Hereinafter follows the usual summary of the last month’s doings not otherwise reported upon.
| Mon 1 | OK so it’s April Fools’ Day. I must admit I never really saw the amusement, although over the years the media have pulled a few good stunts – who remembers the Spaghetti Tree? The origins are unclear, and the first British reference to “Fooles holy day” appears to be by John Aubrey in 1686. April Fools’ Day is not to be confused with the medieval Feast of Fools, celebrated by clergy across Europe on 1 January. |
| Tue 2 | The place is awash with roadworks. Our nearest major road is hobbled, north and south, by ongoing works associated with HS2. And the alternative north-south route from/to the A40 Westway is also closed this week for resurfacing work. This latter has a diversion, which takes you at least 2 miles out of your way, and which this morning also had two sets of roadworks, one with temporary lights. Coming north from the A40 there is no decent alternative; going south is little better. Oh and from next month there will be 6 months of roadworks on the A40 itself, at one of London’s busiest roundabout/underpass junctions. Just to pile on the agony even more, not far away the major road at Old Oak Common (major HS2 station site) is about to be closed for four years, with no sensible alternative route! Why can the planers never manage to join the dots? |
| Wed 3 | I chaired a really good meeting of GP’s patient group at lunchtime. Some interesting background from our Practice Manager on a recent development (later postponed) and some good ideas for futures. But blimey weren’t the minutes hard to write even though I tackled them almost immediately afterwards. |
| Thu 4 | Dear God! What a day. Spent the whole day, apart from taking the supermarket delivery, doing stuff for the patient group: meeting minutes, monthly news bulletin, meeting prep for next week. It was never ending, and I just cannot clear the other miscellaneous stuff off my desk. It’s completely knackering. |
| Fri 5 | My brain is frazzled to a cinder. Working on literary society stuff all day – mostly membership renewals and getting the member DB tidied up for the move to the new website etc. It is Saturday, isn’t it?! |
| Sat 6 | Fuck! To put too fine a point on it. I’ve got this f’ing cold again; I think that’s 3 times in 8 weeks or so. Felt miserable all day and doing things at about half speed, at best. But here are some daffodils to cheer things up!  |
| Sun 7 | Boy Cat certainly had the right idea for a Sunday occupation.  Followed by fresh cod for tea, and another good snooze. |
| Mon 8 | Why the the Americans get a total solar eclipse and we get nothing. How do they deserve it more than we do. It’s a conspiracy I tell you. I shall never see a total solar eclipse, and I’m pissed off about it. |
| Tue 9 | Cloudy, dull, rain, sunshine, wind … I think the only things the weather didn’t throw at us today was thunder & lightning and snow. Everyone is getting really hacked off with the rain and the wind. “With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day. With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no.” |
| Wed 10 | Phew! That was a bit of a fight: taking all three cats to the vet for check-ups and their annual injections. Each cat has to go in its own carrier; sharing is not permitted. N had much the worst of trying to catch and imprison them. Luckily we had our friendly local London cabbie to take us, so there is plenty of room on the floor of the cab for 3 cat baskets. We were early to the vet’s, and they were running late, so we had to sit around for nearly an hour waiting. But at least all three got a clean bill of health except that Boy Cat has to have some dental work done, which will hurt the credit card even more than today’s little outing. |
| Thu 11 | I don’t believe it! Not only has it been dry today, but it’s been considerably warmer too. Cloudy and dull most of the day, although this evening there is at least a bit of blue sky. It was even warm enough to have some windows open and get some fresh air in the house. It also made life a lot easier and more pleasant for the window cleaner this morning. |
| Fri 12 | Well what a surprise: a sunny, warm and dry day. And there’s still a little daylight at 20:00 BST (so 19:00 GMT). |
| Sat 13 | As befits a lovely warm, sunny Spring day, we have our first rose in bloom – one of the pink ramblers. |
| Sun 14 | As usual on Sunday afternoon, I unloaded this week’s captures from the trail camera. I got a good shot of one of our foxes (we have at least three visiting regularly) in morning daylight. The fox is standing about 5m from the house and 3m from the camera. It’s not a brilliant shot due to camera resolution. I’ve no idea what it was watching on next door’s roof! |
| Mon 15 | Full marks for the doctors today. I’ve got this filthy cold for the 4th time in 8-10 weeks; the same sinus/cold. Sent a request to GP, explaining this was how I was 30+ years ago before a sinus op, and the only fix to stop the cycle was antibiotics. The doctor didn’t even call me, but just sent a prescription over to the pharmacy, who walked round the corner with it for me. Now that’s what I call service. |
| Tue 16 | Back on Sunday I actually took a few photos in the garden. This one’s called “Lions on the Savannah”. |
| Wed 17 | We’re getting there. Spent the day working on the new literary society website etc. including helping the developer start switching our email accounts and doing a chunk of testing and small updates. Hard work! |
| Thu 18 | So the magpies are still using the nest they built in the top of the silver birch tree. I’ve seen one going into it several times today. It’s not obviously been carrying beaks-full of food, but it could be feeding chicks. |
| Fri 19 | Getting more and more despondent about N’s health. Hospital are not acting with any urgency while her health is just deteriorating. Hospital called at 17:30 this afternoon; she now has to have an appointment with an anaesthetist in a week’s time before they’ll confirm a date of the procedure she needs which is pencilled in for a week later. That then has to heal before it can be used for treatment. That’s going to be much too late and probably past the point of no return. |
| Sat 20 | It’s that time of year, when this week I’ve had an absolute deluge of financial and other important paperwork. Like today arrived the renewal for the house insurance. But it beats me why they have to email 11 (yes, one short of a dozen) separate documents one of which is 50+ pages and another 20+. Then when you renew (online!) they send another three documents which only duplicate the ones you’ve already had. It’s no wonder the premium has gone up almost £80 (or 17%); they’re clearly overpaying people to write by the yard. |
| Sun 21 | Oh dear! It’s many years since I’ve consumed a whole bottle of wine at a sitting. But I managed it tonight with a pretty strong bottle of my favourite Tavel Rosé – and it did slip down easily. Everything that’s going on is enough to drive you to drink! (Actually I’m typing better after the wine!) |
| Mon 22 | Amazing! Today I picked the first six ripe Hot Lemon chillies from the one odd plant I overwintered from last year. And there are at least another eight well on the way; but currently no further flowers. This is amazingly early. |
| Tue 23 | I avoided going to the hospital with N this morning. I wanted to keep an arm-wrench on the consultant, but I didn’t need to as he decided that N needs treatment urgently. So there will hopefully be several more appointments & procedures over the coming days. Really worrying to have got to this stage quite so suddenly; I feel sick in the stomach. And it’s always when you’re under stress from other things too. |
| Wed 24 | N off to the hospital this morning – at their request – as not feeling good. She was well looked after and there all day, but sent home late afternoon. She now knows what constitutes a real emergency. It has also finally got her appointments sorted out, including a procedure on Monday morning. |
| Thu 25 | Everything just gets worse and very stressful. Having to watch N’s condition like a hawk. And trying to get to implementing the new literary society website over the weekend. And of course everything is conspiring against it. Not a happy bunny today. Beer is definitely needed. |
| Fri 26 | Although N is not in an especially good place, and has a very depressed appetite, we’ve had interesting sandwich combinations last night and tonight. Last night was brie and (warm) asparagus, which worked remarkably well. This evening I had hot bacon and asparagus between bread with some HP sauce; again this worked surprisingly well for a combination one wouldn’t normally even consider palatable. If nothing else the English asparagus season is so short one needs to make the most of it. |
| Sat 27 | Our oak tree is coming nicely into leaf. But if you walk down the garden there is a veritable carpet of small twigs with clusters of young oak leaves on the lawn. Yep, it’s the squirrels again! They clearly like nibbling the fresh oak buds and/or flowers, and in the process are dropping the remains. Obviously they don’t realise that the more oak tree they destroy now, the fewer acorns they’ll have come the autumn. |
| Sun 28 | A day of watching paint dry, at least metaphorically. The literary society’s new website due to go live today. But of course a delayed start as the developers have to update another part of their platform first. So nothing started until after 17:00 and is still not complete as I write about 19:30. Nothing I can do except twiddle my fingers until it’s done. And true to form with most of these things it’ll doubtless run on until pushing midnight! How many times have I been here over the years? |
| Mon 29 | At this moment, 19:20, I have no idea what is happening. Sent N off to the hospital at crack of sparrow fart this morning for the plumbing procedure to facilitate dialysis. She managed to ring me at lunchtime to say it had been done, but no further news. At 17:30 she texted to say she was starting a 2 hour dialysis session. I’ve no idea if they’re keeping her overnight, or if I’m going to have to race off to the hospital to collect her in the dark. It doesn’t help that she can’t get much of a phone signal in the hospital. So I await instructions. At least yesterday’s website migration went OK and completed just before 21:00; barring the inevitable few silly things, of course. |
| Tue 30 | Well 10 minutes after writing yesterday N rang to say the hospital were sending her home. Brief discussion ensued and concluded she was OK to get a cab herself, rather than me going to collect her – especially as it would likely be an hour before I got to her. In the event she arrived home in about an hour, pretty exhausted. This evening she has gone off to a nearer hospital for her first real dialysis session, which will now happen 3 times a week. While none of it is good, thankfully she now has the treatment she needs – and should probably have had 3 months ago. Fingers crossed that she’ll start seeing some improvement over the coming weeks.
And breathe!
It’s been a hard month, but hopefully we’re ending it in a better (if not ideal) place than we started. Please can we now have a quiet, warm and sunny May! |
