Month: July 2020

The Cuckoo’s Calling*

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Wake up at 3am. Fall back asleep till 5.15am. Read my post-apocalyptic Robert Harris book published last year and eerily prescient. I’ve read about a third of it already.

Have bath 🛀 before it gets too hot 🥵.

Have breakfast in the garden. Photograph flowers. Attempt to snap Fluffy but he vaults into the hedge.

Have breakfast in the garden. Mum tells me off for making a mess in the kitchen. The hospital texts to see how I am. Do last Tarot For Growth July post.

We go to Aldenham for our walk where we see the cuckoo pint.

Do Pilates with my chums over Zoom. It’s good to be back.

Three boxes 📦 of vegetables arrive from the greengrocer.

New camera 📷 and its case arrive. So does a card:

Card is from Mum’s bestie who makes them herself. Isn’t it gorgeous.

Need to charge camera and work out how to use it.

Have lunch in the garden under the new umbrella ☂️. It sways a lot in the breeze.

Today is 32 degrees. Take my duvet out of its cover, move the best fan into bedroom. Meditate and sleep.

Have Zoom chat with brother. Read book in the garden. Write blog.

It rains 🌧 – not the promised thunderstorm – just a shower. Fluffball comes in for his supper. He is lying down now:

I don’t know what’s for supper: maybe felafel.

It’s So Hot 🥵 still.

Fluffball runs up the stairs towards his bedroom for his second supper.

Happy Friday everyone!

*2013. By J. K. Rowling. Cormoran Strike crime fiction series Book 1.

The Second Sleep*

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Last night Fluffball doesn’t return home till eight o’clock but thank G-d then he turns up:

He is home now. Phew 😅.

Wake up at five o’clock this morning. Do a module of my Medical Astrology And Herbalism Diploma and my Tarot For Growth July Challenge.

Wake up Mum and Fluffball at 6.30am. Have breakfast. We go for a walk to Shenley Park.

Do my Personal Training over Zoom and work really hard.

Suzy visits and we sit in the garden. It is so good to see her. Then go next door. We are in their beautiful garden now. Photos above.

Just started the Robert Harris book The Second Sleep which seems good so far. Am about four pages in.

Happy Thursday everyone!

*2019. By Robert Harris. Historical novel.

Vertigo*

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Achievements Of The Day:

  1. Watch Vertigo with Mum last night whilst Dad is playing chess. Haven’t seen it for a while. It’s still my best one. Also it is free on Netflix.
  2. Sleep from 10.30ish till about five o’clock this morning. The pain wakes me up or maybe hypomania or maybe a mixture of the two.
  3. Do a module of Medical Astrology And Herbalism about Jupiter. Jupiter herbs 🌿 are tall and expansive and deal with the liver, bile and gases. They also spark joy and can be bitter. They include dandelions, sage and antimony.
  4. Purchase my Equine Psychology Diploma and its printed materials to do next.
  5. Do my Tarot For Growth July with my new White Sage deck:
  6. Wake parentals and Fluffball up at 6.30am as need some morphine.
  7. Have bath.
  8. Have chat with brother.
  9. Unpack hospital bag.
  10. Walk at Frogmore Lakes with Mum and see the swans 🦢 and cygnets who are quite grown up now and ducks 🦆 and geese – see above photos 📷.
  11. Stop off at the farm and see the chickens 🐓.
  12. Have lunch in the garden. See the baby blue tits having their lunch.
  13. Meditate.
  14. Have short sleep.
  15. Fall over whilst putting pyjama trousers on and bang bum on the floor and twist ankle.
  16. It’s Dad’s birthday today so we are having Zoom dinner with brother.
  17. Just watching The Thick Of It.
  18. Going to wash hair later. Well, Mum is going to wash my hair.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*1958. Feature film 🎥 directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Stars James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore. Screenplay by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor. Based on the novel D’Entre Les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.

Arsenic For Tea*

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Watch Endeavour last night for the first time which is really good. This is exciting as there are eight series of it. It follows the adventures of the young Morse in 1960s Oxford.

Just waiting for my meds and then I can go home. Wake up early this morning and pack. Have shower 🚿. Go for first walk. Have breakfast. Chat to Mary. Watch Frasier. Watch The Big Bang Theory and Don’t Tell The Bride.

Do my Tarot For Growth July challenge.

A doctor visits and says I can go home. A nurse takes the gripper out of my port. I’m just waiting for the doctor to do my Discharge letter and the pharmacist to bring my meds.

Baked potato 🥔 and baked beans and salad 🥗 for lunch as usual. See a robin outside: that’s the first bird I’ve seen here.

Go for another walk. Apparently it’s going to be twenty eight degrees on Friday but it’s not even warm now.

Can’t wait to see my Fluffball later. Hope he hasn’t forgotten me.

Ah. Someone is on their way to collect my meds apparently. Good.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

*2015. By Robin Stevens. Children’s mystery novel.

The Moving Finger*

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The view out of my bedroom window. Look at my beautiful copper beech in the middle of the garden:

Today someone from the kitchen brings me a bowl of fruit 🍎 🍐 🍌 which is kind of them.

Last night: fall asleep about ten o’clock: am really tired. Wake up at five o’clock this morning.

Go for a walk. Then the doctors visit and decide it’s time for my drain to come out: there is probably a bit more fluid to come out but that has to be balanced against the risk of infection at the drain site the longer it was left in.

Am brave when nurse removes drain. It’s a relief to get rid of it finally and to be able to take my next stroll without carrying a drain around.

It’s a cold, rainy day today. I do my Tarot For Growth July Challenge post.

Go for chest x-ray. All I need to do tomorrow now is wait for my discharge medication. Will have to call Dad once I’m completely ready to go as he’s not allowed to visit me and the discharge process can take Hours.

Someone comes round this afternoon from Macmillan and says she will write a community referral.

Am looking forward to continuing my Medical Astrology And Herbalism Diploma which I started before mood dropped more than four months ago. After I’ve finished that course there is an Equine Paychology one that I want to do.

I’m watching The Moving Finger now and drinking my coffee ☕️. I’ve eaten an apple 🍎 and a banana 🍌. I’m so looking forward to going home and seeing my Fluffball and parentals. Suzy is visiting on Thursday and a couple of Pilates chums on Friday yay.

Happy Monday everyone!

*1942. By Agatha Christie. The fourth Miss Marple detective novel.

Live And Let Die*

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Watch an episode of Midsomer Murders that I’ve never seen before at nine o’clock last night. It’s good. Meditate and drift off to sleep around 11.30am – hoping to sleep in a bit this morning.

The pain and my mood wake me up at five fifteen or so. Watch the BBC news and call the parentals at 6.20am.

Have a wash 🧼 🛀. Chat to Mary, Dave and another couple of male friends. Go for three walks and sit outside in the sunshine 🌞.

Watch Towards Zero at lunchtime – one of my favourite Marple episodes.

Meditate and sleep.

Wake up. My drain bottle is changed last night and there is already about a hundred millilitres of fluid in it. I ask the doctor why there is still so much fluid being produced and she says that the operation irritates lungs and makes them produce more fluid. So not going home till Tuesday or Wednesday now.

Live And Let Die is on. There is a Tarot Card reader in it – Solitaire. Her deck is beautiful.

Soon it will be suppertime. Today’s card is the Nine of Pentacles from my Trippin’ Waite deck:

Happy Sunday everyone!

*1954. By Ian Fleming. The second James Bond book. Set in Harlem and the Caribbean.

By The Pricking Of My Thumbs*

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Wake up at 5.15am or so. Watch a Marple I’ve Never Seen: By The Pricking Of My Thumbs. I’m pretty sure this was a Tommy and Tuppence book but the screenwriters inserted Miss Marple into it – as they did with for example Endless Night. Was exciting to discover a New Marple anyway.

Go for a walk and even sit outside for a few minutes.

Speak to Suzy, Mary and another chum.

Find Don’t Tell The Bride on E4 and watch a couple of episodes of that after Frasier.

Blood pressure is a bit low on one reading but then it has sorted itself out by next reading. Wash hair. Doctors visit. Earliest possible date for drain removal is Monday.

Have lunch, meditate and sleep. Wake up and have coffee, talk to Mary again and do Tarot For Growth July Post.

Happy Saturday everyone!

*1968. By Agatha Christie. Tommy and Tuppence mysteries, Book 4.

A Double Life*

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Excitement late last night when nurse checks my temperature and it’s 38 degrees. Feel hot. Pleurodesis can cause a temperature but it seems strange that it would just come on now when operation was on Thursday or Friday – can’t remember.

Watch a Midsomer Murders last night and then go to sleep after my Oramorph at 10.40pm.

Wake up at about 5.15am again and have some Oramorph and coffee. Go for first walk around hospital. Am meant to be doing four walks around the hospital per day.

Lung surgeon visits and says he wants to put me on IV antibiotics so a nurse comes over from transplant to put a gripper in port. In the end the pharmacy prescribe antibiotic tablets. So I don’t need a gripper in port. Oh well. Have a wash.

Kim Philby’s granddaughter has written a thriller. Read it today. It’s excellent.

Read the whole book today: it’s so gripping.

Isn’t the Grayson Perry vase 🏺 of the hospital operating theatre amazing? See it on my walk this morning.

Dad arrives with my phone and some tarot cards and some clean pants and socks. Give the nurses at reception Mum’s phone, Legacy, dirty washing and my knitting which I can’t settle down to.

Happy Friday everyone!

*2020. By Charlotte Philby. Thriller.

Lavender Blue Murder*

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Go to sleep straight after The Iron Lady last night at 8.45pm. Wake up at 5.15am and go for first walk around hospital. See this gorilla 🦍:

And this lavender:

On the ward we have these amazing coffee cups which are blue plastic and keep the coffee warm. Want one. Will ask the catering staff where they come from:

Lung surgeon visits and says wound is draining more than he thought it would be at this stage so I’m still going to be in here till at least Monday.

Dr Stein calls and advises me to lower the dose of my antidepressant a bit. He thinks the nursing staff should be dispensing my medication and asks to speak to a doctor here. Now my drugs are kept locked in a cupboard.

Watch Frasier. Speak to a few friends. Meditate and sleep.

Nurse has just taken my temperature and it has gone up to 38 degrees. Hope haven’t got coronavirus 🦠.

There is a Midsomer Murders on at eight o’clock so am going to watch that.

Happy Thursday everyone!

*2020. By Laura Childs. Cozy Murder mystery novel. A Teashop Mystery, Book 21.

The Iron Lady*

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You can see a large wild lion sleeping in long grass in the above photo. Took this before being admitted to hospital.

Sleep really well last night: go to bed at about 10.15pm and don’t wake up until about 7am this morning which is much needed sleep.

Go for a walk around the hospital corridors with a nurse. Then there is a new favourite bit of my morning where there are a few Frasier episodes on together, so watch them.

My doctor drops in to see me and tell me that he is pleased with me and will try to get me an exercise bike, which is exciting.

My lovely Barre instructor has arranged a chat for all of us after Barre. It is so good to see my friends.

Have lunch – baked potato with baked beans and salad and then try to have a sleep. The universe has other plans: a couple of nurses come in to look at my drains; another physiotherapist tells me I need to go for Four walks per day.

Finally they all go and I can sleep. Walk around the hospital with a nurse for company when I wake up.

Am drinking my coffee and eagerly anticipating The Iron Lady which starts at 6.50pm on Film 4. Haven’t seen this biopic of Lady Thatcher since it came out in 2011.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*2011. Feature film. Written by Abi Morgan. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Stars Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant and Susan Brown.