Sharon´s brain exercises

Sharon had been sitting quietly for some time and was asked if she was all right. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I´m just doing my brain exercises.”

This was a new one but Sharon has come up with many surprising things since her almost-fatal stroke in February last year. “What are your brain exercises?” She explained.

“First of all you take the first letter of the alphabet, A, and the first of the vowels. You go through the alphabet trying to make up words.

“I don´t know of anything starting with double AA, so I go onto the next one, AE. Can´t think of anything there either. But with AI, I get aid, air – and so on. Then AO, AU. Then I try to think of straight old A with all the consonants, starting with AB, AC, AD right up to AZ. I try to make up many words as I can, the longer the words the better because if you were being scored you would score more for a longer word than a shorter word and it is a better exercise. Proper names are not allowed.

“It takes me about a fortnight to get through the whole alphabet. Sometimes it is difficult to remember where you left off. Especially when you start getting up to the LLs.”

Sharon is registered blind and can´t read, so it is impossible for her to make any written notes. She does this whole exercise literally in her brain.

“I just started doing it one day when I was trying to think of how to spell a certain word for some reason. This gave me the idea.”

Sharon never ceases to surprise.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009