Wake up and have breakfast. Back to sleep. of strength do Pilates which is a very hard class.
“This is such much hard work,” I tell the panther.
“You can do it it,”. The panther lies curled up in an undervalued hole.
* 1967. Collection oF PG Wodehouse short stories .
Katie from the synagogue visits me and it’s good to see her.
Then we set off for Whipsnade to see the animals.
We do the Drive Through Asia and see the different herds of deer: some in water to stay cool.
We see a mother rhino 🦏 with last year’s baby.
And the white rhino:
Can’t get any good tiger photos as they are asleep in a wooded area and are too well-camouflaged.
We have our picnic 🧺 overlooking the downs which is lovely:
Then we see the elephants 🐘, blowing dust and water over themselves in an effort to keep cool. It’s a couple of degrees cooler at Whipsnade than here, but it’s still 25.5 degrees 🥵:
We start looking for the Red Pandas but give up as it’s too hot to be traipsing around.
It really is a lovely day out: I commend it.
Come home, meditate and sleep until Mum wakes me up for supper at five o’clock.
My psychiatrist calls me back. Earlier in the day I left him a message that my mood has dropped and should I put up the dose of my antidepressant and he agrees that I should.
It’s Flying Ant Day. Here they are before:
Most of them seem to get eaten by the starlings.
Now I’m in my bedroom with my Fluffball. He is sleeping on my windowsill:
He jumps down from my windowsill and is now under my dressing table. It’s probably hot for him too as he’s covered in thick fluff.
Right: had better post this and then do my Tarot Card of the Day and then can go back to sleep.
Happy Wednesday everyone!
*1972. By Agatha Christie. The fortieth Hercule Poirot mystery.
It’s six o’clock and my Fluffball has just come in to look after me: I’ll just post this and my Tarot card of the day and then we’ll settle into my pre-sleep sleep.
Work hard at Personal Training this morning and my teacher is pleased with me.
I’ve just had some Good News so I will keep that quiet until there’s more to tell you.
We go out to lunch for my Parental Golden Wedding anniversary here:
We sit outside under one of the umbrellas and it doesn’t rain very much. There are lots of people there and it takes our food ages to turn up, but it’s good to be out at a restaurant.
When we arrive home: Fluffball is waitron for us in the front garden. He doesn’t like it when we go out for too long – even in daytime when he’s meant to be outside.
Come home, meditate 🧘♀️ and sleep. When I wake up: watch Pliskova beat Sabalenka.
Now am in bed with my fluffy nurse.
Happy Thursday everyone!
*1992. Liza Cody. Tennis-based mystery novel.
Wake up at seven thirty after going to sleep at six o’clock last night.
Go for a walk with Mum up to the house martins’ house. We stand in front of the nests and it’s a magical experience: the little birds swoop and dive all around us and we can hear the chicks chirping in their mud nests under the beams.
Katie from the synagogue comes for her every-two-weeks visit: it is so good to see her.
Then Dad takes me to visit my darling cousin and her new very pretty baby:
It is great to see her enjoying motherhood and being so happy and relaxed.
We have a tour around her lovely new house too.
Return for lunch and sleep. Don’t manage to sleep for that long. Have bath 🛁 and then have supper in the garden in the sunshine.
Fluffball comes in and sucks up a fur ball. Then he has his supper. Now he’s come in to look after me. I’m so lucky to have my precious boy: we really did think we’d lost him forever, back in October. Thank G-d we found him 🥰.
Happy Wednesday everyone!
*2013. By Anne Cleeves. Book Six in the Inspector Ramsey mystery novel series.
Sorry for the lack of blog everyone. I was asleep for about twenty hours, with Fluffball looking after me: he’s the best nurse.
This morning I wake up at six o’clock and have my breakfast and then it’s back to sleep till seven. It is good to be sleeping until later in the morning but I’m definitely under-the-weather.
Go for a drive with Mum and it’s nice. Come back and walk around the garden and see these pinks:
Have lunch and then return to sleep. Talk with a friend till I wake up.
Have supper and then find Fluffball in my bed: indicating that he wants me to climb in with him.
Finish Heavy Weather and start the first book in the Blandings Castle series: Something Fresh.
Dad takes some photos of me with Fluffball. We need a really good one for the cover of the Memoir:
This posture curled round Fluffball is uncomfortable so I’m going to say goodbye for now.
Happy Sunday everyone!
*1915. By PG Wodehouse. Coming novel. Book 1 in the Blandings Castle series.
Wake up at six o’clock this morning and have my breakfast. Then go back to sleep until Mum wakes me up at quarter past nine.
It’s another hot 🥵 sunny day. I have a special visitor:
It’s So Good to see my Gandalf. Kiss and cuddle him. He is limping quite badly because of his arthritis and his owner had just been at the vet, collecting a stronger medication for him – poor boy.
Do Pilates and work really hard. There are just three of us in the class – the most advanced ones – so we do Difficult Moves using the roller.
Mum’s friend is here after their walk so chat to him and have lunch in the garden 🪴.
There is pandemonium as the new fridge arrives: the old one died aged forty one. Here is new one:
Meditate 🧘♀️ and sleep, but not for long enough. Wake up and watch Dan Evans playing the new Australian, Popyrin.
Receive a message from my Agent that she has just read the Memoir and she loves it so much that she didn’t want it to stop. So it looks like you’re going to receive another book from me after all.
Go to my aunt and uncle’s house to meet the new puppy. He is a whippet called Teddy:
He is soft and velvety and seems very friendly.
Now am home and we have captured Fluffball and am going to sleep.
Happy Tuesday everyone!
*2019. By Adrian Bentley. Crime thriller fiction novel.
Don’t manage a blog yesterday, so am sorry about that: I do it now.
Wake up about five o’clock yesterday morning. Do some of my Astrology homework 📄 📖.
At six o’clock: Fluffball is lying on the floor in the hallway looking distressed.
“Breakfast, Fluffball?” I say, and he does running towards his food bowl. Give him some food. Find out a bit later that he hadn’t asked Mum for his middle-of-the-night snack. You’d think that having survived up the tree 🌳 for three weeks, he wouldn’t still need feeding every couple of hours, but he does.
Work hard at Pilates: there is a new person in the class, so that’s very good. She seems to enjoy it. Excitingly, Suzy is going to try out Pilates today: hope she loves it and will keep attending.
Walk to post box and see the house martins that live at the house opposite the letter box. They swoop and turn in the sky: gorgeous little creatures.
Parental friends come round for Brunch and we sit in the garden in the twenty degree sunshine. Here I am:
Go to bed about one thirty after taking off all my make up. Sleep till three thirty. Meditate and sleep.
Wake up and eat my mango 🥭 and chocolate 🍫 brownie in the garden. Talk to Mum.
Have my bath 🛁 and Mum sits with me. She changes the dressing on the radiotherapy burn on my back and says that it’s Much Worse which is not what we want. Mum will speak to Macmillan nurse today about it. It is Very Itchy.
Have supper and quick chat with brother then am back in bed at six o’clock. Fluffball comes in to sit with me: he cleans his beautiful fur whilst lying under my dressing table.
Chat to MadFatRunner for a bit and am asleep at eight o’clock. Wake up at five o’clock this morning and do my Tarot Card For June:
Listening to Nick Drake. It looks to be another blue sky and sunshine 🌞 day.
Happy Tuesday everyone!
1968/69. Song by Nick Drake from the album Five Leaves Left.
Wake up crying about my ex-boss being dead. I have Bad Janet Days sometimes, just not as often as before. My darling ex-colleague whom I haven’t seen since the funeral comes round and we have flat whites and salted caramel chocolate 🍫 brownies from Costa with orange melon 🍈 and coffee ice cream 🍨.
It’s warm – twenty degrees – and sunny 🌞 and we sit in the garden 🪴 on a blanket.
Then she helps me with my bath 🛁 and puts a new dressing on my radiotherapy burn.
We talk about old times and I do a Tarot Reading for her face to face. I can hardly remember anything and then keep looking in the book 📖. I will stick to online readings until I have had more face-to-face practise. On the plus side the cards gave a resounding Yes! Go for it! to her question about whether or not to do something life-changing so that is good.
Meditate 🧘♀️ but can’t sleep. Get up and talk to brother briefly and then Suzy whilst she is on a long drive to deepest South London.
Mum comes to get me from flat and we change my sheets as it’s hot in the flat at night and I sweat all over them. I put the heating down at night but the temperature even with no hearing is about twenty degrees.
Do a wash and hang the clothes on the airer when I wake up from my sleep. Put dishwasher on and take out rubbish and recycling before I go.
Arrive home to find Fluffball in the front garden. Mum calls him but he doesn’t come in and vanishes.
Have my supper: toasted goat cheese and pesto sandwich 🥪 with raw spinach.
Mum goes out again to look for Fluffball and finds him in the hedge. She rattles his food bowl and he does running to get to his supper. Thank G-d. I was worried that he’d gone missing again.
Now am back in bed under my summer blanket which is dark purple velvet.
On the not-plus-side I have cystitis so will have to get something to treat it with tomorrow.
Happy Sunday everyone!
*2021. By Linwood Barclay. Murder mystery thriller.
So last night I went to bed at 5.45pm, straight after supper. Fluffball was comfortable on my screwed up duvet and blanket so I picked him up and put him on the furry blanket on the far end of my bed. He looked after me until nine o’clock 🕘 at which time Mum took him away to have his supper which he usually has at 6.30pm but he’d been busy with me. He didn’t want his wet food. Then Mum tried to give him some dry food which he also rejected.
I slept from 5.45pm to five o’clock in the morning. When I wake up this morning I do my Tarot post from yesterday – am meant to post on my Instagram every day: #TarotEveryDamnDay. Then I write a chapter of the Memoir about Tarot and Astrology. Deadline is 31st May 😱. I do hope I can get a draft I’m pleased with by then.
Chat to Mary for our morning chat and then have my mid-morning snack: a scone with lemon 🍋 curd from the Farm Shop and cream cheese from Yummies.
Work hard at Pilates and then chat to my teacher and chums. It’s chemo at twelve so I pull on my silver velvet Onzie flares, my purple Rafa Nike jacket, my purple wig and my new purple Naomi Osaka Nike trainers. I look like I’ve been sectioned for thinking I’m Frida from ABBA.
At the cancer hospital I crawl into my bed Christina my favourite nurse 👩⚕️ makes for me. Then we flush the port with saline and then it’s Gemcitapine – half the usual dose to try to avoid me becoming ill this time 🤒 🤢 🤮 💩.
After chemo Dad picks me up and I settle down for my afternoon sleep. Sleep well and for about ninety minutes.
Have my post-sleep snack chocolate 🍫 brownie from Yummies in the village, some orange melon 🍈and some coffee ice cream 🍨 and an iced coffee ☕️.
Then fiddle about on phone for a bit: Facebook, Instagram and Amazon.
It’s supper at 5.17pm which is an asparagus and feta and Parmesan tart from Cook at the Farm Shop and English asparagus, tender stem broccoli 🥦, peas and cauliflower.
Return to bed where Fluffball is waiting for me. Pull a Tarot Card for the Day – see above photo. Talk to Suzy and Leon.
I’m just going to post this and then meditate 🧘♀️ and sleep.
Happy Tuesday everyone!
*2020. By Peter Swanson. FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey investigates and finds herself at the bookshop Old Devils. Murder mystery novel.
Wake up at six o’clock after a long sleep 😴. Have breakfast at seven o’clock.
Pilates is at quarter last nine. Work very hard and teacher is pleased with me.
Dad picks me up from the flat and then some of my cousins visit. Meditate 🧘♀️ and sleep.
Wake up, have some melon 🍈 and a scone with cream cheese and lemon 🍋 curd. Have supper at five thirty.
A couple of my friends visit. It warms up and is sunny 🌞. Eventually it’s seven o’clock and they set off back to West London.
Feel really calm and happy.
Now Fluffball is sitting on my windowsill 🪟 gazing out into the garden 🪴 in the dark.
Listen to Primal Scream Screamadelica.
Now I’m going to take my evening meds and go to sleep.
Happy Saturday everyone!
*1991. By Primal Scream. Album.
rapidcyclistwordpresscom 