I'm not all there..... there's something missing

I know, most of my friends and family have told me this on more than one occasion!  But, this time something is truly missing....my gall stone and gall bladder.  After 2 years of sometimes excruciating pain I have had these offending items removed!  and I feel so, so much better already.  The stone was presented to me by my surgeon.  It's a little larger than an olive and I am now contemplating having it gold plated and wear it as a trophy! Pigment stones, which was what mine was,  are small, dark stones made of bilirubin and sit in the gall bladder awaiting there time to block the bile duct and have you doubled up in pain, I was going to post a picture of it but that seemed a bit gross so here's a picture of the gall bladder in situe. This shows the gall stones as green pea like objects, green because they are cholesterol stones rather than my grey single olive shape.  Apparently now it's gone I shan't miss it and the pain has gone along with it.  I wonder if it was a quality control issue that slipped from Gods build program?

Enough of all that.  Just before I went into my surgery my eldest son Richard and his wife Elaine's cat, Winnie, gave birth to 5 beautiful kits.  Sadly the first was born asleep so she now has just 4 lusty babies keeping her busy.  To the left is Winnie  the beautiful and proud mum. and these are her babies.  They were born on the last day of August and are coming on a treat.

Amazingly Eddy has fallen under the spell of the little tabby boy and he will be coming here to live joining Thomas (20), Bindi (9) and her uncle Floyd who is just a year old.

In the past I have had to beg, bribe of wheedle my way to have another pet so Eddy 'giving' me this little boy is very precious.  That's him on the left, isn't he a cutie?  So now I challenge you to come up with a truly  individualised name for him.  When he was first born we thought he was a girl and started calling him Tabitha, but I don't think he would appreciate that name now :) 

Winnie is a Calico cat part Main Coon and part Ragdoll.  Her temperament is fantastic, in fact all three kittens from that litter, my Floyd and Elaine's Harvey and Winnie are all so laid back.  The adore attention and I don't believe any of the three have ever scratched anyone.  Just perfect cats :)

Going back to my hospital stay although the operation went well during the surgery my lungs collapsed and I spent almost a week in High Dependency Unit.  That was such an eye opener.  The nurses and doctors are All highly qualified but that does not stop them from thoroughly cleaning the bed and bed space at the beginning of each shift.  Their air of confidence has an amazing effect on you the patient as I truly felt that I was safe in their hands.  The nurses are smartly turned out, have fantastic bedside manners and are on the ball 24/7.  I could not have had better treatment from the Queens own nursing facility.  Two nurses stand out in my mind Helen, who has  amazing empathy and seems to know just what you need almost before you realise it yourself and Vicky, a girl who looks beautiful from within and shows true compassion.  All the team, doctors and nurses were simply the best and I owe them so much. 

At home now I am on oxygen and feel a bit battered and bruised, but that will clear in a week or so, but I feel on top of the world!

 

about time too!

What a lazy blogger I am.  It's past the longest day so,  half way through summer and where have I been?

Well, nowhere actually.  Just been to full of my petty woes to bother blogging.   And there's me, always yabbering on at how positive you need to be if you have MS and how the glass is always half full.  Thing is I would have been that way except some thing or one fired a blinkin' great stone into my gall bladder and since it started to make itself known to me I have not been such a happy bunny!

But hey ho, it could be worse, I could be Mr Murdock and have all his worries and have to jet half way round the world in my eighties to protect the slimy cheating *very rude word* liars oh sorry journalists he encourages, oops I meant employs.. of course I did.  Thank goodness I'll never have his wealth - poor man, must be so hard for him Bwahhhhhhhhhhhhh!! tee hee.

Did you see the Royal Wedding?  Wasn't it just a wonderfull day?  I have to admit I am a true Royalist so would have enjoyed seeing them but with Katherine Middleton I believe this time they or rather William has got it right. 

You're never too old to.....................................

Never too old to learn.  There are many things I have learnt and the one that comes up again and again is "you're never too old to learn a bit of humility' I am pretty laid back compared to how I was pre MS & Stroke days.

However there is still one thing that really winds me up, that is queuing to put money in the bank (or taking it out for that matter.) I was in our local branch of Santander and at every resource there was a long queue, at the reception - queuing at enquiries - queuing and to see a teller , you got it queuing!!

Now we English  have always been the butt of jokes regarding queuing but I have never 'seen' the joke. Apparently if we see a line forming then we will join it therfore making a queue just for the sake of it.  I don't see that myself. I find it such a waste of time, and all time is precious, not to be wasted in a queue.

We had  parked close to the bank and as I did not want to get my carer to go to the trouble of lifting my scooter out, and I had my sticks with me we walked to the bank.

Standing is hard for me after a very short time and queuing takes it out of me. So not using my scoter  was my first mistake. Standing in the queue I overheard all the mumbles and grumbles from my fellow queue-rs. My second mistake was listening to them, that just exacerbated my own frustration. Just as I was nicely coming to the boil a member of staff was trying to get through the queue and I spotted her! Poor girl didn't know what hit her' "Where's the branch manager" I asked in a pretty stroppy manner. "He isn't available" the girl said, so sweetly, "can I help?" that was her mistake as she got both barrels of how there are always queues in her branch, there are only ever two tellers positions open when there are 5 available. That I have as have my fellow queue-res, who, by the way had by this point stopped grumbling and acted as though they had all the time in the world!, were sick and tired of always encountering queues at her branch.  The young lady, for she was thus, tried so hard to explain that there were other methods that were available for depositing cash or cheques which didn't require one to queue and of course the cash points were there to help as well. Huh, I'd got her there, I was banking money to my savings book so did need to see a teller! Again poor lass apologised and carried on through the banking hall. By the time I had been served I had noted most of the people in the queue were just paying in cheques to their accounts.

These were the people who could have used the 'other options' available to them. Then it slowly crept into my pea brain how unfair I had been to the bank employee. It really wasn't the banks fault, the queue was made up of people who need not have been there. I felt awful for the girl I had picked on and so on my next visit I went and found her and with a very red face and in hushed tones apologised! Humility, humble pie, some times they stand in front of you and will not go away until you accept a plateful and eat! So in future it will be mouth firmly closed if I am not aware of all the facts! Wonder if I can stick to it!

On a happier note Eddy and I spent a lovely day at Richards farm weeding overgrown raised beds, The sun was beaming down and it was a perfect day. Well it would have been if not for the nettles, they do sting so painfully and although we were surrounded by dock leaves, no matter how hard I rubbed the sore spot they did little to alleviate the stinging.  As you can see, one of the farm cats wanted to see what was going on - think he was thrilled we had sorted a nice spot for his personal use!  *note to self, get cat repellent for the veg garden!

Eddy had a good time expending pent up energy.  Digging and removing weeds is a great therapy and a healthy way to exercise. Well that's what I told him when he was beginning to flag.  Jack made the mistake of showing his face so he got roped in as well.  And a grand job he did! 

What did I do? well I sat between the beds and did a little light weeding and then made my way back to the farmhouse for refreshments. 
Notice the hair?  After persevering for almost 2 years I am know back to the old 'curly' me.  Joseph will be delighted as out of all the family he was the one to tell me that with straight hair I just didn't look like his Grammie anymore.

Dear Blog I must tell you that we had a terrific couple of emails from our friends Alice and Chris, who are working in Shanghai for the next couple of years.  Firstly it was terrific to hear of the birth of  their first grandchild, a little girl called Emily Grace (such pretty names) who was born to Chris's eldest son and daughter in law.  We have seen lots of pictures of her and she really is the cutest little doll!  I bet they are aching to hold her.  Which brought the 2nd great piece of news, they are coming home for a holiday in August!  I have missed them all so much it will be brilliant to see them all again, but doubly hard to say goodbye when the time comes.

As usual I have rambled on........................ so it's off to bed I go, Hi Ho, Hi Ho!!

Chasing the blues away.....................

Do you find there are times when for no apparent reason a murky grey cloud sits just inches above your head and before you know it you are feeling blue.

There is nothing really wrong it's just a feeling and a hard one to shift. I could never work out why it was described as 'feeling blue', after all blue should make you think of blue sky’s and sunny days; time to be happy and glad your alive. I think it would sound and explains the concept much clearer to say 'I'm feeling grey' - everyone would understand that. Any way I'm rambling again, so, to get back to my point. This totally uncalled for feeling, which is almost but not quite depression, has the ability to take the joy out of any day or even days.  So to distract myself  I began wondering just where we got the saying 'feeling blue' from.

My husband is an avid reader of the tall ships and the naval period of Nelson (Horatio, not Mandela or the guy from the Simpsons!) The writer Patrick O'Brien is one of his heroes. Think Master &; Commander and you will know the the type of story I mean.

Well, it seems that a lot of our sayings come from the Royal Navy and feeling blue is no exception. We are using a phrase coined from a custom among many old deep-water sailing ships. If the ship lost the captain or any of the officers during its voyage, she would fly blue flags and have a blue band painted along her entire hull when returning to home port. Indicating the sadness of the ship and crew.   Another one Eddy explained to me was Touch and Go - this relates to a ship's keel touching the bottom and getting right off again with no damage. Or how about Son of a Gun - I love this one.  Apparently ladies of easy virtue were often allowed to visit or even live aboard ship along with the crew when in port, and when the crew had been restricted to the ship for any extended period of time.  Frequently, but not uncommonly, children were born aboard, and a convenient place for this was between guns on the gun deck. If the child's father was unknown, they were entered in the ship's log as son of a gun.  Good eh?

Now I have no idea how this blog ended up rambling along till I helped educate you on Naval sayings.  It wasn't my intention.  I meant to record all about THE wedding and how my son Philip with Sarah and Joe got infected with Royal wedding fever and joined the crowds outside Buck house.  I also meant to introduce the rest of the four legged friends.  Never mind it will keep.  Here is a photo of Floyd III, our 'baby' of 11 months.  He hates to be left out of anything and I cannot have him sulking till my next update! So here's Floyd's waving goodbye pic!

Gotta start somewhere................

No blog for a while but back now - didya miss me?  I like to think so, my ego needs a lift from time to time!

Well you know if it wasn't for this internet thingy I would have more time to spend here and update my blog  - but I don't have time because of the internet thingy.

Like keeping up with friends - erm, that needs the internet thingy. That's why I got myself a FaceBook page.  Great idea?

Well it was till I discovered the games, or should that be apps? (*note to self, ask the grandchildren) So now now I just peruse what my friends and family have been up to and then it's straight to CityVille, that's my city, above.

Are you  impressed??
No ??  I tell you Ii sweated for hours to achieve this!

Well what about my Farm on Farmville ? Surely you can see the hours of work, the imagination and skill needed to set the farm out in a proper manner.  You can't ?

See, really that's my point.  If I added up the hours I spent on just the two activities above I would be horrified at such a waste of talent  flair, aptitude.... oh bum, OK it's a straightforward waste of time, not clever, not skillful,  just a plain old time waster.  When you get to my age that's worrying.  I need to use my time in a more sensible way and stop frittering it away as if I had all the time in the world.

At first I thought I would unsubscribe from FaceBook - I had heard it can be done and requires little or no anaesthetic!  But if I did that I would lose touch with some lovely people.  So I have made the decision to abandon both my City and Farm, I would 'unsubscribe' but cannot work out how to do it.  So I'll just convince myself they are not 'there'.

Impressed?  Bet you are.  I am.  I can now get down to doing the things I have promised I will do. 

• Like the Church website needs updating,
• Richard is waiting for me to get the Harveyshill site up on the net. 
• I need to do the finance reports for the next JCC meeting at Church. 
• I really should sort out the bedroom chest of drawers and get the winter woollies packed away.

So, that's that - I'll go and make a start right away....................................................

well I would but,  have you seen the latest FaceBook app ?

One foot in front of the other.............



Barbara & Ted



Eddy, Barbara and Ted all managed to get to Isabel's Pony Club event yesterday.  She did really well and got two clear rounds!  She was going over jumps set at 2ft 6ins and the judges commended her for not only clear rounds but keeping a steady pace all the way through.  I am so proud of her!

Unfortunatley I wasn't well enough to go so got all the days events second hand.  Never mind, the pictures were great.  Richard had told izzy that Eddy might not make it as I was unwell, Izzy stated that Grandad had promised and he would not let her down!.  Just shows how careful you must be when making promises to kids.  Eddy said after that he hadn't thought Isabel was really listening when he said it as she was busy grooming at the tme.  But our Izzy is a women I told him and we multi-task from birth!

Today, weatherwise, has been another sunny with clear blue skys morning and early afternoon .  This afternoon (I am typing this at 3.30pm,)  it has clouded over but it's still warm.  Feeling rough still, I could so just have stayesd in bed today.  But decided to just put one foot in front of the over and keep going.  So far I have done the basics and even managed a short walk with the dogs!  Could have done with my electric scooter but that was locked in the car and i couldn't find the keys. :(  Walking slowly through the lane with B & T and all four dogs was great but I am now exhausted.  But it was worth it as now I am tired for a reason and not because I have been stuck in bed.  So one foot in front of the other is going to be my personal mantra

Walking on sunshine..................

Where am I ??   Have I been whisked to Florida without noticing?


I think I need to be assured that this is really England, in April and yet the sun seems to have decided that it cannot wait for summer!  The weather can only be described as gorgeous, blue skies, bright sunshine and a cool breeze.  Who would have thought it?

I for one am going to make the most of it just in case Mother Nature realises her mistake.

We have Eddy's brother Ted and his wife Barbara staying with us so we took advantage of the sunshine and made a couple of visits. 

First stop was our son Richard's farm in Luffenhall.  Izzy had just got back from riding as we arrived. She gets bigger every time we see her even though it has been only days between visits!

 Isabel is a member of the local pony club and is competing at Tetworth on Sunday. 

Bluebell, her pony, had worked up a sweat so the first thing we did was to wash her, ready for tomorrow.  Izzy did that bit then we walked her through the farm and up on to a nice juicy grassed area so that Bluebell could graze while we hosed her down.  

She is such a well behaved pony and put up with our ministrations  very well.  Even when I tried my hand at squeegeeing her down, and it's been years since I was involved properly with horses, but even though I say so myself, I did a pretty reasonable  job!

It was such a perfect day and to spend an hour or two with my son and his family made it even more so.

We spent the rest of the afternoon with our friends, John and Daphne, in Aston.  Cream tea on the terrace was just so perfect!  Eddy did the shopping for Daphne so chose Roddas clotted Cornish cream.    The view from the terrace is so lovely.  It was very peaceful and time spent with John and Daphne precious.

All in all a truly memorable day.  Having Ted and Barbara with us made everything perfect!

Spring has sprung....................

At last, it really feels that Spring and warmer days are with us. I love this time of renewal. I watch the trees go from bare branches to tiny pin head buds and then watch the buds shoot fresh green leaflets. It's the most amazing thing to me. The days roll on and the tiny leaflets become recognisable leaves and the crowning glory, the beginning of the flower which will transform a plain deciduous tree into a magnificent Pieris, like the one on the left.  This is 'Forest Flame' and was uprooted from my Dad's house in 2000 and has been living with us ever since.  Every two years or so we replant it in a larger pot.  It's now, in it's pot, about 7 - 8ft tall!.

Last year my white lilac just had one flower stem. I was so disappointed as this is a lilac with the most gorgeous scent. But, this year it is smothered in mini flower buds, so now I cannot wait to see it in all it's glory. I tried to take a photo but was in a bit of a rush so the foreground is out of focus, but if you look closely you can see the flower buds just emerging to the left of this photograph. 

Elaine and Richard, my eldest son and his wife, bought me a Camellia in a little pot 3 mothering Sundays ago.  So after three years growth the photo to the right shows what it looks like now.  It is full of buds and a beautiful colour.  But will need to re-pot it this year as you can see, it has well grown out of it's original container. :o)



I haven’t introduced the members of our family. That is the four legged members. We are blessed with three dogs and three cats. Without them, before Eddy retired, I truly would have been not only lonely but miserable too.

First comes Max, he is a 14 year old spaniel and the best friend I had when I was recovering from my stroke back in 1997.  He is getting on now and is deaf and has very poor sight, but his tail still wags for England and walks and foods are the most important things to him now, oh yes and snoozing, which he does most of the time.  Thank goodness he doesn't snore!

Next in order of age is Thomas our oldest Cat.  Loved to bits, Tom is 19 years old and we are praying that he will manage to reach 20.  He suffers from kidney disease and has lost a terrific amount of weight but he is still soldiering on.  Loved to bits,.  The KD really takes it's toll and the first sign that a cat with KBD is coming to the end of their lives is when they stop eating and drinking.  Tom did this a few weeks ago and I really thought we were about to lose him.  After three days of not eating or drinking.  Sitting in a sphinx like position, not looking at all comfortable I believed this was the end.  But as a last resort we opened a can of tuna and tried tempting him.  He sniffed for a bit then wolfed half a small tin!  Next he stood at the fridge meowing for milk, so we put a small amount in his saucer and he slurped that down.  He hasn’t looked back since.  I know it is so the wrong diet, but he is eating and drinking so if that’s what he wants he shall have it!
 

 
 
 
Orla is our middle dog,and will be 10 in December.  Orla is a rescued ex racing greyhound from Ireland.  She won a number of races and then when she stopped earning her syndicate money she was due to be bumped on the head.  Luckily a terrific rescue organisation called Greyhound Gap saved her.  She has totally forgotten that she is a greyhound and happily plays tag with all the kitten and with Poppy.  If her Greyhound mates could see her now they would disown her.  She has to be the laziest dog and is usually found lying flat out on the sofa, legs in the air (she is such a tart!) and tongue lolling out.  Yes, a bit like her pose here.
 

Yes, she does have ears and legs, just to prove it I am going to have to add another picture of this lazy, lazy girl. See what I mean! Bit of a fuzzy photograph, but you get the idea!




So, that's the first half introduced I'll get you to meet the other three in my next blog update.



As I started at the beginning of this post, it's truly spring like today. We took a ride out and a mozzie around the shops during the morning with my best buddy, Janet, JEB to her friends, well special friends, ermmm well, just to me then! JEB is the mother of Kevin and Rachael and Rachael, aka fluffy muffin,  has her own blog In My Own Little World If you need to get a smile on your face in the mornings her blogs will do it for you!


I love spending time with JEB as we have known each other from almost the Spring of our lives and now into the Autumn. (getting quite poetic aren't I, it wont last!) Today we arrived early to pick her up so she came wandering down the stairs with her hair still wet from the shower. That gave me an excuse to practice my blow drying skills and took me back thirty years or more to the days when I not only blow dried Jan's hair but coloured it too! I have a fab photo of her in those days but darned if I can lay hands on it when I want it so will perhaps put it in another posting. Anyway we had a lovely time the three of us and now, what with all that fresh air and all this typing it's time for my siesta!

The rambles begin.............

My new year resolution was to start a blog, mainly for me, to scribble in when the fancy took me. I know, April seems a bit late in the day for new year resolutions but hey, I was always a bit of a late starter. Well in some things I was. Like walking, apparently I was a lazy baby and didn't start trying to use my own legs till well over 15 months. Scrabbling around on my bottom must have seemed, at that time, the best way to get around. That or be carried or wheeled. Strange, here I am at the beginning of Autumn in my life and I still getting wheeled around and I often find I am on my derrière and it's easier to stay there and shuffle to where I want to go, just as I did in the early years, rather than risk getting up, with all the effort that entails, just to risk falling down again! Wasn't always this way, I had a good 40 years being what is laughingly called normal. Then the MS decided it wanted a new recruit, and so there I was, in many ways, back to my babyhood, relying on others and probably being just as impatient as when I was in my terrible twos!

Thinking of terrible two's brings to mind my incredible two, Two of the most amazing sons. Hand on heart, two boys who have never caused me a day's trouble and have grown into men I admire, respect and love. With a father like theirs though it could only have turned out this way I guess my 'naughty' genes were suppressed and his kind, strong, good genes took over.Their dad is the best role model they could have had. My life could have been tough when at 50 I had a stroke and then a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, but my family just didn't allow that to happen, with my rock Eddy, two sons and the best D-in-L's and five terrific grandchildren things changed and eventually I started to enjoy life again.

And that is just about enough of reminiscing. So from the next post it will be on to what this is supposed to be, a ramble, and if you're wondering about the 'Spider Cottage' bit - that's the picture of the cottage at the top, we are close to a beautiful wood and we have spiders galore, nothing dangerous I add, just lovely creeping scrabbling spiders!