When I first had my stroke, obviously it affected my brain. One aspect of this was my perception of emotional things. For example, I found myself in tears watching an old James Herriot episode. I could rationalise that these people (and the dog!) were just acting out a storyline, and that the storyline itself was most probably fiction, but nevertheless…

One of the things that happens during recovery is a gradual “hardening”, back to the point I was at before the stroke ever happened. The same things are right, the same things are wrong, it’s just that my coping ability has changed.

To that end, every other ad on tv at the moment is an appeal on behalf of a charity. People are desparate, animals are desparate. But you become immune to it. You realise that every cause is a good cause. but we all only have so much cash to throw around, so we need to make choices on how much we give, and who we give it to. By implication, this also means that there will be many causes where we have to say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you”.