Catching up

The sun is shining. This is a truly noteworthy event. This winter seems to have involved so many grey days, so many wet ones. Still, so far the worst damage we’ve had is the two leaning trees. The smaller one now seems to be being supported by its neighbour. In many ways I’m more worried about that one. If it was to push its neighbour over then expensive damage could be done. The other bigger tree, where it is, if it falls all it will do will pull down a bit of fencing which we’re intending to replace in the spring anyhow. So now we wait for April & the new garden.

This morning has been catching up on the problems of family & friends. All morning has been on the phone. Cousins Ann & Pat (kidney & breast cancer respectively) are both responding reasonably well to their chemo. Cousin Alma (lung cancer) is not doing so well. She’s had one cataract done but she seems to be sleeping most of the time. Her chemo has been stopped while she has her eyes sorted, but her sister Trudy suspects they’ve just given up on the chemo. It was an outside chance that it would do her any good right from the start. As for our friend PD so far all his tests seem to be negative. He’s still having regular hospital trips to try to decide the cause of his problems.

Meanwhile we just try to continue to pass our life slowly & quietly. Today I’m slow cooking some duck. It’s cooking in a mixture of grenadine with some pak choi & egg noodles. In other words there’s going to be a rather Asian feel to the meal – something a little different from usual.

We keep feeling it would be nice to eat out sometime. However, we usually find the food around here disappointing compared to our own home meals. A good bacon bap can be got at the golf club – it’s become a Friday treat. A reasonable jacket potato is usually available at the local village pub, though sometimes they can overwhelmingly huge. But a main course is more of a problem. Ricky’s is always good but we don’t fancy Chinese that often – once in a while is a treat, weekly or even monthly becomes tedious.