Unexpected phone call

We’d just finished eating our meal & were on our glass of wine when the phone rang. The Fox got up to answer it. No doubt the usual nuisance call we thought. The phone had gone at a not dissimilar time the night before, only then we’d just started to eat & no message had been left on the answerphone.

The Fox came back & ushered me to the phone. It was for me. It was my GP. We were both bemused.

No, there was nothing wrong. He was just ringing to check I was okay. He’d expected me to visit in a state of trauma over all the treatment I’d been having for the cancer. I assured him I was fine. Since the hospital was arranging everything I hadn’t seen any point in bothering my GP. I had only one query which he has hastily sorted.

I suspected the level of calcium I take needed to be upped. With the bisphosphonates I’m now having every 6 months I had gathered I should be having calcium. Although I have been having calcium tablets (as I need them to avoid regaining osteoporosis) it is only at half the normal level given as I have quite a bit of calcium in my diet. However, even if I hadn’t previously been having calcium I should be having them now so I suspected that now I should be having extra. My GP is now upping the dosage for the next couple of years. By then I will be due another DEXA scan to check how my bone density is doing & my treatment will be tweaked accordingly. So this morning I had my first morning calcium chew. I will have my second as usual at dinnertime.

I was utterly bemused to have had this phone call. With GPs being so busy – and certainly it can be difficult to arrange an appointment to see him – I was surprised, & touched. He seemed particularly put out that, having come through my last bout of cancer, operated on in 2001, I should have to go through the whole stress of cancer a second time. Still that’s life sometimes!

Oh, & it had been the doctor on the phone the night before.

Christmas once more

The jigsaw I’m currently doing is a two-sided one. I’ve already completed the first side, a colourful, rather Victorian-looking, illustration of the carol “ On the First Day of Christmas”. It’s full of children playing gleefully. Dotted around you noticed an old man playing a hurdy-gurdy with 3 French hens in its ornamentation. In one window you notice a partridge sat on a bare branch from which a couple of pears dangle. 5 gold rings decorate the Christmas tree, along with 10 lords on leaping horses. And so it goes on.

I debated whether it was worth doing the second side since, from the info on the box, I thought it was just the words of the carol on a monochrome background. I assumed it was just the list of the twelve gifts given by my true love. I nervously turned over an end of the jigsaw & realised that in fact the background was the same illustration as the front, only in sepia tones with the words imposed over it. I decided to have a go.

I took the jigsaw apart – no cheating. I had to start from scratch. I thought it would be easy. After all, if I saw the elements of “rid”, “part” & “ge”, clearly they made up the word “partridge” and so would be “a partridge in a pear tree”. What I hadn’t realised was that the jigsaw would go through every verse, with all the repetitions so there are 12 partridges in their pear trees.

What is more, the monochrome colour makes it harder to recognise the background picture. I’m glad I did the other side first. At least I know I’m looking for a couple of balloons even if the green colour doesn’t attract me to them. It’s difficult to distinguish between one gown from another without the colour differential to guide you.

Maybe after all it is worth doing the jigsaw on its second side. I am beginning to appreciate the texture of things more – something that always strikes me with black-and-white photography as opposed for full colour. Maybe this time I will be able to locate the “8 maids a’ milking”. On the colour side I could only find the one.

Avian warfare

It looks as though we’re getting set for avian warfare.

Why do I say this?

Yesterday I looked out of the kitchen window at our nesting box. For some time now a blue tit has been making regular visits, clearly anticipating it to be a new home for the coming offspring. However, yesterday I noticed a house sparrow looking around the same potential nest site. They won’t want to share home so I wonder which will win, the blue tits or the sparrows. Or is the sparrow just thinking of borrowing (stealing) some of the nesting material? I shall watch on.