Grey again

The world is grey once more. The rain has returned after several weeks of absence. I'm contemplating putting on the lights it's so dark!

My sense of greyness is not helped by talking to my cousins yesterday.

First I phoned my cousin Alma.  She is the one recently diagnosed with lung cancer. This week she saw the specialist lung nurse.  She also had a biopsy taken. Now she waits for the results. Her sister Trudy & her husband have gone to stay with her, get her to the appointments, provide some support if needed. On the whole Alma sounds resigned & tired. I suspect she will be relieved to actually be doing something to hopefully improve the situation.

After speaking to Alma & Trudy, I rang another cousin Ann, who also has cancer, but of a different variety. She’s had it for a while now & has seemed to have been responding well to the chemo without too much adverse reaction. Unfortunately earlier this year she ended up getting very anaemic & having to have several pints of blood put into her. She restarted the chemo & is now feeling very tired, too tired to walk her beloved dog, & is once more off her food. This course of chemo ends soon. She has two weeks off during which she will have another blood test. I just hope all is well.

To top it all we read in a friend’s blog that he too has been diagnosed with a couple of carcinomas that need removing. He had one removed from his back a while back. It is to be hoped that the removal of these ones will go as well as last time.

Meanwhile, we hang onto the thought of our trip to Italy. I’m feeling rather put out by the hunt for travel insurance. The first company I tried wouldn’t insure the Fox as he is undergoing tests at the moment & the results aren’t known at this point. They would insure just me at the princely sum of over £420 for the 19 days. The next company wouldn’t insure us as I have over 5 medical complaints. I did suggest you could regard the hypertension, Chronic Kidney Disease, hypothyroidism & pancreatitis as all part of the one problem but they wouldn't have it. I’ll look on but I suspect we will be going without insurance. It’s one thing paying the Which average of £20-30, quite another over £420! That’s enough for another holiday!

A busy time

It’s been a busy few days.

On Tuesday we did get into Lancaster. We had to wait an hour and a half while they did his other two pairs of glasses. We thought that was preferable to having to make another trip into town to collect them.

By the time we were ready to go, it was getting to 5ish so we decided to eat out, a rather disappointing meal it turned out to be. The staff were very apologetic, couldn’t have been nicer, but it still doesn’t make up for a poor meal.

Wednesday was my birthday. As it was dry, even trying to shine a bit, we decided to go over to our old stamping ground of Arnside for a day out. We had an enjoyable stroll along the prom, reminiscing over old days, noticing how things have changed.

The sun had largely disappeared leaving a rather flat light, half misty looking. It was lovely to see the lambs in the fields with their mothers. But that was about the only sign of spring. The grass in the fields still looked very dead. No green haze of leaf bud veiled the skeletal trees. The rare daffodil flowered where normally there would be banks at this time of year.

After our stroll, we stopped at one of the pubs, the Albion, much enlarged since we lived in Arnside. The standard of the meals has improved immeasurably. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals. I had plaice with Morecambe Bay shrimps, while the Fox enjoyed his steak, mushroom & ale pie. As it was my birthday, we succumbed to the treat of a dessert each – hot chocolate fudge cake and ice cream for me, orange and lemon sponge & custard for the Fox. We returned home tired, happy & satisfied. It was a good day.

All this activity took its toll. Yesterday, we were both rather lacklustre, with me in bed before 9pm despite having been late up, nearer 9am, in the morning. It’s a little reminder we will have to pace ourselves for this holiday in Italy. Still, even if we don’t get to see too much, just getting away, hopefully in the sun & warmth, will do us good I’m sure.

A bit of Scott

I put the radio on over breakfast, Radio 4 as usual. My heart sank as I caught the unmistakeable voice of Jim Naughtie. Not another extra programme on the greatness that was Margaret Thatcher, I thought. It was with some relief I discovered that no, it was a programme on that other Scot, Sir Walter Scott.

I confess I have tried reading one of his books, “Kenilworth” to be precise. My mother, an amateur family historian, reckoned it featured one of my ancestors. I found the book very hard going, despite being essentially a book about love & a murder in Elizabethan days. It certainly put me off attempting to read another of Scott’s novels.

And yet I am forced to admit I have enjoyed screen adaptations of “Ivanhoe” & “The Bride of Lammermoor”. I’m aware his works have inspired operas by many of the great composers. I appreciate that much of our view of Scotland is coloured by his works. This was especially so in the Victorian era.

I just wish I could find him more readable. Maybe I should give him another try some time.

Escape

The news still seems to be full of the death of Mrs Thatcher yesterday. I’m here to escape yet more special programmes on radio & television.

We’re hoping to get off to Lancaster this afternoon. The Fox’s glasses are finally ready, so we need to get in to collect them & get the other pairs sorted while we wait. We have a few shopping chores to do - a bit of a clothes & shoe hunt, Lancaster is better for that.

I would prepare some food, but it seems a bit pointless. By the time we’re likely to get back, I suspect we will be ready for a quick microwave meal, or maybe even eat out for a change.

I’m thinking once I’m finished here, I’m going to start on the depressing task of getting a few travel insurance quotes. I expect, as usual, I’m well and truly going to feel like an old crock, falling to bits, by the time I’m done. There’s something about going through the long list of medical conditions we both have, or have had, which seems to shock people at the other end of the phone. What particularly gets to me is some of the things they regard as relevant. They still ask if I have ever had cancer. I have, but it was over 10 years ago with no sign of recurrence since the op I had in 2001, but some companies still want to know about it. What I fear will put the price up this time, is my pancreatitis & the Fox’s current mystery problem.

Oh well, we’ll see what happens. Wish me luck!

Worried

We’re getting worried now. On Thursday the Fox had to go to see the doc. Most of March he’s not been feeling himself. He’s been hit by waves of nausea & an upset tum, not exactly painful but unsettled. Things seemed to be getting worse earlier in the week so he finally went to see the GP, not his usual one.

As we expected, there was nothing obvious. On Friday we were back at the surgery for various blood samples to be taken. Now we wait until the beginning of May for the results.

He’s been given some antispasmodic medication. It does seem to be easing things. The Fox has also reduced his alcohol intake, joining me in grape juice with dinner & in the evening as we listen to jazz & put the world to rights.

However, we are beginning to wonder if the trip to Italy is going to have to be cancelled. We’re due to leave here the Sunday after he sees the doctor on the Friday. He’s telling himself, provided it doesn’t get dramatically worse, we can still go, even if we essentially end up staying at the hotel reading  most of the time. We’re trying to convince ourselves that we’re just reacting to stress (problems with benefits, the family bad news, everyday pressures of life etc), & for that matter, even to the excitement of our Italian adventure.

This coming week I’m intending to tackle the depressing task of getting some quotations for travel insurance. I’ve no idea what I can say about his latest problem. It’s not even been diagnosed at this stage. It could be a myriad of problems, some minor, some serious, but which? I suspect the premiums have just gone up yet again.

And should I get a year’s insurance or just the single trip? It usually works out cheaper to pay for one annual rather than two separate trips.

I’m certainly getting nervous about the idea of booking a second holiday abroad later in the year. We had been thinking of going to France then. At the moment I think we would be wiser to wait & see how things go. I just hope this isn’t going to be another year like last year, only with the Fox being the patient instead of me.

Onto the next thing

I’ve finished going through the guidebooks trying to decide we would like to visit on our holiday in Italy. The list is long. We will decide exactly where we want to go according to how we feel & what the weather is doing. There are certainly no shortage of places to see both near & far, a mixture of dramatic scenery and more cultural activities. I shall be amazed if we return without having seen some Renaissance frescoes. The lake area seems to have been much fought over, sometimes being part of Austria, sometimes Italy. One village even has 40 castles! I don’t expect we will visit them all!

So now I’m turning my attention to learning a bit of the language. As readers of the Fox’s blog will know, he is having some difficulty with Italian. I’ve always found languages fairly easy to pick up. I’m surprised to find I can already pick up the essential meaning even from the last reading passage in our course & I only did a couple of lessons last time we went to Italy some 3 years ago. I’m not saying I would pass as a local but I can usually get to the stage of making myself understood & understanding what others say to me fairly quickly. Unfortunately it will be the Fox who will have the job of finding out if something is accessible, if so by what entry, & to ask for help when needed.  I won’t be able to get up the steps to ask.

I remember when we went to Pompeii about 3 years ago having a fascinating conversation with our hotel chambermaid. Her son was working in Brazil, her daughter learning English at school. All this was done in Italian with a dictionary on the table between us.

I also remember that most of our conversations with non-English people ended up being in French. Even the French couldn’t believe we didn’t come from France! Maybe that will be the case this time.

We expect a fair amount of English to be spoken as clearly this hotel is expecting many English guests coming through Saga, unlike last time in Pompeii when I can’t remember bumping into any English people at all. I gather at the hotel, with Saga, some Italian classes are available. Maybe the Fox will find it easier to learn the language when he is surrounded by it being spoken around him. I hope so.

That change of hour

One thing that cheers me when we reach April is having that extra hour of daylight in the evening.

My spirits go up as I look out over the sunlit garden as we eat our dinner in the early evening.

In the main part of winter I’m only too pleased to close the blinds & shut out the worst of the weather, to wrap myself around in the cosy comfort blanket of home.

As the end of March comes I grow restless. I’m awake at a ridiculously early hour, too early to get up, but it seems so light. I’m ready for the extra hour in bed in the morning &, more importantly, the extra hour of light in the evening.

The clocks have changed now. I’m more content. I just need a bit more warmth to spread, but I can’t see that happening whilst this icy blast of a wind continues to blow. I suspect when it does, the blue skies will disappear & the rains will return. You can’t have everything.

Most years, in this country, there is a debate as to whether we should change this clock changing business. People in the south think it is irrelevant. They would sooner have it lighter in the evening all year round. They reckon there would be less accidents as tired children make their way home in the gloom. 

Personally I remember my childhood in the north of England, when this country did make the experiment of having a standard time all year round that agreed with the current British Summer Time. I hated going to school in the dark. It was bad enough going in gloom in winter, but pitch black was even worse. It may be gloomy in the winter evenings but no worse than in the morning. But we, in the north, have shorter hours of daylight than those in the south, a fact we sometimes are aware of even when we make the occasional trip down to Manchester these days. I suspect Scots would want the hours changed even more than I do.

Still, now the hour has changed. And, what is more, we’re even having a spell of sunshine & blue skies. Summer is on its way. I just hope it’s better than last year’s one was.