I love my Alexa. To be able to just request a song or an album or playlist and have it belting out on my boat is sheer joy.

I cook to Billy Joel or a bit of Bob Marley or Dire Straights, shower to Fleetwood Mac or even a bit of Manilow (it’s surprising what confessions one makes when facing such life changes!). It’s always on and often turned up full!

Alas. She’s not working anymore. Or, to be more correct, I’m not working anymore!

Day 10 of radiotherapy has hammered my vocal chords and I can no longer speak. Even getting close up and personal with Alexa has failed to turn her on. And all joking aside, I haven’t a clue how to resolve this.

Losing my voice was always on the cards. As was/is losing my appetite, losing weight and some sense of smell. Fortunately, I have been piling the weight on during lockdown so losing a few kilos will not be such a bad thing. I’ve actually already lost 6 kilos and that’s while I’ve been eating like a horse!

Losing my appetite is tough. My whole life has revolved around food and not just the occasional drink! Every day when I walk into Charing Cross Hospital I walk past some amazing eateries. West London appears to be the Mecca for anything avocado and if anyone has followed my Sink or Swim Blog (https://www.facebook.com/NadioGranataHouseboat/) then you’ll see I am surrounded with beautiful riverside pubs and their award-winning beer gardens.

Whether it be a crispy bacon, squashed avocado and poached egg ensemble for breakfast or a BBQ’d rump steak with a few beers and a good laugh, those days are now gone. But not forever.

But the biggest loss of all, so far, is the loss of voice. It came about so sudden that yesterday morning I joined a zoom video call with a client and could not even say hello.

Nothing came out. Zilch. Niente.

Nobody on the call was more shocked than me. In fact, I felt a bit of an arse, after all, what’s the point of being on the call if you’re not going to contribute?

I’m pleased to say that my client and our partners are extremely accommodating and we soon got going with the good old post it notes and plenty of Micky taking!

News has spread quite quickly around here too and my enforced silence seems to have triggered a lot of invitations to go walking! I think that’s because I’ll have to be the one that listens for a change, which, again, cannot be such a bad thing. Every cloud and all that …

Nadio

Thursday 10th June

12/30