Can I still appear on a screen? Can I still write?

5th August 2022 

202 days to go

 Visit the head office of the London Chamber of Commerce yesterday even though it wasn't a Monday or Tuesday, the two days in which I still work at the Ashford branch. I was asked to take part in a video in which I explain what an EUR1 Movement Certificate is. I was given the wording to read through, but I'm aware that my memory is shot to pieces these days. I have taken part in a number of TV interviews and debates in my life, but that was in the past when I had self confidence and full mental capacity. However, I absorbed the message in my own words and watched the agony of my normally very competent colleague as he struggled to give a similar description of a UK Certificate of Origin and kept forgetting what he meant to say. When I was asked to face the camera I did a trial run, saying it all in my own words. I even asked for a chance to pause to check the wording before delivering the final thoughts about the ultimate responsibility of the HMRC for the validity of the document. To my surprise they had filmed my trial run and said it was good enough as it was. They played back a bit of it and I felt very embarassed about the occasional "urgh" and"ehh". The girls doing the films said it showed the authenticity of what I had said and that therefore I would not be seen by the London Chamber's customers as some hired actor asked to do the part, but as a genuine London Chamber employee. I'm not so sure. I think I should have been slicker, but it's their baby not mine. 

Then they suggested that I write the occasional articles for the London Chamber magazine Business Matters. They were aware that I had written numerous articles, in Polish and in English, in the past. However, now, I'm a bit outside my comfort zone. Such articles require concentration and precision but I feel my ability to do that is receding. I definetely feel a reduction in my mental capacity in my last year. Those seemingly non existent 75 years have suddenly crept up on me and are subverting everything, my concentration, my self-confidence, and even my capacity to enjoy anything, including the terrifying prospect of that world trip Albina and I have signed up to. 

  After that I had a visit to the Arab British Chamber of Commerce where I could put a face to the names of those I was speaking to, and I could see the process of having documents certified and legalized through their perspective. Enjoyable, but I am still left with the dilemma. Can I still write? May be I should do a trial run.

But in the immediate future I need to write an article (in Polish) about the drama concerning the Polish centre in Kirkcaldy. Here my intervention could make a difference, or it could renew the tension as I stir up my enemies from the past once again.