too ill to be left. Yet somehow I know that doors will open, for they always do when the time is right.

This is exactly the right time. So much is coming together.

But what a fight. Without resources, I am a full-time carer, my companions are very ill ME sufferers, without an infrastructure, without power, we are taking a stand up against one of the most powerful vested interest and lobby groups in the world, the medical insurance industry.

For ME is much bigger than AIDS or MS.

At stake is whether extremely ill people like my wife and countless others, spend the rest of their lives , as they have spent decades already, in agony with no treatment and no cure. Not a penny is spent by the Government yet on physical research into this World Health Organisation defined Neurological Illness.

They are going to hear from us.

Thank you !

Thank you all so much for your interest in the book. For those who are interested, it is a spiritual book on the meaning of suffering, drawing upon the writings of Pope John Paul 11 and my wife's experience of severe ME. Dotted with prayers and meditations, it may not be everyone's choice !

It's called BEYOND NORMAL PRAYER by Greg Crowhurst ISBN 0-85439-717-5

You can get it on Amazon , you can also get it from the publishers :

St Pauls Publishing
187 Battersea Bridge Rd
London
SW11 3AS
email : editions@stpauls.org.uk
tel 02079784300 Fax 02079784370

Log Blog

Only a week into PurpleCoo and all I can think about is normalising my data now. “This man normalises his data” boasted the slogan the other day on a front page post . Is that right, I thought. There stood a chap , nonplussed , wearing only a woolly hat and a pair of pom-poms. In fact he looked serene with a certain surety of poise.

I can reveal his secret; afternoon tea at the Blakeney Hotel. He must surely have just had one of their treacle tarts, judging by the expression on his face. I experienced my first one yesterday and you could have done with me as you will. Bring on your pom-poms for I am at one and centred.

There is nothing like sinking into the Blakeney's famous sofas , with a sigh, basking in its old world charm and slightly faded luxury.

As for the coffee....

You enter frazzled and leave all normalised.. Wind in your hair, sparkle on the sea, bounce to your step , ready for anything .


So I have this crazy dream.

Of a purple coo in the lounge . One day ?

LogBlog

It was bizarre to be discussing American Foreign Policy with my trousers down
and a woman's hand on my groin; but it could be worse.

I been ushered into the tiny consulting room to await the surgeon and passed the time reading “Failed States” by Noam Chomsky, the American commentator. Have you any idea of how close we are to nuclear catastrophe ? I didn't until yesterday. So it distracted my mind. Thank goodness.

The Consultant urged his assistance, I am still not too sure who exactly she was, to examine my hernia, while he sat on the bed , inches away, reading Chomsky.

We men are not used to this sort of thing.

"Remember the NHS is in a state of chaos” he reminded me, as I fumbled with my buttons, unable to do up my shorts , all fingers and thumbs.

Yesterday was one of those days when you waken up and wish it was wine-drinking time; with your ordeal far behind you.

In reality it was a civilised and respectful affair. We got on well together and as I left on rubbery legs, I overheard the Consultant and his assistant debating democracy in South America. Not if the USA has anything to do with it I could have chimed in , but that is another story and I needed to get out of there amigo.

What is good about returning home here is that it truly is a paradise . The air, smooth as a caress , enveloped in the peace of a silky evening, I came across these two horses, a few yards from our cottage; obviously in love.

This perfect scene; it lit a real glow in my heart.

Wine drinking time.

A tumbling good read !

The other day , in the bookshop of the National Shrine at Walsingham, posing beside my second book. Nine copies sitting on a wire shelf., right underneath Gerard Hughes ; a long time inspiration to me.

This book writing thing , it is not for the faint-hearted..

Take a dream , take two heads, find the idea, say yes, drink gallons of coffee, mix with scraps of paper, recover lost note books, and deleted files , find a pen, add more than a dash of creative tension, the air was blue, sometimes, soften with red wine and mix behind a windbreak, one summer's day on Cley Beach. On that day, writing , heaven and earth collided ; and you have this book.

And then it starts. The rejections. Plucking up of nerve. Picking yourself up. Holding on to hope. The rewrites, draft after draft after draft. Plucking up of more nerve.

Every muscle screaming .

The publisher -yes, the contract - yes-but....

and you end up holding a rather special brown paper parcel one day in your lap.

And nothing you have ever experienced matches the feeling, when you open it.

So, book three is the big one. “Imagine, it is not difficult...”

The opening words .......

Some days are lost in the struggle and yesterday was hard. Even then I was worried about a crucial meeting which I have been invited to attend this afternoon. My billing as some sort of leader is a lot to live up to.

This meeting will affect thousands of very ill people's lives.

So we huddled together on Cley Beach. Far too cold for a coffee, but we poured one, then two, from the flask anyway, sitting on a lump of scrunching concrete. A couple of fishermen arrived for the night, lanterns in hand, silhouetted against the old light of a sparkling sea.

A man with a crew cut walked his Pit Bull home, we held our fearless Corgi on his lead and looked out. A fishing boat very close in, waves not really that bothered. I watched a couple of gulls , but without awareness.

And wasted the time by talking about the meeting. I had already been over and over it, trying to measure all possible outcomes. By the time we packed away the coffee I had forgotten that I had not even been down to the sea’s edge.

Where the spirit soars.

Mind you, we arrived home to a video message from a young girl in Australia to say thank you, for turning her life around. Through our YouTube site, she has been put in touch by someone in Australia, with a doctor who is offering proper medical care and she is now receiving legal advice . Before that she had nothing and no one and was in imminent danger of being labelled as mentally ill, such is the tragic ignorance that still surrounds severe ME.

The day was over far too quickly, long before it had a chance to get started, but I went to bed peaceful, after a celebratory glass of wine.

I woke up, looking forward to the meeting. My wife whispered in my ear last night, I was sound asleep, that Eden has left a message for me here on PurpleCoo.

I can’t help thinking we are surrounded by angels.

Was hoping to post this on the front page but can't get on !

Sing hoo to the Coo
and\ moo to the poo
I live in the country
and so do yoooo

LogBlog's tumbling again
with a hoe so true
so a hey and a hoo
and bully to you (CL) !!

Log Blog

I love it ! I love what Westerwitch has achieved here.

I love it that so many of us have taken our power back. Country Living’s response to its dodgy competition displays a curious understanding of its readers ; on that’s all right then, we are supposed to say, tugging our forelocks, oh yes bring it on : a blogger splash on the old home page.

How easy that would be to win ! But you and I , we could no more win that, than renew our subscriptions. For living as we do, in the country, and writing about real country living, we find ourselves at a disadvantage.

The lid has been lifted, the Emperor stands exposed as a townie’s dream. We knew it all along, deep down. But what anger has been released !

These feelings, I sugest, run even deeper than the hole Country Living are presently digging themselves a bit deep into.

For we have had just enough in this country of spin, deceipt, being manipulated by big vested interest and the vacant lure of celebrity status. Honestly , from the chance to be an honest columnist to the possibility of a mention on a website , as long as you totally, utterly sell-out.

PurpleCoo is that rare thing in today’s mega -conservative world , a genuine people’s movement of the first order.

PC for PM I say and power to the mower as CountryMousie so wisely concluded yesterday.

Log Blog

Tumbling onto your page. Am I out of my depth being a blog bloke ? Great to see everyone. Well done Westerwitch !!! What a day its been.