Oh no!

While I was busy washing up a parcel arrived.

Mike took it into the lounge and started opening it, well he got Toni to.

Can you tell what it is yet?

I'm not impressed with the service! Aren't they supposed to lose it at the depot only to find it six months later after irate phone calls and threats of legal action?

April showers, more like an Arctic monsoon!

Firstly an update on Mike. He is feeling much better than he did on Saturday. He is still coughing, but it's not as painful as it was. Of course he seems to cough more at night, waking yours truly, although it may simply be that I have no choice but to listen to him then. ;-)

As some of you will know, the weather has taken a turn for the worse here. Ironically the second they announced that the area is officially in a drought, the heavens opened and we had first the typical April showers (that bring the flowers that bloom in May) followed by constant rain with the odd hailstone episode and strong winds. I'm not a happy bunny, it's wrecking my garden!



As you can see Toni's bunny isn't very happy either.

 I did have some good news on Saturday though, my ironing board collapsed and is now unusable (hooray!) Even better is the fact Mike has been too ill to take me to buy a new one (double hooray!) Unfortunately he decided to go online and order one yesterday (boooooo!!) Fingers crossed it takes a couple of weeks to arrive, by then Mike will have fished his shirts out of the pile and worn them any way.

Now don't laugh at him Toni.

Mature love is bitter-sweet.

When Mike and I met the joy I felt at being given a second chance at love was immeasurable. The thought that I wouldn’t get old alone but had found my soul mate with whom I would grow old was so wonderful that I accepted the lost years of memories not shared and imagined we would create our own.

For a couple of years we did create a few memories. We visited Lake Como and saw Nick Hancock on the ferry, travelling past George Clooney’s mansion as we went down to Como for the day. Another day we got the bus down but couldn’t find where to get back on it when it was time to go back to the hotel and ended up getting a ferry which was going to the next village up. We had to walk back in the pouring rain, passing a house with 101 on it when none of the other houses had numbers. We still reckon it was Nick Hancock’s. We visited St Moritz where even the bin men wear white overalls that are spotless and the public toilets have Andrex puppies on a roll toilet paper.

We had a holiday in Turkey when whatever our mode of transport, we seemed doomed. The plane we were supposed to fly out on had a problem with its engine and we were transferred to another airport. Eventually after a seven hour delay we were on our way. When we arrived in Turkey in the early hours the coach we were being transferred on had a tyre blow out and we spent hours going in the wrong direction so the driver could get it repaired. The boat tripped we booked visited only two of the islands on the schedule as the sea was too rough and so the Turkish passengers on board kicked up a stink and got us all our money back. We just had to stand there open mouthed and watch. We visited the mud bath and sulphur spring at Dalyan which miraculously healed the mosquito bites instantly. I just wish I could have bottled it and brought it home.

In 2008 we had a break at Lake Garda and I broke my camera. Mike suggested we take the cable car up to the top of Monte Baldo. I spent the whole trip with my eyes closed, I’m scared of heights. When we got the top Mike beckoned me over to have a look at the scenery. Not a good idea. I became extremely dizzy, slipped on the rocks and fortunately fell as I turned away, breaking my camera and bruising both my ego and my knees.

Our last holiday abroad was a return to Turkey. It was during that holiday that I first realised that all was not well with Mike. He just didn’t have the same “get up and go”, preferring a sun bed by the pool to trips. We did go snorkelling in the famous Blue Lagoon though and spent hours following a small octopus around.

Today I feel a tad robbed. I realise I’m not alone. Sometimes it is hard to live with the knowledge that you have missed out on what feels like a lifetime of memories. I guess we’ll just have to make the best of the ones we have yet to make.

To bed or not to bed?

I had hoped my next blog entry would be the cheerful "look how gorgeous my garden is" type or may be "look what I made isn't it / he / she fantastic". Instead it's the grumbling sort. Mike has yet another chest infection (if the truth be told I think it is the same one that has been around all winter, but Mike doesn't agree.) So after a fitful night's sleep it was off to the emergency doctor's at nine this morning to get a course of antibiotics. All pretty normal in this fab world of myeloma.

Now when I'm ill I tend to lounge on the sofa with a blanket and potter back and forth to the kitchen with occasional assistance from anyone who is passing, but Mike takes to the bed and has me running up and downstairs, which would be fine if I wasn't also not feeling my best (I somehow managed to inflict sneeze deafness and dizziness upon myself!) and if when I provided the requested refreshment he actually drank it. That's another thing, when I'm ill I still eat and drink, I was told by my mommy that I needed the energy to fight the infection, Mike does neither.

So a question to all you lovely blog readers, what do you and your loved ones do when they get ill?

Love you all. x

Sadness and support

I was going to try and blog weekly, but yesterday we were just too busy.

The weather has been glorious recently and we have spent a lot of time in the garden, creating new flower borders in the hope that we can add some colour to an otherwise green area and veggie patch. We were up bright and early and managed to erect a trellis and plant a jasmine before we got ready to attend a funeral.

Yesterday was the day we said goodbye to Sharon who died on March 10th aged 41 as a result of the dreaded MM. We had gotten to know her over the last couple of years after we met at an infoday and then kept bumping into her in Sainsburys and then when she was in the QE at the same time as Mike. Sharon was brave enough to go straight for an allo SCT which her mom said yesterday was 100% successful. I'm not a myeloma expert, not even a doctor, but it would seem that somehow despite the treatment, there was a tumour on her spine that refused to go away, that the myeloma found another way to get her and by January Sharon was paralysed from the diaphragm down, her worst fear.

The true irony for Mike and I was to discover that Sharon had for ten years before her diagnosis been a nurse at Compton Hospice. Some pay back for all her good work!

I can only hope that should I find myself in similar circumstances as her husband, children and family, that I can conduct myself with as much dignity. Who am I kidding, I'll bawl like a baby!

Typically of funerals, we did finally get to met another member of the club who lives locally and is part of the internet community. She too has a jack russell!

Later on in the afternoon Mike and I were back at New Cross to attend the first blood support group meeting with Karen our CNS and hopefully a few other patients. As it was there was Karen, Mike, me, Tony (nuclear rod man) and a couple who were "big" in the last support group which had died some years ago and who were convinced we'll never getting it going again! At least we've now got a dinner date arranged with Tony!!!

So a day of tears and laughter, just like many others. Now I'm off out into the garden before going to my local church to give my 3 monthly blood donation.

21st Garden - March

Here we go again.

This year we are growing tomatoes, swedes, butternut squash, courgettes / zucchini (yes Paula, again!), beetroots, asparagus (takes 2 YEARS), carrots and peas. The chillies have started to grow:

The onions are starting to sprout:

The potatoes are in the garage 'chitting':

The blackcurrant and strawberries have moved to new homes, away from the strangulating raspberries:

Oh and Mike requested I post a much clearer view of the beautiful gate he made for me:

Not long now.

Only two days until the first day of Spring and the start of my monthly 21st Century Garden photos. I am really excited as I have extended the vegetable patch in my garden this year, so hopefully there will be more to show you all. I haven't got any photos from January, but I did take a couple last month.

Last year the veggie patch fence was between the corner by the house and the post and the post and the hedge. If you look carefully, I reckon you can all work it out.

I did take a photo on 1st March so you could all see the wonderful gate that Mike made for me. The original one that I had when I created the patch two years ago, while Mike was lazing about in hospital, was constructed from an old cot side and was never made to last given the British weather.

Well, you can see a bit of it.