Let’s cover off the health situation first, with a continuation of the impact of attending the Military Odyssey. I was tired, but as the show is local (30 mins from me), got to go home each evening and enjoy a sleep in my own bed. The back pain was the main issue, but the accumulative impact was there too and by the time of offloading my car at home - helped by Dan (thank you), my batteries had just about failed altogether.

The other main issue continues to be the discomfort around the prostate and groin area, which led to some very broken nights sleep this past week, alongside the already disrupted sleep patterns with Sandra’s recovery. I am on the verge of contacting the GP to see what this may be (a hernia maybe), but am also back in the realms of need to know / don’t want to know; watch this space.

Lastly, this past week has brought a lot of tiredness. This is probably a fallout from the show, coupled with the broken sleep patterns, but it was notable and impacted my usual plans. Due to an unusual week and disrupted days, with the tiredness and also the very variable weather, I only managed one walk, which was Sunday. That came in at 13:05, which I was happy with, as I anticipated it being longer; I will aim to get back to 2-3 walks in the coming week.  

Sandra’s recovery is going very well and her daily improvements are rocketing ahead. She went into work 2 half days last week, and alongside that, is reducing her use of any crutches, is becoming more independent in daily tasks and also able to help re-shoulder some of the chores list, which helps me too.

Non-health aspects: Monday was Day 4 and the final day of the Military Odyssey show. It is usually a quieter one and that allowed Colin to begin a subtle break down of the stall earlier than usual. That greatly shortened the timeframe for us completing the complete breakdown of the stall and loading the trailer and cars. We were ably helped by Rodger T and also my son in law, Dan, drove up to specifically help us in the late-afternoon. With both of them helping (great team work), we were completely done just prior to 6pm, which is unheard of for us. It was a good show overall, for me and lots of conversations held with fellow enthusiasts and interested members of the public - a real boost for the mind and soul, with something ‘normal’ and not AD-related.

Regarding the books, I have already begun to promote my attendance at the Battles Through History  show, which will take place at the Ardingly Showground (near Gatwick airport) over the first weekend of October. For the Saturday, I will be joined by Martin Stiles, who will bring some of the items from his own collection, which will include personal items that were owned by or worn by Fritz Witt. This is an incredibly rare opportunity to view historically significant items such as these and I will be conducting a talk on the Fritz Witt book / his history, within the Author’s pavilion, on that same Saturday (I will be there Sunday too, but the talk / personal items will be the Saturday only). I drafted the presentation for that talk during this past week, just a few final tweaks to be done before the show itself. (image used for this week is the front slide of the planned presentation).

Alongside that, work returned to Volume 7 and I managed to cover off a number of summaries for the late-war divisional-sized formations, which has helped me reduce the outstanding list, as well as keeping me on track, with regards to my end of year deadline. After the busy past months, it has been good to get stuck back into this in a meaningful way. Talks have also begun for another of my books to be done in a non-English language format, which is great.

The final key development this past week, has been another chapter in my long-running car issues saga. When we travelled to Karl in July, the noise had begun to return in a notable way, but it took my nearest Renault dealership more than 1 month to fit me in; which required me to chase them up countless times. The outcome of their very quick diagnostic - the noise is ‘normal engine noise for that type of engine’. I had to pay for that diagnostic and since then, I have lodged a complaint with that dealership, but also with the Head of Renault in the UK. As part of their diagnostic, I was shown an internal workshop bulletin that referred to this noise, listed all of the Renault and Dacia models that run that gearbox set up and confirming that the noise that is being reported by many users, is ‘normal’. I could not disagree more and having owned the car for almost 18-months now, can confirm that the noise if far from normal and when they reset the gearbox to factory settings, it almost eradicates the noise, for a time. This is the basis of my complaint to both of them, using my own end user evidence. They have clearly designed an ineffective gearbox / clutch set up and the release of their internal bulletin only reinforces that fact. So, if you have, or are thinking of acquiring a Renault that uses the EDC gearbox and clutch set up, do your homework, or you may find you end up with constant issues. Shame, as otherwise, the car is good and gives us what we sought. I will await the outcome of the dual complaints, but am not holding out much hope.

Thank you all for your continued support, and many face to face discussions regarding my health, at the show, greatly appreciated.

Best regards
Peter