Month: August 2020

The Prisoner In The Mask*

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Go back to bed 🛌 after Pilates tomorrow, then have lunch, meditate and sleep. Don’t really feel up to getting out of bed so finish The Devil Rides Out.

After supper, Mum takes my temperature and it’s 38.6pm. She phones the cancer hospital 🏥 and they say to phone 111. Eventually we get through to a paramedic who says that Dad should drive me to the hospital as high risk of ambulance 🚑 being contaminated by COVID.

At hospital, a nurse takes me off to A & E and soon am admitted. They give me Another swab test for Coronavirus 🦠 this must’ve been my sixth one.

Finally I end up on a ward of eight women. They all seem very decrepit and are coughing and wheezing.

Wake up this morning at 6.45am. Feel well or at least stronger.

Do my Tarot For August Challenge:

And then the Celtic Cross and Free Oracle Reading for a client who paid yesterday;

Now am reading my Occult thriller: The Prisoner In the Mask by Dennis Wheatley.

Going back to sleep now.

Happy Monday everyone!

*1957. By Dennis Wheatley. Exciting. Thrilling.

Touch Me*

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Return to bed after Pilates yesterday and sleep from eleven o’clock till three o’clock in the afternoon.

Painventory

  1. Bad Sore Tummy as both the chemo and the new anti-nausea pill 💊 cause terrible constipation
  2. Extreme Fatigue 😴 🛌.
  3. Shoulder pain – probably from Pilates as yesterday we do a lot of Upper Body work.
  4. Terrible Back Pain: caused by the cancer in spine 🦴 😢.
  5. Headache: stress I presume.
  6. Have nasty cold 🤧 and so does Mum.
  7. Chest pain: from lifting weights with chest 🏋️‍♀️.
  8. Sore hands: chemo-side effect.
  9. Dizziness caused by chemo.
  10. Awful nausea from chemo.
  11. Coldness: so much so that Dad agrees to put on heating in my room.

Manage a bit of supper: a quarter of a corn 🌽 on the cob. Return to bed 🛌 to crack on with The Devil 😈 Rides 🐴 Out.

Fall asleep about 10.30pm and wake up at 6.45am so that’s a good night’s sleep. Read The Devil Rides Out. Am two hundred pages in. Have two more in the series to read when I finish this one.

Fluffball doesn’t go out much yesterday as it rains 🌧 All Day. Cuddle him and we give him his stress-related-allergy pill 💊.

Return to bed and read my book. Read more when I wake up this morning 👿 🐎

Today we are visiting Frogmore Lakes for a walk as Sunday is the only day I don’t have a Zoom exercise class. My aunt sends me a beautiful yellow rose 🌹 💛. See top photo. My next door neighbour sends me beautiful roses 🌹 💖 💛 .

It’s 7.24am and Fluffball’s our Patrolling now.

Today brother visits but it won’t be the same as now he’s no longer Shielding we can’t hug 🤗 him and we will have to sit outside in the freezing 🥶 gloom. It’s starting to look a lot like Autumn 🍂 we find acorns when we’re walking Gandalf.

Am listening to The Doors 🚪 for the first time in ages.

*1969. Song by The Doors. Appears on the album The Soft Parade.

Murder With Cucumber 🥒 Sandwiches 🥪*

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Photograph the garden yesterday afternoon. Look at the Round Cucumber 🥒!

Manage about half my supper last night: mashed potato 🥔, cheese 🧀, baked beans, purple sprouting broccoli 🥦, broad beans, Romanesco cauliflower. This is pretty good going as have Severe Nausea from yesterday’s chemo.

Sleep from 10.30pm to 6.45am. So good to wake up when it’s light. This fatigue is a chemo side effect of course.

There are some side effects to come:

  1. Hair loss. Have purchased two wigs: a red one and a brown one with red highlights.
  2. Conjunctivitis: let’s hope I won’t get this one.
  3. Blood clots: don’t want.

Any many others of course. Oncologist says this drug is “well-tolerated” but who knows what that means…

So: we give Fluffball his second breakfast and now at 8.24am he’s out Patrolling His Territory.

It’s a cold, grey day and my tiny hand is frozen as I write this.

Pilates at 9.15am rather than Barre at 10.30am as in Pilates can keep up whereas at the moment in Barre I spend whole class lying on floor with feet up on Big Blue Ball: lifting weights; doing shoulder bridges 🌉 and Clams 🦪.

Right. Must prepare self for class.

Happy Saturday everyone!

*2019. By Karen Rose Smith. A Daisy’s Tea Garden mystery novel, Book 3.

Toxic Love*

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Walk Gandalf with Mum at 8.30am. He is so pleased to see us:

Brush Gandalf, which he loves. Pick all the burrs and seeds out of his coat. He rolls around on his back – he loves being groomed. He looks so fluffy and shiny now.

Then work really hard at Pilates.

Arrive for chemo at twelve o’clock. Then:

  1. Have to fill in three pages of form about what support I need; where I live; how accessible the house 🏡 is; other drugs I’m on and surgery I’ve had.
  2. Finally am hooked up to a drip which goes into my port:
  3. Anti sickness drug put in a bag to drain into my veins.
  4. Lie down and read my book 📖 The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley. It’s excellent: an occult thriller which is in a series of ten books. Wheatley wrote about Sixty books!
  5. Nurse comes in to hang up the bag of chemo drug.
  6. Read for an hour. Am comfortable.
  7. Nurse unhooks the finished bag of chemo drug.
  8. Feel sick, rush outside. It’s raining 🌧.
  9. Return to my room.
  10. Rush to the bathroom where am sick. A lot.
  11. Nurse gives me a stronger once-a-week nausea drug. “People aren’t generally sick with this drug,” she says. “You must be really frail”. 😭.
  12. Nurse gives me my Denosumab – to seal my bones 🦴 against the cancer.
  13. Tell Nurse that haven’t been referred to Macmillan by the person at hospital. She spends half an hour on phone 📞 call to Macmillan who promise to send a Referral letter. This may well not arrive till Tuesday as it’s Bank 🏦 Holiday on Monday. Still: at least it’s on its way.
  14. Leave my new Tarot business cards with the receptionist yay 😃
  15. After three hours, Dad picks me up.
  16. Meditate and sleep.
  17. Wake up and talk to MadFatRunner.
  18. Shell the peas and broad beans.
  19. My composer friend wants to buy the music rights to the novel.
  20. Do a twenty pound Tarot Reading.
  21. Put Fluffball outside but he comes straight back in. He’s now in for the evening.

Right: need a bath 🛀.

Happy Thursday everyone!

*1995. By Tomas Guillen. The shocking story of the first murder by cancer. Set in 1978z.

Altered State*

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I’ve just seen my oncologist. The cancer is now in my spine 🦴 but not yet in my skull 💀 or brain 🧠 which is a relief.

No more awful hormone treatments. Starting a new chemo infusion tomorrow. It takes one hour once a week for two weeks and then a week off, then repeat. Need to find my wigs: they must be somewhere – bought two brown, curly ones 💇🏻‍♀️ and a purple 💜 one the last time that my mood came up but can’t find them. They’re probably under my bed at the flat.

Work hard at Personal Training this morning and trainer is pleased with me.

Fluffball sits outside the front door for most of the day in his patch of ornamental grass.

Speak to my Agency about the book. It goes off to designers this week but the whole process takes about three months. Which is much longer than I thought it would go on for. Still: professional small company in South West London will be handling it and they design covers for Penguin 🐧 and Random House so it will look and feel perfect 📚.

I contact my chum at local radio Beds, Bucks and Herts so he will interview me hopefully and my young filmmaker friend will film me. Just starting getting the ball 🎳 rolling.

Happy Thursday everyone!

*1997. By Matthew Collin. The story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House.

This And Nothing More*

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Wake up yesterday after a good long sleep and do my Tarot For Growth August post. It rains 🌧 all day. Read my Dennis Wheatley book The Devil Rides Out: it’s brilliant and so I’ve ordered two more from the series.

At twelve o’clock visit the optician. It is all very hygienic in there: wear my mask and she wears a mask 😷, plastic gloves, covers the waiting room seats 💺 in plastic and gives me an hour long appointment. I know my optician well: she’s garrulous and there’s no way it’ll only take an hour. She’s not allowed to come up close to my face with the tiny torch 🔦 so puts some drops in my pupils to dilate them.

She does a contact lense, glasses 👓 and prescription sunglasses 🕶 check and photographs my eyes which are fine. My prescription hasn’t changed over the last year since our previous meeting but my contact lenses are three years old which is too old. So are my prescription sunglasses 😎.

An hour and a half later I come out armed with my prescription for new sunglasses to have made up at Radlett Opticians. Her lab has closed so she’s not doing glasses anymore.

One and a half hours later we’ve ordered my new pair of lenses. Her hairdresser 💇🏻‍♀️ has been waiting outside for thirty minutes.

Mum drives me home and we have lunch. My visor arrives from Amazon so now I can go into shops as long as they’re empty. Can’t wear a mask really due to the breathing difficulties resulting from my lung condition.

Meditate and sleep. Wake up and have mango 🥭 and ice cream 🍨. Do a Celtic Cross Reading for a friend for free. I’m only charging twenty pounds 💷 and they’ve been taking me two hours so I must speed up. I race through this one in one hour and fifteen minutes but of course it’s easier than reading for a stranger as I know this Querent really well.

We have spaghetti 🍝 for supper and then I have a message from a friend that she was so happy with her reading that she’s recommended me to a friend of hers. This is so exciting.

Another friend messages that she would like a Celtic Cross Destiny Reading. Ninety nine percent of my readings are “will my ex come back” so today’s two being Career Readings is more exciting.

Wake up this morning and do my Tarot For Growth August post:

Yesterday my Matt Hughes illustrated Edgar Allan Poe books arrive so I have a look at the pictures. Here are some:

Isn’t it beautiful. Am going to read it now for a bit as I’ve already done today’s first Career Reading using my White Sage Tarot:

White Sage is a pretty and feminine deck with a good booklet and at the moment I reach for it every time I have a Reading to do.

Fluffball comes in to sit on my windowsill:

Today I have Barre at 10.30am and then Suzy is visiting.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

*2018. By Matt Hughes. Beautiful illustrated edition of stories, poems and essays by Edgar Allan Poe by my favourite artist 👩‍🎨 and Tarot Deck creator. His Deck is the Ethereal Visions Illuminated Tarot Deck and there is a stunning Dreamscape Oracle Deck coming soon.

The Devil Rides Out*

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Visit the dahlias at Ayletts with Mum:

We walk round: it’s a one way system and then we see the Celebration garden which is stunning.

Mum buys me an iced coffee ☕️ and a Feast 🍦 and we sit at our socially-distanced table. Mum buys some red dahlias in the coffee shop.

We attend this Dahlia Showground every year but usually don’t make it here till September or even October. Now, in August, the dahlias are at their best.

I wear my @lonkelparis dress 👗 from @mylaclare in Radlett. We’re there for nearly two hours and we have a fabulous time. Bee meet the dahlia farmer 👩‍🌾 and talk to him.

On my return home I post my photos on Instagram and @lonkelparis add me to their page yay!

Then it’s back to work: a ten card Celtic Cross with a free Oracle Reading for a client, all for just twenty pounds 💷. It takes me two hours and fifteen minutes but it doesn’t feel like work. I love the fact that Tarot is now my job. Working for myself on something I’m passionate about is wonderful.

My Aunt recommends the Occult thriller by Dennis Wheatley The Devil Rides Out. Will start reading it now.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

*1934. By Dennis Wheatley. A Duke de Richleau occult thriller set in London and the West Country.

Money, Murder & Mayhem*

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Have a fantastic day at Whipsnade yesterday. We take the car in and see the white and Nepalese rhinos 🦏; elephants 🐘; tigers 🐅; yak and flamingos 🦩. Most of the photos need downloading from my proper camera 📷.

We start with the drive through Asia and see herds of deer and antelopes. Brother takes some photos with my camera 📷 as many of the ungulates are on his side of the road.

We have lunch 🧺 overlooking the downs. It’s beautiful if a bit cold. Brave the public loos. We wear our masks 😷 but it’s not horribly crowded thank G-d.

Come home, meditate and sleep. My aunt and uncle come round for a drink 🥃 in the garden 🍷 and I have a Diet Coke. It is lovely to see them.

The Crystal Inn 🏨, my Crystal shop owner friend has a Crystal Happy Hour from seven till eight o’clock and I win a mystery gemstone box 📦 💷 worth twenty five pounds in the quiz. There’s also Crystal Bingo where there are twenty five crystals 💎 in envelopes and for five pounds you can win one if you pick a number between one and twenty five. I win a Lepidolite.

Brother leaves at ten past eight. We are so miserable now that he has gone.

Lorraine the gardener is here and talk to her. Pick a lot of apples 🍏 from the tree.

The feathers which represent angels 👼 in Tarot of course belong to red kites who live in my parental chums’ garden! He gave them to me as a present 💝 I love them so much.

Do two Tarot Readings this morning and earn twenty pounds. I start a notebook of my Tarot income and outgoings at Dad’s suggestion – something to do with tax I guess. Show you:

Outgoings are:

  1. Tarot decks
  2. Oracle decks
  3. Crystals
  4. Astrology books and conferences
  5. Tarot reading cloths and clothes.
  6. Art materials.

So basically everything I spend apart from food, drink 🥤 and exercise 🚶‍♀️ 🏊🏻‍♀️ 🩰 🏋️‍♀️.

I’m just so happy that Tarot is now my main job.

Happy Monday everyone!

*2018. By Sean Branch. Set in Montana in the 1980s, this is a gritty tale of the Murder Capital Washington DC. Stars Dontay Beltre.

Tetrabiblos*

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Wake up and reread my Astrology Diploma printed materials. Do my Tarot For Growth August card pull. Photograph the collared doves 🕊, blue tits, starlings and wood pigeon:

Do Barre on Zoom at 10.30am and work really hard. Chat to my Barre chums afterwards.

Have lunch which is a barbecue with family outside. It’s wonderful.

Meditate and sleep 😴. Wake up at 3.30pm and crack on with my Astrology Reading.

Achieve a couple of prospective new clients. Just waiting for them to pay before I do their readings.

The textbooks for my course arrive:

Start reading The Twelve Houses and it is fascinating but the writing is tiny. Am going to save it till my lectures start as we may well just have to read and note some chapters.

Crack on with reading my Astrology Diploma printed materials, noting my placements and transits. I love Astrology So Much 💓 🌌 💫 🌒 🌞 🪐 🔮.

Have my bath 🛀. Fluffball comes in at six o’clock and we have supper at eight o’clock, after I’ve done some more work.

Here is my little altar:

I salvaged some crystals 💎, my Lego Tarot Reader 🎴 🧙‍♀️ 🔮 from the flat.

We have supper at eight o’clock after I’ve done a couple more hours of reading Astrology.

Another book arrives for my course:

Am excited to read this one: Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.

Go to bed at eight forty five pm; meditate and sleep; wake up and write this. Today we’re going to Whipsnade 🐯🦊🦓🦏🐫🦙🦒🦛🐆🐅🦌. Excited.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

*1822. Claude Ptolemy wrote this book but I have the famous translation by J.M. Ashland.

The Twelve Houses*

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Waking up I start rereading my Astrology handbook from my Astrology Diploma, photographing all my placements. Go for a walk in high winds 💨.

Do Barre at 10.15am. Work hard: there’s a lot of legs 🦵, abs and glutes 🍑.

Have lunch and then meet a friend in my park across the street from the flats: Childs Hill Park 🌳.

We meet an Eurasier with Keeshond colouring called Luna:

My friend buys a coffee ☕️ and we sit outside the sweet little cafe. I do him a quick tarot reading with The Fountain Tarot:

He walks me home and I meditate and sleep.

Wake up and my cousin calls to see if he can pop round. Meet him at the park:

Go home and pack everything to return to parentals. Just make it in time for supper.

My textbooks have arrived for my Astrology Degree 📜:

Go to bed at ten thirty and sleep all the way through till quarter to six.

Fluffball is in my parental windowsill, waiting to go out. It looks to be another hot sunny day.

Do my Tarot For Growth August post which is The Sun 🌞: a positive an beneficial card in any reading.

Happy Saturday everyone!

*1985. By Howard Sasportas. A book about the Twelve Astrological Houses.