A little about me

After we'd drunk our morning tea and finished the cryptic crossword—all but 1 clue—I wanted to say "What shall we eat—one another, or breakfast? I might have been inspired by this drawing by Jan van de Rijn:

I feel it's time to introduce myself. I'm an old codger, past my eightieth birthday. The woman who's kept me warm at night for the last nineteen years is getting on a bit too. But then, she's Black, and if you don't mind my speaking frankly and truthfully, Black women keep their looks better than white ladies. Just my biased opinion of course.

Dr. Shyam Sundar

I'm a bit frail these days, in and out of hospital for tests and examinations of everything, say no more. Two days ago it was to see a neurologist. He said I looked no more than 60: a charmer certainly, but I think it's true. As for the frightening period earlier this year when I went crazy without realizing, it was important that my beloved was there, to report what had frightened her: essentially being changeable,  prone to uncontrolled anger and some alien person who'd taken over the man she'd married.

The doctor carried out numerous tricky tests, mental and physical., Asked many probing questions. After much thought, he concluded that my brain had been infected by a virus, no idea what it was because the lumbar puncture found no infection in my spinal fluid. Like the common cold, it clears up by itself.

One of the things my wife mentioned was my period of ED. He affected not to know what this stood for, so she spelt it out: erectile dysfunction. so he said she must expect that after 19 years together. And was it better now? She said she's no complaints. And I piped up, truthfully, "it's better now than it's ever been!", at which she blushed in that invisible way under dark skin, and said "Hendrik!" implying too much information. She thinks I'm only 80% cured and told the doctor so. I said I don't want to be cured any further.

So there you have it from this anonymous correspondent. My name is not Hendrik and I don't come from Velp in Gelderland, Netherlands. I was actually born in Western Australia, after my mother's Dutch husband was killed in Java by the invading Japanese. I did spend 3 months in Velp aged 5 but that's another story.