Monday 30 April 2018

Lamps

Saturday we took the new lamps back & got a refund. In the post of the same day we received a catalogue from some company which, among other things, had a lamp with a wooden stand of the right height. We’ve sent off for that. Hopefully this time at least one of the lamps will have found its replacement.

Our lounge has a lot of wood – wood desks, wood occasional table, wood shelves, wood coffee table, wood TV stand – so hopefully this two-toned wood lamp should fit in fine. Its shade is a beige colour which should stand out against the white walls & echo the gold of the curtains & the browns of the differing woods.

Our gardener recommended us to get a Himalayan salt lamp. Yesterday we had a look at some on-line. They apparently give off a pinky orange glow. They are supposed to have a therapeutic effect on negative feelings in people & computers alike. We’ve looked. We could certainly do with de-stressing. The price is fine. When the light is switched on I can see the attraction. My problem is that most of the day we do not have lights on, & I’m not about to start doing so now. The unlit lamp looks like just a rough lump of orangey unshaped rock on a wooden stand. I’m not sure how long I could look at that without getting irritated. We’re still thinking about this one.



Saturday 28 April 2018

Feeling low


I seem to have been a downer this week. I thought I was regaining my bounce but it seems to have gone away again. I made the mistake of looking on-line about the implications of too much calcium in the blood. There’s the obvious osteoporosis. More concerning to me, is that it is a sign of possible pancreatitis, a very uncomfortable complaint I’ve had once before & would never wish it on my worst enemy, kidney disease (a sign the Chronic Kidney Disease is back perhaps?) or even a tumour, most likely breast cancer. I feel I’m having to cope once more with the idea of a lot more medical intervention, not to mention more worry. It just seems to be one thing after another. It’s only been since our recent French holiday that I’ve begun to feel more relaxed, more myself, more on top of things & now more problems are about to begin again. Ultimately I think that’s why I’m so low.

It didn’t help when, on Thursday, we went to collect the lights we’d ordered on my birthday earlier in the month. Today, the Fox’s birthday, we’re taking them back. It isn’t that we don’t like them per se, rather we don’t like them in our lounge. The LED lights are too bright, too coldly glaring, too blue. There’s no way to dim them a bit short of draping some dark cloth over them. I wouldn’t mind so much if, on second viewing I didn’t like them, but I do. We just can’t cope with them in our softly lit lounge. So it’s back with the lamps, & back to the hunt.

The third thing to have gone wrong this week is that we started the process of organising a holiday in Italy – we’re determined to get to Lake Garda for that holiday last year that ended up being cancelled due to the collapse of Monarch Airways. We’re hoping to go in September, a boost just before my next bit of chemo in October. Yesterday we got a phone call from the travel agents – our first choice hotel has no disabled rooms left for the dates we want to go. The agency is now trying our second choice hotel. We wait. The wait doesn’t give me much sense of cheer.

Still the sun is shining this morning, so it can’t be all bad. It just seems to be difficult to accept that is the case sometimes. Maybe the meal out we’re having to celebrate the Fox’s birthday will boost my morale.

Thursday 26 April 2018

Croquettes & narcissi


I’ve just been crumbing some croquettes for dinner. This time they’re beef ones using some leftover roast beef. I’ve added some horseradish sauce to give them a bit of a lift. They should be quick & easy to fry up this evening.

Then I ventured into the garden to pick a few narcissi. It’s been wet & windy the last few days with the result many are virtually lying on the ground. I’ve filled a vase with the flattened ones. They will fill the lounge with their sweet scent & give us a certain joy whenever they catch our eyes. And that will be fairly often as I’ve put the vase next to the TV. I’m just hoping the scent won’t be so strong we end up with streaming eyes. There’s still plenty of more erect narcissi left dotted around the garden to give us pleasure there.