The wife wants to humiliate me!

She'll deny it, of course, she'll say it's for my own good. But I know the truth, she's out to make a laughing stock of me, a figure of fun, the village idiot. 

And it's all so easy for her to do and, what is worse, it can be dressed up as concern for my future health and wellbeing, So when a jeering mob pelts me with rotten fruit, she can smile and say it was all for my own good, whilst having a discrete snigger to herself. So what is she up to? 

Getting me to sing! 

I seriously think being hung, drawn and quartered is a more appealing option. I can't sing. I can't hold a note. If I was to run a protection racket, I wouldn't send the lads round to reluctant payers, I'd supply a CD of my greatest hits.

They'd be begging for mercy.

Now I know the argument she will use. My voice is getting soft and hard to hear. Singing loudly is a good way to counter this and besides as a music teacher, the lessons would be free.

Huh, the neighbours will be lining up at the courts demanding they issue cease and desist orders to shut me up. The legal fees will bankrupt us.

And I would understand, I don't want to have to listen to me sing either.

Of course, she went about arranging this in a sneaky way behind my back, to enable her to present the lessons as a fait accompli. I wouldn't yet know except I was in a pub with a few mates one night when one of them, married to a neuro physiotherapist, asked me how the singing lessons were going??????

From my response, he knew immediately that he'd let the cat out of the bag.

I could have stormed home and demanded an answer to why this was being plotted, but I didn't.

The pub was warm and friendly.

The company was good.

The wife might get testy. 

So deciding the cons outweighed the pro's of such a course of action, I ordered another pint instead. A wise decision.

However, when much later I arrived home, stiffened by liquid courage, I did express my outrage in no uncertain terms. She wasn't intimidated;

"It's for your own good, you need to exercise your voice and singing is a good way of doing it, besides you'll enjoy it"

"Whether I want to or not", I muttered, "So it'll just be thee and me, no one else? Nothing too public and embarrassing"?

She looked uncomfortable. Dear lord don't let it be a full choir, the humiliation would kill me.

"Well not quite, not too many, but no it'll be more than just you and me".

"How many"?

"Oh, no more than 2 or 3. Maybe 6, maximum of 10"

A bloody choir then. I groaned. I hate singing, I really hate it. And to do singing exercises with up to 10 others, and I will guarantee I will be the worst there, will be a strain. Can life get any worse?

But here's the thing, she is right. Singing is a good exercise to do if you have Parkinson's. This is what Parkinson's UK has to say on the subject:

"Singing has been shown to reduce Parkinson’s symptoms like tremor, and issues with walking and posture. This is because it helps to relax muscles and release tension in the back and neck.

Singing can also help to reduce anxiety and low mood by lowering stress hormones and increasing endorphins, the brain’s ‘feel-good’ chemical".

In my case, I'm not sure it will "help reduce anxiety", but the possible benefits can't be dismissed. In addition, singing improves Voice and Swallow Impairment, significantly improves respiratory control and enhances the quality of life.

So what's not to like? If it helps all those symptoms, shouldn't I just man up and get on with it?

Sadly the answer has to be yes. 

And I'll be honest I have always wanted to be able to sing. I hate it because of school, sarcastic music teachers and having to sing "My Grandfather's clock", which was changed to cock by adolescent boys, who thought they were the first to do so. 

This didn't improve the teacher's temper, who took revenge by making us sing it week after week and term after term.

Indeed if my music teacher hadn't been so good-looking, I could have hated her.

Bored and unmotivated teachers are a curse of the education system. They have destroyed many a pupil's interest in a subject. 

Of course, even a genius teacher wouldn't have made me a good singer, but I might have hated singing less. 

Which would have been a help today.

So I'll sing, endure the humiliation and hope I am never recorded! And maybe one day, just maybe, I'll sing a note in tune. It might be the wrong tune, but I'll settle for that.