Not a fun week

Our little grandson at 11 weeks old had to have an operation to correct a narrowing between stomach and intestines. We thought things were not right when they stayed a few weeks ago and H has been back to the doctor with Jacob several times in the last few weeks and finally got referred straight to their local hospital for tests. They then had to wait for nearly 2 days for a bed  at a bigger hospital.
 Apparently quite a common problem for babies, mainly boys, and is quickly sorted. But another thing to worry about and being a distance away makes things worse.
And how do you tell an 11 week old that he is nil-by-mouth!
He should be able to go home in a day or two and fingers crossed that will be the end of it and he will start to feed and put on weight properly.

Meanwhile Colin is still not feeling any better, he has been on constant drips of saline, blood , antibiotics or platelets, one after the other or two at a time.

I'm just trying to keep on an even keel and not fall off the tightrope - mixed metaphors there but you know what I mean!


I think I will be glad to see the end of August
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Sue

Half of August gone and links to old posts

August days are creeping by and Col has now been in hospital for 2 weeks. We hope by the end of this week  a lot of the nasty chemicals will have worked their way out of his system and he will start to feel much better. As well as not sleeping, stomach ache, sickness and diarrhoea, he now has sore mouth and throat and not even enough energy to write on his Facebook page. So  it's one thing after another just as the cancer nurses told us - they've seen it all before.
He's been trying to avoid infection by keeping all visitors, except me, away, but a text from him this morning say's he has a temperature so it will be antibiotics and all their nasty side effects added into the mix now. No wonder this is the worst part of the treatment.
 I've been plodding along at home trying not to worry and watching lots of Olympics .

On Friday the beach hut tempted me away from the TV and I spent over 4 hours down there including a swim in the flat calm sea. I read most of this while I was there.


Jan Struther is more well known for her book Mrs Miniver, but this is a collection of very clever and witty essays and sketches. Although written in the 1940's by a "upper middle class, lower middle age woman" the humour in the stories hasn't dated at all. You just have to love the writing of someone who says ".....and there are people to whom making lists is an end in itself, a pure, abstract and never failing delight". Oh yes!

Saturday saw me biking to the library, but going the long way round so I could call in at the  Emmaus Charity shop where I  found a pack of 3 Pairs of M&S pants - Col's Size - for £2 - handy. ( Question - in the States what we call trousers you call pants so what do you call the items of underwear that we call pants? )
Then I spotted this for £4,

  I'm a sucker for baskets,( I wrote about baskets when we were still at the smallholding) as long as they are cheap, I have no idea why I'm so tempted and the problem is .....................now I've got it what the heck do I do with it? I already have a smaller one with dividers for 4 bottles that I used to use standing in the upstairs bathroom for cleaning stuff etc........here it's in the kitchen holding shoe cleaning bits. Then I have a small hamper that I begged from Col's brother after he won it in a draw last Christmas. That's standing on the TV unit holding all the chargers and other bits and bobs. 2 big storage baskets are up on top of the wardrobes holding shoes and winter wear. My favourite from that old blog post is in the kitchen holding potatoes (on newspaper and covered over with black fabric to keep out the light).
I'm really an idiot for buying it as we are so short of space here and a bargain is only a bargain if you actually need it! I'm thinking it would be more useful if I took a pair of secateurs to the 6 canes holding the dividers in place and made a nice big oblong basket.

Sunday I did a bit of tidying in the garden, re-potted the thyme, shopped at Asda, visited Colin and watched more Olympics........ even the finalé of the golf was exciting!, then in the evening things got more and more enthralling with medals being won all round. Andy Murray's tennis medal was real fight.

Yesterday apart from a visit to Colin, I took a few more bits to the charity shop and started on unpacking and sorting another box from the shed. I didn't find anything we needed indoors but chucked a couple of bits in the dustbin and others into the charity shop bag and re-packed most into a sturdier box.

Thank you you for all the interesting comments about housed deeds and house prices. We've always been so lucky with buying and selling houses. I wrote about all our house moves HERE.
So many house moves in our married life, I can't imagine staying in one house for life like many people did in the past and a few do now I guess - Col's Dad is 85 and has only ever lived in 2 houses!

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Sue






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Deeds

Finally - after 4 and a half months - we've received all the deeds and land registry stuff back from our solicitors. The hold up due to the Land Registry Office being really busy because of so many people buying and selling during March before stamp duty changed. It's fascinating to see old house deeds and just like Fareacre we have deeds going back to the nineteen-thirties. The odd thing is it seems that this bungalow was built in 1955 exactly the same at Fareacre, but using better quality building materials.
 We've got maps with all the field sizes before this huge estate was built bit by bit over 80 years and I guess still on going, as a house and bungalow down the road both sold off part of their garden to make room for a new bungalow just last year.

There is even an old Building Society Book to show where a mortgage was paid off in the 1970's.
 What did surprise me is we seem to be only the 3rd people to have owned the bungalow. The original owners had it built and then the lady lived on here after she was widowed until she died aged over 90 in 2011.

Now how things have changed - no more deeds with beautiful copperplate writing, tied with ribbon and sealed.............. just a piece of paper telling you your property purchase has been registered with the Land Registry.

  Looking through everything I came across the survey done for the people who were here before us and it mentions all the ceilings were covered by polystyrene tiles - Thank Heavens they were removed before we got here!

Back soon
Sue


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Sorting boxes and cheering up the living room.

There were about 15 boxes of possessions out in the shed with no room for them in the house and many of the boxes were third-hand, rather tatty and  more tape than cardboard.  After a sort out indoors I managed to make an empty drawer in the dresser and then found a sturdy box in the garage so I've begun to empty some of the flimsier old boxes, re-packing what we want to keep, bringing one or two things indoors and putting some things in a bag ready for the charity shops. Three tatty boxes have been so far been squashed into the recycling bin, several more still to sort.
In one box I found my Poundland fairy lights and they've gone around the hatch between kitchen and living room which was the only place  near enough to a plug.

I've avoided charity shops and car boot sales all week but treated myself to a bunch of Freesias from Aldi.
  They are lovely, but not many in the bunch. So I bulked them out with a few bits from the garden (I'm a shove them in a jug flower arranger!)

So with the bunting, fairy lights and flowers the living room looks much cheered.

 By the way if you are looking for some cheap fruit bushes Aldi had all sorts for around £3, that's one heck of a lot less than the seed company catalogues so probably worth a try if you have room.

The nasty affects of the chemo have caught up with Col, he felt really rough yesterday. Just wanting to lay resting with eyes shut.  This is not unexpected and his 'obs' are all OK so nothing to worry about. Just a matter of time.

Looks like we are in for a sunnier and warmer day than yesterday - the beach hut beckons - if I can tear myself away from the Olympics, where they seem to be doing pretty well - loved the track cycling last night.


Back in a day or 3
Sue

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This and that..........and books

Thank you for so many comments. Hello to Bridget, good to hear from you and lovely to see you back blogging and thank you to Pat (hope you are still recovering well). Thank you to everyone who's reading Col's Facebook page, there is a smiley Jacob as his page header now.

We don't feel particularly brave dealing with Non Hodgkins, just getting on with it day by day and looking forward to the end and full recovery when we can decide what to do next. Whatever we do it's got to involve growing fruit and vegetables in a bigger garden, as I'm really missing it.

Col has now had all his nice clean stem cells back, we might be at the end of treatment, just waiting to see
  a.  what effect that last chemo session will have,
 b. how low his blood readings will go
 c .how long he will take to recover
 d .if he can avoid  infections while his immune system is almost nil.
He isn't in complete isolation, I've been everyday and he's had a few other visitors but he's asked people to check how he's feeling before they visit. The cancer specialist nurses encourage a bit of walking about - down the corridor, not into the ward, - to keep muscles working

The phone was sorted on Tuesday afternoon - ahead of predicted time, blimey - well done BT (no-one says that very often!) I'm struggling on with the lap top - it's slightly better than it was - but I don't want to take it in to the 'puter shop until Col is home with his lap top.

According to the weather forecasts we are in for a heatwave next week. I've found the electric fan from the box in the garage and given it a clean ready to take in to hospital. His room has been very warm some days so temps in the 30s will be horrible. The windows don't open very far - presumably so that no-one hurls themselves out in despair at the quality of hospital food!

I'm still loving the Olympics, I've watched all sorts of sports never usually seen on TV. There are just 2 things that don't appeal - namely water polo which just looks like a whole load of blokes(or girls) playing ball in a pool and beach volley ball - more blokes(or girls) playing ball on a beach!
I watched the Gold for the 3m synchronized diving, well done them and  better than Tom Daley who I've always  thought was a bit too pleased with himself.

Read this book the other day, got to the end and decided I must have missed something as I was lost, didn't get it. I remember this feeling when we read The Gun by C.S Forester at school when I was 12!

I haven't bothered to re-read The Gun and I won't be re-reading The Other Mrs Walker either.
Instead I have a pile of Large and Heavy (weight not content) library books to get through, couldn't decide which to read first so choose instead another Angela Thirkell off my own shelves and read most of 'Cheerfulness Breaks In' while at the beach hut last Sunday.

 Other book news
 I think this is the first of the British Library Crime Classics that I've not got into. Too silly.

I'm not sure if I can cope with this book. It's huge and scholarly. Having read many of the war time books published from Mass Observation. I was interested to see the history of the organisation set up to record what ordinary people thought, but it's a bit dull so far.


Col read this a couple of weeks ago although it was one I had requested from the library after hearing about it somewhere. He wasn't sure I was going to like it and I've not tried it yet.


Also I must finish the Beatrix Potter diary, started it weeks ago and got put off by the weight of it! ( perhaps I can see the benefits of an e reader for a book this size).

Back Soon
Sue

Not our problem

Do you remember all the things that were not working last week?

Well, Son brought his phone and plugged into our socket and that didn't work either. So the problem is outside the house and will be sorted on Wednesday (don't hold your breath). Could also be the reason why the computer is sluggish. It's driving me nuts as I get about 10 minutes before it seizes up (so apologies for hardly doing any commenting)

and the kettle has returned to switching itself off..............sometimes.

I had a good day at the beach hut on Sunday, got down there by 8.45 and not a soul around. It got busier and sunnier as the day went on and it was lovely to see so many children having fun in the sea. I thought about a swim but got well into a book and before I knew it it was time to pack up and visit Col on my way home.

He has had the 6th and nastiest chemo session today. Loads of fluids in and they carefully measure everything out again! They even provide ice-pops which help to stop sore mouth problems. He gets his clean stem cells back tomorrow and Wednesday.

Thanks for comments and I have never been to Ikea either or Matalan or Bon marche or TK Max or that other one I can't remember...... maybe  HM?.

Sorry to people who don't like sport ( not really - hard cheese!! you're stuck with it for a fortnight).

Back next time the lap top is behaving
Sue

Saturday 2pm

I've already been to the car boot sale, Tesco and Poundland and filled up the car with diesel. I've visited Colin and delivered him some fruit and clean underwear. I've had my lunch and washed up.
 Now I can settle down to see the first Olympic events. The men's cycle road race has just started and they have 6  HOURS in the saddle ahead of them. The thought of it makes my bum hurt!

Here's another selection of car boot purchases - total spend £6.70p. Best bargain was the Union Jack bunting which is un-opened M&S labelled up £7.50. I would have paid a couple of pounds but she only wanted 50p! I'm pinning it on my dresser to celebrate the Olympics

The ink cartridges (£1) are a good find although I've only just bought some new a few weeks ago, but as they are vacuum sealed they'll keep. Other things pictured are another basket for a hamper, a couple of small Xmas gifts, more baby nappies and some 3D Christmas decoupage sheets for card making.

I seem to be always showing pictures of car boot buys.
 Can you guess  why I never take photos of all the things I buy for the house from John Lewis, Next, Dunelm, The Range, etc etc , etc?
The answer is simple.............I don't go in any of these shops. In fact I've Never Ever been in John Lewis or Next Home. I try to avoid buying new if I can. So only electricals, carpets and wardrobes have been bought new for the house in the 5 months we've been here.

Back Soon
Sue