Like meeting up with an old friend,

reading the blog of someone (like me) who inconsistently blogs, the conversation just picks up like we'd never stopped.....<ahem>.

This blog comes live from the lounge at East Cheshire Hospice where I am booked in for a blood transfusion. My haemoglobin is a bit low, and this ought to perk me up a touch.

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So I had a Saturday afternoon free the other weekend and decided I'd try and get a wee bit of exercise not only of me legs, but of me shutter finger.

I decided to hit Styal Mill, which is fairly close by, and should offer an off photo opp.

I've walked out of the house before forgetting a memory card, or a lens, or a battery, but I arrived at Styal only to realise I left my whole camera behind. I had a spare lens in my bag, but no camera. What a dunce.

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On Sunday nights BBC R5Live Extra broadcast an NFL game live from the States, and I put it on as I go to sleep. I used to be a regular listener to the radio as I went to sleep but have simply dropped out of the habit. However, there are occasions when a bit of live sport is nice. Not all live sport, mind.

I find boxing far too loud and jumpy. Cricket is not bad, but by far the best for sending me off is golf. The hushed tones of the commentators wary of distracting the players. Fab.

Back in the saddle again

No, not on my bike. Nor have I taken up equestrianism. Not a literal saddle, but today I went with Gel and Jen for a day in Buxton, and I not only took my camera, but took a few pics as well. Not very good ones, I grant you, but for the first time in yonks I felt good enough to scamper around and take a few. It felt very good to have my camera on my shoulder again, and to be looking for photo opps.

Hopefully as I get a bit stronger and my eye gets over the ring rustyness that a few months off must cause, then hopefully the quality might improve too.

Trees

Sofa

Stairwell

Here are a couple from May which must have predated all that pain malarky.

Peek-a-boo

Stockport Rothko

As you can see, none of these are exactly going to set the world alight, but they are quite precious to me as I hope it signals the start of an avalanche of (slightly better) tat for me to foist on you.

Hot, hot, hot

The other day we visited East Cheshire Hospice. Or, to be more precise, the Sunflower Centre, which is attached to the hospice. This was to tap into resources that are available to us like physiotherapy and complimentary therapy.

I've been given some gentle exercises to do to strengthen my back and arse muscles, and an exercise diary so keep track of what I do. All positive stuff.

I looking forward to going back in a couple of weeks for some Reiki or Reflexology.

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What's with the weather? I'm sitting here roasting, after a few days where it's been relatively cool. Just a normal autumn I guess. Saw this little fella as I walked up to get my paper today, perhaps another indicator that autumn is on the way.

Back again - lots of news

When I started this blog, it was to let people know how I was faring during my chemo during last winter. At the time I tolerated the chemo pretty well and so was still able to get out and about and do stuff, and then report back.

As you probably know the last few months the blogs have tailed off and that's been primarily due to the constant pain I've been having. It's had two effects, one to limit what I can do (and so report on), and secondly has made me feel pretty miserable and disinclined to sit and write the blog. 

Four weeks ago last Friday, I had a short shot of radiotherapy on the top end of my spine between my shoulder blades as a scan revealed that some cancer was impinging on the nerves coming out of my spine and thus causing all the pain.

Since then the transformation has been nothing short of miraculous. I'm sitting here having reflected on how my movement has improved beyond my wildest dreams, and how the pain has nearly all gone. I still have a few twinges here and there - my left shoulder has been giving me a bit of gyp - but I can even sense that these may be on the way out. 

Physically there has been a change, but also this release from the pain has lifted my spirits. There have been a few other events that have done this too......

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Wildlife corner

"Swift, I've just kicked a hedgehog"

Not a phrase I can say I've heard ever before. Gel was putting the bins out and in doing so her foot bumped against something. Now I've reported in the past that we've had hedgehogs in the back garden, but it's never occurred to me that they might scuttle around the front too. But there it was, rolled in a ball protecting itself from the booting it felt was coming next. The cats were super excited, but very confused. Gel took the little fella round the back and put him in the long grass away from feline eyes. We checked the following day and he'd safely made it away.

Not long after that we were driving up the avenue in the middle of the day and a similar (the same?) hedgehog was parked in the middle of the road. Sean, Gel's brother leaped to its rescue and put it back in the grass from whence it had come. 

Caitlin and Andy have been finishing off bits and bobs around the house, including painting the cellar to smarten it up. Most exciting news when they came across this handsome fella...

We reckon it's a toad, but if anyone with greater expertise can put us right...

The final part of wildlife corner is a report from Pheebs that she looked out of her window one night to see a badger scuttling around on the avenue. 

We could run our own Springwatch at this rate, having also had fox, heron and sparrowhawk in the garden in recent times.

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Secret squirrel

About ten days ago, I was contacted by Andy asking to keep Sept 3rd free but to keep the fact I was keeping it free a secret. So I did. He told me where the 'secret event' was to take place, and what special requirements there were (none). I kept it all hush-hush until the Friday night when I had to explain to Gel that we had an early start the following morning and she, and I, needed to be ready.

I couldn't tell her what the event was, nor who was attending (because I didn't know), but I asked her not to mention it to anyone else. She used her best interrogation techniques to extract information about what was going on, but I resisted, and so it was that we found ourselves sitting at a table in Tilly's in Castleton on Saturday morning waiting for something to happen.

Then Caitlin and Andy appeared, and Andy explained that he had woken Caitlin earlier that morning on the pretext of watching dawn rise on the top of Mam Tor. He had explained that we wanted to do the same. They took a picnic blanket and a flask of coffee. When the sunrise started, Andy seized the moment and asked Caitlin to marry him, ring at the ready. So when they arrived at Tilly's neither Caitlin or Gel knew who would be there. The start of a weekend of (happy) tears.

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18th

This weekend (Sunday) also saw Pheebs turn 18. We bought her a ticket to the Leeds Festival for her main present, but wanted to give her something personal to keep, and so did a little scrapbook of photos from "Early Days" through to now. Cue more tears.

Latest table

I went for my morning constitutional, picked up a paper and was reading it while waiting for visit from the MacMillan nurse I've had assigned to me, when I became aware of an odd sound.

At first I was convinced it was a cat snoring. So I ignored it, but it was persistent and a little bit too loud for that, so went to investigate, which is why I can show the latest table:


Cat                      Mouses      Birds

Poussey                    0               1
Boo                          2              0

Boo, the little bugger had caught a mouse (or found one that had died peacefully of natural causes after a long and fruitful life) and wouldn't let it go, hence the low growling.

He then spent a few minutes tossing it about while I forlornly tried to separate the the hunter from its prey.

Realising he wasn't going to give this one up as easily as he had the first, I shooed him out of the house and left him to it in the garden.

This is the mouth he's going to kiss me with later.........

OH

A nice visit from Occupational Health today to see if there were any aids they could provide to help me around the house.

At the time we were originally referred, it's fair to say I was in a bit of a state. All due to this pain around my ribs. While I'm not completely pain free, I think it's fair to say that there has been and improvement.

So we got to meet Freya today and discussed a number of possibilities for helping me around the house, from steps to get into the shower, to raising chair legs to make them a better height.

I think we've opted for a device that will raise me up in bed - or simply allow me to sleep at an angle - which is a bit more sophisticated that than the pile of pillows and duvet covers I'm currently using, a bottle to wee into if I find it hard to get out of bed (a bit of an emergency device this one as getting up isn't causing me too much bother just now), and a non-slip mat for the shower.

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All this thought about kit is starting to feel a little redundant as each day my rib pain gets better and better. It has a long way to go mind, to fully go, but there's a definite improvement.

This means I can start to think about doing things. No hang-gliding or ultra marathons just yet, but I am starting to feel I can plan to do things a little more. Like going to see the new Star Trek film, for example.

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We are enjoying the Olympics - watched a great doc about Danny Boyle's opening ceremony for 2012 too - but some of these "first week sports" are a hard watch. We enjoyed the synchro diving, but found the canoeing and horse stuff, and skeet shooting, a touch dull.

But, of course, the return of the footie after such a long break is very welcome.

Thanks to all for your kind words and messages. They've been a real tonic over the last few months where we've been suffering.