Over the last few weeks there have been a few more noticeable milestones.

In the life of anyone not recovering from a stroke they would be insignificant. But when an action, reaction or emotion suddenly reappears after being absent for more than 18 months, their re – appearance is literally remarkable.

Firstly an incident which most of us would just heave a sigh at, and get on with it;

Ants in the cat food.

This happened one day whilst I was at work. They came into the house, marched across the length of the kitchen floor and then infested the dry food. When Amanda spotted the problem she did several things;

Firstly she managed to bend down and pick up the dish; a movement I didn’t think she was capable of. Next she remembered where we keep the clean dishes and the food. She then remembered the best way to protect the food was to put the dish into a saucer of water, so the moat keeps the ants at bay.

This simple procedure required both the planning and execution she has shown no motivation for. Until now.

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The day before my birthday was just another day for Amanda. She worked on her Constant Therapy app, watched a couple of quizzes on TV and listened to her audio book.

Except she didn’t.

She told me all these things were happening when I Facetimed her after lunch. In fact she had surprised her support worker by announcing she wanted to make me a birthday cake, which she then spent the morning doing.

As far as I’m aware, humans are the only species that can keep a secret. it’s something small children (or rather their brain capacity) have a hard time doing. But Amanda sat stony-faced and lied convincingly to me during the call. It’s a trait which she has managed to re-acquire, or redevelop, which is completely fine with me.

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The final revelation was on Sunday afternoon when she asked me if our son was moving house. When I told her ‘”No” she said she had an extremely vivid dream about it the night before and then proceeded to recount details of the dream, more then 12 hours later.

I’ve read many stroke recoverers lose the ability to dream and Amanda has been no exception. She has not been concerned by it and in fact says she just sleeps very soundly.

But ‘experts’ tell us dreams are important for making sense of our emotions and for allowing our brains to file and sort memories.

That skill appears to have also returned, along with all the others.