3!

Today, Friday the 29th June, a wonderful little man - our eldest Grandson,  celebrates his 3rd Birthday!  

        

                

                    

                                                                                            

You have brought so much joy and happiness into the lives of your Mummy and Daddy and into our lives as well. Nathan, we wish you a wonderful and very happy Birthday with lots of presents and lots of fun and we know that Daniel will enjoy joining in as well.

God bless you on your special day and throughout your life. We love you so very much.

With tons of hugs and kisses.

Love Nanjay and Grandy xxxxxxx

  

 

                            

 

My thanks to Becky and Dean for sending the lovely photo of Nathan to use and also to Donna for adding the sparkling blue border.

Well Done Julie!

I would like to publicly thank our journal friend, Jules.  She took part in the Race For Life today to raise money for cancer research.  This year she had asked if she could dedicate her run in my name.  I was touched and so happy to accept.

It was pouring with rain and I know that Jules has not been feeling good herself lately but she went ahead and took part regardless.

She raised £400!!

Julie e-mailed me some pictures and gave me permission to use them on my journal. 

Here is Jules herself

Here is what was on the back of her shirt

Jules, I am so proud of you!  I know you have battled and are still battling your own demons.  You are a star my friend and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.   It is because of  people like you that research is funded for new and better treatments. So many will benefit.  Hopefully, one day cancer will be a disease that is history.  Big hugs to you. I certainly  wish I could hug you in person.

Now, dear readers, can I ask you to pop over to Julie's journal and congratulate her?  Also there is a link on her journal where anyone wishing to donate can still give for the next seven days.

Here is the link

JULES

Go and give her some congratulatory and uplifting comments, she deserves them.  Thank you.

Love

All Change!

Long time readers will know that our bungalow has been painted green for quite a few years now.  I think we shocked the neighbours when we first did it and we got some peculiar looks.  There was nothing in the road similar as the majority of them  had opted for white or beige.  However, they came to like it.

Well, we decided to change it this year.  At first, with my cancer diagnosis, all thoughts of that went out of the window.  In fact we did not really care what the bungalow looked like as you can imagine.

However, when I was sitting in the garden last, a couple of weeks back now, I could not help but notice the peeling paintwork on the sunlounge and with the garden all planted up for summer it looked worse.   As you know him indoors tackled that and painted the sunlounge inside and out.  That led to all the guttering being done as well.

I then thought back to January when I first decided on a colour change to the outside walls.   I reminded Mike and he said he would not mind tackling it.  We decided to do it in a lighter colour, a more sunny colour.  In a way it was a kind of celebration, a celebration that my treatment was over (apart from the medication).  I know the time for celebration should be when I get the "all clear " so I hope I am not tempting fate.  However, that will be a long time from now so we decided to make it a celebration of my treatment being finished.

Mike brought home some colour charts and I chose the colour.

I asked Mike to take some photos as he went along so you could all have a look.  Here is the first one, you can see the contrast between the new colour which is called "Cornish Cream" and the old green.  You will also see that the new paint was only the first coat.  He has since done the second coat.

Here is another view

Now for two shots of the whole of the front with the first coat of paint in place.

 

Now the second coat has also been done, it looks even better.  Of course we are no longer unique, we are no longer the only green property anywhere in the area.  It was handy in a way as well.  If people needed directions on how to find us we only had to say "well, when you turn into the road you cannot miss us, we are the only green property!"  However, we are very happy with it.  It looks so fresh and bright and shows the plants off much better.  Also it still stands out from the others as the neighbour joined to us is beige and the neighbour on the other side is magnolia.  We have already been complimented on it.

There is still the long side wall to do, the back wall around the kitchen window and the garage at the bottom of the garden which we always paint to match the house.  However, "rain has stopped play" for the time being.  Mike did encounter a couple of showers whilst he was painting the front, but today they are much heavier and rain is forecast for at least the next four days.   So, you-know-who is a bit fed up.  He hates starting a job and then not being able to get on with it.  But a rest will not do him any harm.

It was handy for me as well as we could talk to each other through the open window whilst I was lying down and he was working.

At least we do not have to water the garden whilst we have these heavy showers and this year, sitting in the sun is not appropriate.  However, I will be happy when this breast totally clears (it is much better than it was) and I can go outside and sit in the shade instead of spending lots of time lying down.

I have just finished a fourteen disc talking book and it was great.  I do not know if any of you have heard of the author Christopher Fowler.  I know his work is available in America as well as over here.  He is writing six books about a couple of elderly male detectives named Bryant and May who are in charge of a bureau for mysterious crimes.  The one I listened to was "77 Clocks".  What an inventive mind this writer has.  Full of  unusual murders, twists and turns, always written around the city of London and always bringing history into the plot in some way but with some humour as well and the two detectives are such endearing characters.  I can thoroughly recommend this book either in written or spoken form.  I cannot wait to get the next one in the series which, I believe, is called The White Corridor.  Long time since I have enjoyed an author quite so much.

Wishing you all a happy weekend.

Quick Footnote

Thank you to all those who suggested talking books to help fill the time whilst I am lying down.

I should have put in my previous entry that I have had talking books for a very long time.  I get two or three from the library every month, I am given them as presents and also buy them myself now and again.  But even they get boring if you are just lying there listening to someone talking at you.  Not a lot different from the radio in the end and then I have to move to change the tape or the disc to continue with the story.  Ho hum.

Thanks anyway.

Love,

Jeannette

Windy Wednesday

We had a spectacular storm here last night lasting for over two hours, that was two hours of rain, thunder and lightning. The lightning, however, continued for around another three hours.

I knew a storm was coming because I had a headache and felt jumpy all day.  I have always reacted to approaching storms in this way.  I was just glad it arrived well after I had another visit to the surgery. I hate being out in storms, really hate it.  That stems from a school friend, way back  when I was about eight, who was killed by lightning. 

I had to stop the cream I was given last week because it seemed to make matters worse,  the split skin under my breast became much more inflamed.  So I started treating it with Aloe Vera which helped a great deal but did not stop the weeping.  I decided another visit to the surgery was in order.  I saw a lady doctor and she said it has been mostly caused by the radiation making the skin weaker, plus perspiration and generally all I have been through which has made me very run down.  The skin could not take anymore and has developed a bacterial infection.  So now I am on a different cream.  Let us hope it works although I have been told it will take a while due to the location.

After the storms has come the sun again but the wind is so strong, my hanging baskets are twisting and turning alarmingly.  If it gets any worse  I shall take them down until it abates. A couple of the smaller trees are almost bending double.

Him indoors is out buying paint.  He finished our sunlounge inside and out and it looks so much better and brighter.  Now all the guttering needs to be done.  Yesterday he rubbed it all down and cleaned the gutters out, now he wants to start painting.   Most of the neighbours around here have changed their old metal guttering to PVC but we simply cannot afford it.  We had a couple of quotes and nearly fell over with the price.  So we have to make do and mend.  I suppose we really should have thought about it when Mike was still working but it is easy in hindsight.  Oh well, tonight is lottery night.  You never know!  Although I think it is hardly likely that we will even win ten pounds.

Leo is definitely a house cat.  The back door is open all the time now but he only wanders out occasionally, never more than halfway down the garden and after about ten minutes he comes back in again.  At least I will not have to worry about him wandering.  We are having him neutered when he is six months old.  He might not be a wanderer now but when the old hormones kick in he would certainly go looking for any likely ladies.  Without "the necessary" he will not feel the inclination and it will also prevent him for "spraying" in the house.  Poor little thing, if only he knew what was coming.   Him indoors says it brings tears to his eyes just thinking about it.

Other than that, there is not much news at this end.  I have to go and lie flat on the bed for at least half an hour at a time at intervals during the day and the evening to get the air circulating around my poor boob.  So boring.  Cannot read flat on my back, cannot see the t.v. and there is only so much radio that I can take.  There is not a lot you can do lying flat on your back.......................well there is something you can do in that position as we all know -  but we won't go there!!!!

Well, it will all be worth it if this new cream and the airflow does the trick.  Hopefully when I can get more active again, it will also help my blood sugars.

What a good job we got the planting done before this happened. 

Think of me lying staring at the ceiling.

Love,

A Happy Day Then Some Sad News

We had a nice Father's Day yesterday.  Mike was pleased with his presents and it was so wonderful to be able to spend quality time with Nathan and Daniel after not being able to see them for so long.  I could not take the chance of catching any type of sniffles or bug from them whilst I was undergoing my treatment. 

We watched films of their holiday and Nathan strutting his stuff on the dance floor and playing on the arcade games.  Both boys enjoyed themselves on all the rides. Daniel is really coming on now and starting to say a lot more words.  They played with all the toys here and they both adore Leo.  So, all in all, a lovely time was had by all.

Then I logged on today to find an e-mail from Guido informing me of the passing of  journaller Jim Halliday.  Some of you will already know, some of you were readers of his journal.  He lost his original journal with all his memories somewhere in cyber space and was going to re-do it all for us. Jim was an older journaller and wrote experiences of his army life plus pieces about his family. He had a unique way with words and I know that his journal gave him so much pleasure.  His last entry was quite a sad one.  Like so many in J-Land and elsewhere, he was having a bad year.

The last time I heard from Jim was during the second or third week of my radiotherapy, he wrote to me telling me to keep my chin up, he was sure things would work out for me and giving me the support of both himself and his wife.  I am so sorry that I never answered that e-mail.   It was not that I did not care, it was simply with dragging to the hospital every day and feeling so damned tired, I was not using the computer so much, I was sleeping a lot of the time.  I will always regret that I did not answer him and I now wish so much that I had.  My heart goes out to his wife and his large family.  One of his sons is battling cancer.  I wish him the very best.

Jim was always thanking me for my help.  He said I was his "mentor".  Believe me, when it came to writing, he did not need any help from me.  But I did try to help him where I could with other problems.

If anyone would like to stop by his journal and leave their condolences, it would be a really nice gesture as I am sure his family will read the comments.  It does not matter whether you knew him or not, he was part of J-Land, he was one of us.   Here is the link:

There are no Sundays.

It is always sad to hear of  the  passing of a journaller because we are truly a community. Rest in peace Jim.

I will end on a lighter note.  Mike snapped this picture of Jack and Leo and it is so sweet.  The animals really do get on together and it is lovely to see.

Well, time to get off here.  Going to lay on the bed and try to get some air to the underneath of my breast.  I find it very boring just lying around but if it heals that is the main thing

Wishing you all a good week.

Love,

Being A Kitten Wears Me Out!

It is such a hard life being a kitten.  All that playing, all that eating, all that exploring.  A man has got to get his rest and Leo is no exception.  He is sixteen weeks old now and just like a baby he will suddenly crash out.

The skies opened, the rain came hard and heavy accompanied by thunder.  Many parts of England and Ireland have suffered bad flooding.  So there has been no sitting in the garden the last couple of days.  We have had light rain this morning and the temperature has dropped considerably.  Quite a strong and chilly breeze as well.

I am continuing to have problems.  The armpit is slowly getting better but the other day the skin split under my radiated breast and started weeping.   I cannot tell you how painful it is.  I saw my own doctor.  He thought it might be a fungal infection and prescribed cream.  Oh, the stinging when I applied that!  I was not happy with it so I rang the nurse at the oncology clinic and she was very helpful.  She said she thought it was more likely to be a combination of being run down, sweat rash and skin being tender from radiation.  There is no way I can get the air to it  (it is right underneath the breast) without standing on my head - and I could not even do that as a kid.  Air is the best healer for any kind of wound so, obviously it is going to take longer to recover than other places would.

She said bathe it in tepid water three times per day and just keep a dressing on it.  Honestly, since March there has not been a time when I have not had one dressing or the other in various places.  I am so sick of it.  I thought the day I finished my radiotherapy  was the end of my troubles for a while.  Wrong!

Anyway, if it gets any worse she said to ring her and she would make me an appointment at the oncology clinic.  I thought I was done with these places until October.  So, I am not very happy at the moment. In fact I am very down.  It may seem a trivial thing compared to what I have been through but it is so painful and sore and is worrying me because it is on the affected breast and there is always the chance of infection.

Anyway, it is the weekend and there is nobody available to have another look at it.  So, I shall just follow her advice and hope it does the trick.  Fingers crossed and praying hard. That is all I can do.

The skies just opened again while I was typing the above.  No chance of getting any washing out.  On the positive side, it will water the garden so we need not do that.

Little Leo is a delight as you can imagine and he does make me smile even when I feel as low as I do right now.  His latest trick is to sit on the arm of a chair and when the dogs go by, he leaps onto their backs.  They are very good natured and just put up with it.  

Becky and family returned from holiday last night so we shall be seeing them tomorrow.  They said they had the journey from hell home, road works, hold-ups, rain.  They were glad to back indoors after all those hours on the road.  They went to some of our favourite places and oh how Mike and I wish we could have been with them.

Well, there is not much else to write about.  I shall do a bit of housework and as I cannot get into the garden, I shall either continue with my reading or shall catch up on some t.v. programmes we have recorded.  Why is it that for weeks you get endless rubbish on the t.v. and then all the good programmes come together?  Still, at least nowadays we can capture them on tape or disc and watch them at our own leisure.  That is if we remember!

Have a good weekend my dear friends and readers.

Love,

Little Cat, Big Jungle!

Today is Leo's first day out.  He looks so small and lost out there but he is into everything.  Because he was so little when we got him and there are no other cats in the house for him to copy,  I am certain he thinks he is a dog. We always had more than one cat and they taught each other. Anyway, he follows Mike and myself around the garden, he follows the dogs, he shares their dinners out of their bowls and they do not so much as growl at him!  He only ventures about halfway down the garden at the moment.  How amazing it must be to him, what a big world it is out there, so much to learn, so much to play with.  He has been coming in and out by himself all morning and what a relief it is to us to be able to have the back doors open now.  We have had some very warm days when we longed to open them but did not dare do so in case he got out before his injections "took".

I followed the Old Wives' tale of buttering his paws about an hour before he went out.  My Grandmother always did it, my mother did it and I have carried on with all our cats.  It is supposed to ensure that they always come home.  We gave him about half an hour to lick it all off and then outside he went.

As you can see, he is fascinated by the pond and the fish but has made no attempt to try the water or catch anything.  He saw the dogs being bathed a while ago, heard the taps (faucets) running and when they shook themselves he got wet as well so maybe he already knows that water is not for him.

I am glad he was able to go out this morning because theyhave forecast heavy rain and possible thunder later on.  Our barometer has fallen back to storm.  However, it has done that in the past and we have still escaped it.

Him indoors started painting the outside of our sunlounge yesterday. It is in dire need, in some places it is down to the bare wood because it has not been done for a few years.  He is continuing in a minute after he has finished his lunch and had a cup of tea.  I took the opportunity to sit outside with him, topless again of course and nicely pointed out where he had "missed" bits  of paintwork.  However, I can assure you that this is not me!

Topless I may have been, but discreetly so and can you imagine me twined around with flowers like one of the main characters in "Lady Chatterly's Lover"?  Would not do me any good anyway - Mike is no "Mellors" lol.

Becky phoned.  They are having a good holiday in Somerset and they return on Friday night.  It will be so nice being able to see the boys over the weekend.  It has been such a long time since they have been able to spend time here because of my treatment.  I could not risk picking up a bug from either of them.

They have been swimming a good deal in the pool, been on the beach, had fun on lots of the rides and have seen a couple of shows especially for children.

Well, I suppose I had better stop writing now and go and tackle some housework, not that I am doing a great deal yet, just general tidying.  Have already started on my third book, yes I am a quick reader.  Just finished a biography on Stewart Granger and I am now reading the autobiography of Rolf Harris.  I might sit in the garden again later reading and, as someone commented on my previous entry, let "the girls" out again, providing the rain keeps off but that would mean watering all the plants. You can't win can you? 

Hope you are all having a good week.

Love,

Planting Finished

We have worked hard the last couple of days. Well Mike has worked much harder than I  - although I have played my part and done as much as I could.  What I could not actually do I oversaw from a chair in a patch of shade.  I certainly got plenty of fresh air.  Shall I let you into a little secret?  Well, maybe not ........still as you are all pressing me - I know that you are.........well .............for an hour I sat out there topless.(Jeannette! you daring old devil, I hear you say).  Well, I was in a place where none of the neighbours could possibly see me.  I was advised to get as much air to my breast as I could.  So I took them literally!  You would not believe the difference it has made to the redness and soreness.  So, I shall be doing it again and no there will not be any photos.

Now, nature must take over and we hope to get a colourful show of all the blooms this summer.  However, if it proves as hot as it was last summer then the flowers will go over quickly, they will literally bloom themselves into  burn out.  Hopefully we will get no watering bans.  We have planted Butterfly attracting plants as well this year such as Heliotrope and some Rosemary.  Butterflies and bees all love those.  I read something  in the newspapers about  bees being in peril, colonies are dying out.

This is quite a startling and terrifying fact.  Bees polinate just about everything, all the crops of the world and flowers of course.  Did you know that if all the bees were lost, it would only take seven years for the whole human race to die out.  The extinction of us humans in just that short space of time.  It is true.  So, Mike and I are doing our bit to encourage them into the garden.  I was happy when I took photos today to see lots of bees settling on our plants.

I also wonder what has happened to the Ladybirds (Ladybugs).  We used to get lots here.  Only saw one the whole of last summer and this year - not one.

We were very lucky in that the red Geraniums we have planted along the edge of the pond actually overwintered in the garden because it was so mild  and that is why they are large specimens.  Having tubs all around the pond does restrict the view of the fish when we are sitting down but they serve two purposes.  They deter Herons who can find nowhere to stand and they prevent Nathan and Daniel from falling in.  Hopefully, Leo as well!

Mike and I are both tired now, very achy so we are going to just chill out for the next couple of days.  Becky and family are away in Somerset.  She loaned me some books to read before she left.  So, as long as it remains dry, I shall find a patch of shade and settle in with a book and a nice cup of tea, topless of course!

I will leave you with the garden pictures I took today of the front and the back.  I hope you enjoy them.

 

<img

 

 

Many thanks to Sugar for tagging one of our photos.

Mother Nature Is Wonderful

I never cease to marvel at Mother Nature.  As you know, due to my circumstances this year I have not been able to work in the garden at all.  I was very unhappy over that fact.  However, due to the work Mike and I have put in over the last few years, Mother Nature has rewarded us abundantly even though the garden has been neglected.

Yesterday we did manage to plant up the front garden tubs and put up three hanging baskets.  Just that small effort tired me out.

I have had something worrying me all week that I have only shared with a few people but it is part of the journey I am on so I will share it with you all here.  A few days ago I found a strange dark brown patch on my affected breast. The edges were slightly raised.  I knew that there was a possibility that it could be a skin cancer particularly as I did have a cancerous lump on the outside of my breast apart from the internal tumour and I was told I was "high risk" because of that.  You can imagine the state that I have been in.  Luckily I was booked in to see the nurse at the oncology clinic this morning.

She looked at it and felt I had nothing to worry about.  She could see I was not convinced, not completely at ease, so she called in a senior colleague.  This colleague immediately told me I had nothing to worry about.  Several more had appeared overnight.  These are radiation burns from the treatment and she has seen it often before in people with sensitive skin like mine.  It does not happen to all but my skin has always been tender.  She told me that the affects of radiotherapy do not peak until fourteen days after you cease the treatment, so I am likely to get even more strange brown patches. After that, given time, they should fade although I might always have some trace of them.  Can you imagine my relief?  I truly was scared for a few days.  So, hopefully I can put it all behind me until October when I see the surgeon again.  Praise the Lord.

The soreness and redness have also not peaked yet but I can deal with that now that I know everything is o.k. The tiredness must be endured for some weeks yet.  All I have to do now is (hopefully) settle on the Tamoxifen.  Fingers crossed.

Leo had his second jab/shot yesterday.  Next Wednesday he can venture out into the garden for the first time.  We will be glad because he sees the dogs and us going out there and is now doing his best to find a way into this strange new world.

Anyway, I have gone completely off the point here.  I started off by talking about Mother Nature and how nice our garden is looking considering it has hardly been touched since last October.

So I shall leave you with some photos that Mike took earlier today.

Well, I have fiddled about on here for hours.  I tried to make a slideshow of the flowers like I did of Leo yesterday but it would not have it this time. Spent ages doing captions as well.  Such is life.  So I had to cut down on the amount of photos I have put on here as it is laborious doing them all one at a time.

Mike is emptying out all the old plants from the tubs and tomorrow we start planting, I shall only be able to do some but him indoors has promised to do most of it.  They forecast Thunder for Saturday in these parts so it will be good to get things planted in time for some rain to give them a head start.

Love

Thanks to my dear friend Sugar for the signature.