A stroke of luck?

Michael and I are up by seven thirty to a bright morning, but more cloudy than yesterday. After a breakfast of omelette and ground coffee, I shower and dress, only to discover an incipient cold sore emerging on my lower lip. Michael assures me, that even though it is Whit Monday, there will be a pharmacy open in St Wolfgang, so we set off in pursuit of some Zovirax cream, which will, hopefully, nip the problem in the bud. Michael offers me a vitamin B capsule, which he swears keeps him healthy and as I can't see it causing any problems, I take it with a glass of water. After last night's rain, it is cooler and fresher outside, but still pleasant and ideal conditions for today's walk, which will see us climb the Zwolferhorn, a 2,000m peak near St Gilgen. A local man directs us to the Pharmacy, which is further up the hill and around the corner from The White Bear Hotel. We find it closed, but a notice declares that they will open between ten and eleven, it is now a quarter to ten, so we walk back down the hill to "The White Horse Inn", and continue along the Lakeside, the sun emerging from the clouds and reflecting back from the glassy surface of the lake. As we walk Michael expresses some concern about David, he had a TIA, or mini stroke, last year and we have rather been over indulging on the wine and beer, not to mention last night's brandy, between us we finished half a bottle. David has a lot of stress, because of Irene's dementia, her short term memory is severely impaired and she is forever losing her handbag or getting lost on her way back from the toilet. Michael and I both have a dread of strokes, as our other cousin, George, had one that paralysed his right side, while undergoing an angiogram, when he was only forty eight. Prior to that he had been tremendously fit, strong and active. We resolve to try to avoid opportunities for too much alcoholic overindulgence. When we return to the pharmacy it is ten past ten and there is already a queue, we wait patiently amidst people with twisted ankles, lost prescriptions and minor ailments, until it is my turn. I ask for Zovirax but receive a blank look, so point to my lip and declare, "Ich habe ein dicke lippe", ( I have a fat lip), " ah herpes he declares", in a loud voice and then pulls a tube of Zovirax from a wooden drawer and asks for five euros. I treat the cold sore immediately, it seems to have swollen considerably since breakfast, and then we stroll back through town to the apartment. David and Irene are waiting for us, dressed and ready to go, so Michael and I grab our walking boots and poles and make our way to David's 4 x 4 for the short trip round the lake to St Gilgen. As I approach the car, I have a brief spell of nausea and dizziness, but this soon passes and I climb aboard, taking a long drink of water from my bottle, as I had my fair share of brandy last night, but felt fine first thing. There is a cable car from St Gilgen to the summit of the Zwolferhorn and we make use of the car park, where we change into our boots, the feeling of nausea and dizziness returns as I tie my boots and I am also starting to feel unwell. My neck and arm are also a little stiff from sleeping awkwardly last night, so I tell David that I would like to wait five minutes before we set off. There is a little cafe, or Imbiss, across the road, so we sit outside in the sunshine for a while, I drink more water, but still feel wobbly and after ten minutes or so, tell the others to go on without me and that I will catch the ferry back to the apartment and see them tonight. Reluctantly they agree, after I persuade them that I will either feel better or worse during the course of the day, but the side of a mountain is not the place to find out. I buy my ticket from the ferry terminal and then have a twenty minute wait until the boat arrives, sitting in the sun beneath some pollarded elms, a group of Japanese tourists are taking an arts class nearby and sketching the village, which includes the house in which Mozart's mother was born. The boat arrives and I climb to the top deck and sit in the sun, surrounded by Chinese tourists, who like my sister Jackie, seem to take a constant stream of photographs and then post them to Facebook. As the boat chugs away from the jetty, the waves of dizziness return, so I hold my nose and blow, in order to clear my ears, as blocked ears and sinuses can cause such symptoms, but my ears are clear. My face is also tingling, probably from the herpes, but suddenly the acronym FAST comes to mind, from a poster in the Leisure Centre in Beverley. It stands for Face, Arms, Speech, Treatment and relates to the symptoms of the onset of a stroke. My face is certainly tingling and my left arm is stiff, but I have no way of checking my speech, other than the fact that the ticket seller understood my German. The copious amounts of water I have drunk have worked their way to my bladder and my coordination seems OK as I descend to the stairs to the toilet, where I check my face in the mirror. It seems to look no worse than normal, so I climb back to the top deck and resume my seat. If I am having a stroke the symptoms will worsen progressively and if they do, I will get Immediate help. Resigned to my fate, I say a prayer, put myself in God's hands, and decide that there are many worse places to die than in such beautiful surroundings. The ferry calls at the Hochzeits Cross, then Reid Falkenberg, before my stop at the Schafbergbahn. Once off the boat and walking down the lane to the apartment, away from anyone else, I decide to sing, and to me at least, my voice sounds OK. The dilemma is whether to seek medical help and risk looking like a hypochondiacal idiot, or waiting and perhaps suffering severe consequences. In the event, I decide to take an aspirin and lie down for an hour and immediately feel better, soon falling into a deep sleep. I am woken by a violent thunder storm and the sound of heavy rain rattling against my windows. When I get up, I feel perfectly well and shortly after my cousins and David return. They were caught in the open, near the summit, by the thunderstorm and took the sensible option of descending by cable car, only to find their gondola  swinging violently over a long drop, when a lightning strike triggered the emergency brakes and disabled the service for a few minutes, until the lightning protection relay kicked in and they resumed their descent. Tonight there is a free concert by the local music society in the town hall and we decide that we will attend, first visiting an Italian Pizzaria across the road. They have Schnitzel on the menu, as they do everywhere in Austria, so I order that and a small beer, everyone else has pizza and beer. My luck today doesn't get any better, some wag has loosened the top of the salt cellar and I dump most of its contents onto my dinner. The waiter commiserates and brings me a clean plate and most of the salt is shaken loose, nevertheless my dinner is ruined, but this isn't the kind of restaurant that offers replacements. The concert, however, is better than expected, the leader of the small orchestra is a professional violinist and he conducts a programme that largely consists of Strauss and Lehar, waltzes, marches and excerpts from operetta. We are the only non indigenous members of the audience and are welcomed as "our guests from Great Britain". Once again, traditional dress is the order of the day, and across the room I recognise the Pfarrer, from yesterday's mass. During the interval, where I limit myself to a sprite, I congratulate him on his fine singing yesterday. He obviously hasn't a clue who I am, or much less what I am talking about, he has taken off his dog collar and is clearly looking to enjoy a night away from his pastoral duties, so I leave it at that and move away. The concert finishes with the mandatory two encores, the first clearly deserved, and then we make our way back to the apartments, Michael and I declining David's offer of a nightcap. We turn in around eleven thirty. (It later transpired that Michael's vitamin B tablet had interacted with my blood pressure medication to lower my blood pressure, causing the dizziness and nausea, I discovered this when I repeated the mistake on Wednesday).