My health story

is now on the Invest in ME website here, one of a number of stories of how ME affects the individual because we are all different. Probably my ME symptoms are not as bad as those of other people but then I do have Fibromyalgia and the RA to contend with too. What is similar is the way in which the medical profession has treated ME sufferers. With some help from Invest in ME we are trying to change that.

Go on, write to your MP now and ask them to support us. Full details and even a suggested letter are here

In my garden this week

the first of the Clematis texensis varieties. This one is Princess of Wales. It looks lovely trailing through the bright green Akebia leaves.

This week, mostly

I'm watching.....

Wimbledon on the box. It's been 30 years since I last went there. Shame Henman is out, well he didn't stand much chance but as John McEnroe said they could have scheduled it for tomorrow so he had a rest first! Watched a good match with Scotsman Alan Mackin and Cypriot Marcos Bagdatis. Marcos was so ill I thought he would scratch but he overcame a back injury, a pulled knee, a groin strain, a hacking cough and almost throwing up on court to win. As the comentator said, we had every conceivable drama on court 3 today! See the match report here

I'm eating.....

Strawberries. Need I say more except that I had a rare treat last night of a dessert I first had in Turin about 25 years ago. Slice some ripe strawberries into a bowl. Sprinkle over a generous amount of Cointreau or Grand Marnier liqueuer. Eat the fruit then drink the liqueur. Fabulous.

I'm smelling.....

the scent of the surfinias and verbenas in the hanging baskets round my back door. Now it even smells like summer.

Goodbye little Lucky

WH's cat, which the household shared with a neighbour, died today. No-one knows exactly how old she was, but she had been there for over eighteen years. Originally she turned up as one of several strays, all black with white markings and lived in the shed outside. One day, apparently, she just walked indoors, jumped on WH's lap and there she stayed. After the girls grew, up she spent more time with the neighbours, sleeping in their airing cupboard and terrorising the other resident stray.

Really however, she was my youngest step-daughter's cat. She had an uncanny knack of knowing which days she was coming to stay at her Dad's and waited on the garden wall at 3.30pm to greet her from school. She slept with her too, until, after hours of purring and pawing, she would be unceremoniously shoved onto the floor. Failing all else, she would sleep with WH and then demand to be let out at 4am! She learned how to climb in top windows, how to knock when she wanted to come in and how to climb onto the shed roof and turn sommersaults as she reached for the nesting Martins above. She never got one though. She did once catch a mouse. Indignant little step-daughter rescued it until the mouse bit her sharply on the finger and would not let go. The mouse was returned to Lucky sharpish and left to it's fate.

Lucky had a lovely life, a variety of laps to choose from, indeed a choice of homes and beds to sleep in. She had the greenhouse when it was warm and the airing cupbaord when it was cold. She was fed ham and garlic sausage by her doting owners and spent hours chasing a little girl up and down the garden paths, being dressed up and pushed round in a dolls pram and even had a poem recited about her at a Brownie Revel. She was soft and gentle and extremely faithful. She will leave a big hole and an awful lot of memories for a lot of people.

Life was hard in 1875

This morning I received in the post a Birth Certificate for one of WH's ancestors who was born in 1875. Although this Reuben was not a direct ancestor his mother was, as was his sister. The Mother died shortly after Reuben's birth, her 14th child; family legend told of how the Mother 'got up' too soon after the birth in order to make bread for the family. Within four weeks she had died of exhaustion.

Even sadder, Reuben's birth was registered on the very same day as his Mother's death was registered, two days after the event. Pity the poor husband who had to carry out that duty.

The crazy world of the madhouse

Well today has been a nightmare. In order: A trip to hospital (not me), visits to several plumbers merchants looking for elusive parts, five voicemails, four urgent phone-calls, the bank, the building society, the building site, the supermarket, a trip to the vets (not for any of my animals) and finally home. Oh, and I also did a credit reference for one of our customers and looked up drawings for parts on the net. I had no breakfast and no lunch and dinner was a hybrid of Morrocan stew and English veg. WH has decamped to his own abode for a couple of nights so I can get some rest and a lie-in and now I discover my neighbours are back from Turkey and are in the village pub celebrating a birthday. They will no doubt be back about 1 am as per usual singing and making a racket.

I dream of a house in the middle of nowhere with no neighbours, no phones and definitely nothing to do with the building trade. I wonder why.

Look what I bought today

A strange plant known as the Dragon's Head Plant or Dracocephalum. I got the form known as Fuji Blue. Apparently it is from the US originally. Hope it grows well in my garden, I love it!

It must be summer

The first of the local flower shows takes place tomorrow and Sunday, an old-fashioned event which is strictly policed with not a cheap-jack trader or tacky funfair in sight. This show has flowers and plants, lots of them in a marquee reminiscent of flower shows of days gone by. Displays of delphiniums stand cheeck by jowl with begonias, roses and bonsai trees. Several nurseries set up displays on old fashioned jet black staging. The whole marquee is a riot of colour. A brass band plays on the lawn and visitors are treated to real home cooking in the Local Foods tent and to a display of Local Crafts in the crafts tents.

Let's hope the sun shines.

Down in the dumps

We are still awaiting a reply to my GP's fax to the Rheumatologist some 11 days ago. My GP thinks that they won't bother replying before my appointment on 5th July. Meanwhile my hands are back to square one, wooden appendages which do not want to either move or stop hurting. Irritatingly, the skin itch is back too. This was an unsolved mystery for about 8 years until after taking the disease modifying drug it suddenly went. I can only infer that this too is of auto-immune origin. Additionally I have large lumps now on my palms, soles of my feet and on my elbows and knees. The tiredness is absolute, I am sleeping about 14 hours a day. This all seems to be very rapid as though it was just waiting for a lull in the treatment to jump up and say "I got you!"

On a different subject, WH had some steel bars delivered this morning. Being 6 metres long and quite heavy they were dumped in some long grass at the side of the driveway until he could cut them up tonight. By 2pm they had gone, presumably stolen. These could not be seen from anywhere much other than my upstairs window. Someone must have seen them come, then seen our vehicles depart and rushed out and took them. Our neighbours saw nothing. Very strange, and even stranger for our little corner of Devon where nothing much happens.

This week in my garden

I have some lovely plants of the old fashioned cottage garden Agrostemma, renamed Lychnis Coronaria, blooming now. I did have the white and the pink forms but only the bright fushia colour remains. They self seed so you never quite know where they will come up next.


The next thing flowering right now is primula vialli, a similar colour to the Lychnis but much mre showy and unusual. It likes to be fairly damp so I hope it survives in my back garden where the clay is already baking well.

Lastly is Clematis Marie Boisellot which lights up a wall in the back garden. It's pure white flowers are lovely and as big as saucers.

This week, mostly

I'm reading.....

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Not my usual sort of thing but I found it on my patio on holiday and it had a Bookcrossing tag on it so I thought I'd give it a go. I find some of the language a bit stilted but then it has been translated from Spanish so it may be due to that. Most of the reviews I have read have described it a gripping page-turner, unfortunately not me, so far. I'll let you know.

I'm eating.....

goodies from a deli called by the name of Effings which WH brought me back from Exeter. So far I have sampled the marinated sun dried tomatoes and a bean salad, WH loved their pain-raisin too. Tomorrow I've got fresh pesto which I'll be having in the Ligurian style with pasta, new potatoes and green beans. Heaven.

I'm watching.....

beautiful, baby blue tits fluttering and trying to fly from the willow at the bottom of my garden to the neighbour's garage roof and back again. The squeaky little chirrups whilst they do this is lovely! I'm keeping my cats well out of the way whilst all this is going on. Nelson however, is very wary of all feathered creatures at the moment having been pecked by a huge crow in the oak tree last week. Pack-hunting with Misty, he went too close for comfort and by the sound of the scream and the ensuing squawking the crow had the last laugh.

There's nothing like a lick of fresh paint

The complaining painter is here attacking the garage door with gusto. At one stage he disappeared inside the garage, shut the door and a white duster was subsequently seen flapping over the top, I wasn't sure if he was cleaning the inner surround or signalling for help as he was locked in.

In view of the unearthly hour I had to get up and out, I cut down a load of plants in the front garden so now you can actually see the path to the front door.

"I thought your house had disappeared or I'd got the wrong road!"

I was finished by 8.30am and retired to make the first of an unending series of cups of tea. I have now cleaned the living room, bathroom and the hall, stairs and landing. The place now gleams. Unable to sew because of the worsening condition of my hands I have tried to be productive in other ways.

I'll have plenty more cleaning to do later in the week as WH has decided we will get the bathroom re-papered as he has hated it ever since he mucked it up doing the floor in April. I have yet to tell the painter. I just know he will be overjoyed.

"Everytime I come out here the weather changes for the worst, I'll have to find some inside jobs now," This was in response to 20 minutes of drizzle overnight.

"We've had gales forecast for Wednesday, I can't do fascia boards in that now can I, nor take Mother shopping."

Nothing changes in the decorating world.

Finding the inner child

Today for Father's Day we had a trip to Exmouth beach with the Grandkids and spent happy hours rock-pooling and catching crabs. Grandad of course caught the biggest one whilst Nanny received a handful of shells, sticks and stones to take home as a souvenir. My handbag is now full of sand and other assorted bits which I must now clear out asap!!

It's the tennis season

I've been watching the tennis from Queens Club on the new TV (old one packed up the night we returned from Greece) and it reminded me of this Betjaman poem. OK, I admit it, my memory was also jogged by another lovely summery poem my friend V reminded me of earlier.

Enjoy reading of summers gone by.

A Subaltern's Love Song


Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

John Betjaman

Doctor of Hunger

A week ago today we were sunning ourselves in Platanias and having the best fish-lunch of the trip feasting on black bream, salad and fries at the self -styled 'doctor of hunger' taverna.

Whilst we enjoyed the general ambiance, the food and the view of the sea we were serenaded by the twittering of a busy pair of swallows who were feeding a nest above our heads. After the meal was over we investigated to find the cause of all the hard work.

The photo below says it all. No wonder Mum and Dad were busy, feeding all this lot.

In my garden this week

Everything's going white.

First up is a New Zealand speciality bouught and planted 4 years ago in honour of my step-daughter who was then living in NZ. This is Diplarrhenia moroea and is related to the Iris family. It stands about 18 ins high and has a lovely scent. the flowers only last a day but they produce quite a few in succession. I must be lucky as when I read up on it it said it only survives in very mild areas, certainly not a description of Devon this last winter.

Next up and also in my front garden is this one, yet another geranium, this time G. pyrenaicum albifloria or the white hedgerow geranium.

This is an annual and has gone crazy in my front border. The plants are lax sprawlers and seed themselves profusely, in winter you are rewarded with mounds of downy grey/green leaves.

Another white form is G. ashodeloides album which is much daintier and more well behaved in habit although just as prollific as it's larger brother above.

This one has star shaped flowers and seedlings are either white or pink flowered.

Lastly a rare gem from the back garden, Silene fimbriata syn S. multifida purchased at a Women's Institute plant sale a couple of years ago. These are always a rich source of the unusual and plants are normally very cheap there too. My picture is not so good of this one partly because overnight the snails had a real feast with the flowers which had been flattened by rain.

This will grow to well over 3 feet so is a good one for the back of the border. It is shade tolerant too, always a bonus!

A trip to the farmer's market

Sitting in a small Greek country town having coffee on the day of the local farmer’s market we were struck by the number of trucks who drove half way across the cross roads and then stopped. In some cases the driver got out and went shopping, in others they stayed in the vehicle and chatted to their neighbours and friends with no regard whatsoever for the large tail back of traffic which was rapidly accumulating. From one truck filled with water melons, which came screeching to a halt outside the kafenion, emerged the village priest who came to sit and sip a frappe along-side us.

The local builders were there too and were buying large terracotta pots or pithoi from a ten year old boy. The child staggered across the square carrying pots almost as tall as him no less then four times. Eventually a bargain was struck but the boy also tried to get the builders to buy him a can of Epsa, the local lemonade, for his trouble. The builders ignored his pleas and were treated to a stream of indignant Greek and the threat of his Mother speaking to them!

All hell was let loose when another flatbed truck appeared carrying a Friesian dairy cow and her minder who was frantically holding the cow’s rope lest she should choose to jump out when the truck stopped. Several children ran alongside and were laughing and shouting to the poor chap who looked decidedly travel sick.

Another highlight of the market was the fresh green garlic which had been strung in chains and was selling for a few euros a bundle. Nothing remarkable about that other than the stallholder who was a girl aged about six. When no other customers appeared to be forthcoming, she pulled her little truck of garlic up through the village and into the central plateia to see if she had more luck there.

Gradually as the market thinned out, the traffic jams calmed much to the relief of the local policeman who had been reduced to leaving his table and his coffee, and trying in vain to sort out the ensuing chaos by much blowing of his whistle and gesticulating. Eventually his patience snapped and he was on the verge of issuing parking tickets to two drivers who had parked across the square whilst one rushed into the bakery and the other shouted to his friend the café owner. Luckily the threat was enough and they both drove off only to be replaced two minutes later by an Ape 3-wheeler towing a trailer of courgettes and a fisherman driving a small digger, nets and lines carefully laid in the shovel on the front.

Our coffee finished, we sat watching the later arrivals, elderly men on sticks with a bag of bread or oranges and grandmothers pushing children in prams and pushchairs over laden with bags of sardines and potatoes swinging from the handles. The next phase of the market was about to begin: the communal coffee and gossip time. The noise level rose to deafening. We left the locals to their chat and escaped to the quiet of the nearest beach.

Last week, mostly

I was reading......

The Island by Victoria Hislop. Well what can I say? I was swayed by the jacket notes, one of which was "A moving and absorbing holiday read....-Evening Standard". Hmmm, to me it was one of the saddest and most depressing books I have ever read, not the light-hearted, escapist drama I like on my holiday. True, the author had researched her subject thoroughly but almost 400 pages of life in a leper camp and only 60ish about anything else was just too heavy for me.

I was listening.....

to the sound of sparrows in the tree outside my window fighting over ripe mulberries, the putt-putt of little fishing boats across the bay, the plink-plink of bazouki music in the tavernas, Notis Sfakianakis, the trill of Cetti's warbler, the blur of itinerant trades people, the drone of the bees over the thyme bushes, the nightingale in the trees by the stream, the frogs in the evening and lots, lots more.

I was eating.....

fish, fish and seafood. We had hake, sea bass, gilt-head bream, black bream, big prawns, anchovies and crayfish. My best meal of the trip however was a Veal Chop. Not the pale, flabby, cruelly-produced stuff we used to get here (and avoided) but a rich, meaty, textured meat with a bite which comes with age, what my butcher of 25 years ago used to sell as Baby Beef. Toasted over charcoal, sprinkled with oregano and sauced with lemon juice it was exceptional.

And another thing, we didn't have a single frozen chip in the whole two weeks. Ok, yes, we had Fried Potatoes (chips to us plebs) but these were hand-peeled, hand-cut, hand-fried in veg oil until they were perfectly golden and crispy. They were all different sizes and some odd shapes but what the heck, they were great!

Plaquenil Update

Well it's not very good news here. I had a massive skin reaction to the sun whilst I was away and had to see a doctor locally. She told me it was definitely caused by the Plaq and to stop taking it immediately. Today my long-suffering GP has confirmed this and now I have to wait until the consultant can suggest something else which is likely to be Methotrexate, yuck.

Interesting experience of Greek healthcare though. I went to the local health centre which covered about 20 small towns and villages and asked to see an English speaking doctor as I felt sure it was a problem with my meds. The lady on the door said, "Ok that is me, come right in." No wait, no queuing and no being fobbed off. I spent an hour being examined by no less than 2 doctors who then checked all my meds against their version of the British Pharmacopeia for interactions and side effects. Eventually the Plaquenil was pronounced the culprit and it was explained to me not to take any more on any account as the next reaction could be fatal!

We then retired to another office whilst a prescription was written and my details taken. In typical Greek fashion the prescription was stamped no less than 3 times with different official stamps. I was then told where the pharmacy was to get the new meds and invited to return at any time over the next 72 hours if I had any problems whatsoever. All this was in a sparklingly clean building where the cleaner was hard at work polishing the stairs, the decoration was perfect and the walls decorated with large explanatory notices and diagrams about common conditions both in English and in Greek. This was a very rural part of Greece, about 60 miles from the nearest large town, and the healthcare was exemplary. The prescription charge for 3 items was less than the normal charge for 2 here as well.

Eat your heart out NHS.

The day begins in a quiet Greek fishing village

Just a flavour of where we have been the last two weeks....

I am awoken at 6am by the sound of a little boat putt-putting across the bay in front of our window. Within five minutes the boat has gone and silence remains. I go back to sleep. At 7 I hear a loud guttarall "Euh, po po po" and the thwack of a house reel on concrete. Our neighbour two-doors down, Mrs Loud-voice Greek has emerged and surveyed the debris on her patio and is now using the hose to wash it clean. Overnight, ripe mulberries from the tree in our adjoining yards have fallen leaving a sticky mess on her floor. I doze off to sleep again only to be awoken again by the sound of shouting. Mr Very-quiet-voice Greek has come to see what his wife is doing and deposited a fishing line on her best patio-table cloth. Mrs shouts at him, Mr just shakes his head and repeats "yes, yes, yes". The line is hastily removed, the pot plants and cloth rearranged and the couple return inside to breakfast.

A car is heard approaching on the lane behind the villa and comes sharply to a halt on the sea front, another two feet and it would have been in the sea. With much screeching of brakes and crashing of gears, the car reverses up the slope and parks on the only space in front of the Kafenion. It being a weekday the Kafenion remains closed. The owner gets out and throws some fishing lines off the road into the sea, weighting each with a stone or a lemonade bottle. He sits on the stone wall around another mulberry tree and begins a loud conversation into his mobile phone. At intervals other Greek men appear from the shadows and begin fishing too. Mrs Loud-voice emerges and has loud conversations with several of them whilst she polishes her patio chairs and rearranges her pot plants for a second time.

A single woman, Brit-girl emerges from her villa with a cup of strong Greek coffee and sits down on the shady patio to read. Life becomes still again and she soaks up the silence, the sparkling water and sea air.

An hour later and two other Brit couples emerge and moan about the mulberries which today are worse than ever. Mrs Home-Counties begins to sweep ineffectually with a small broom. She says to her husband that she thinks she will use the hose. "Over my dead body" he retorts, "You'll make too much mess and get water everywhere and anyway the excercise is good for you" She carries on sweeping. Brit-girl meanwhile has hosed her patio down and already, 5 minutes later, it is dry and pristine clean. She returns to her book. Mrs Home-Counties still sweeps until, worried by marauding wasps, she gives up.

A new, strange sound surrounds the villa like a Muslim call to prayer and appears to be coming nearer; eventually we follow it along the lane between the buildings and on to the sea front. The source of this is a white pick-up truck with a large tannoy speaker on the cab-top. The driver is speaking into a microphone. The back is loaded high with multi coloured plastic chairs (logo:Athenes Olympics 2004), plastic buckets, mops, brooms, watering cans and plastic pots. Atop the highest pile of chairs sits a dark-skinned, dark-eyed boy aged about 8. The passenger climbs out and checks the boy is still there, she is a large woman built like a belly-dancer, similarly dark-skinned and wears a tight, flowery, purple dress and matching head-scarf fringed with beads. These are Roma people from Northern Greece and they travel the length of the country selling their wares. There are no customers so the truck turns round and drives off again.

By now the other Brit couples are breakfasting on their terraces, Mr and Mrs Home-Counties appear to eat separately, she has fresh fruit and yoghurt, he has toast and jam. Mr and Mrs Normal however eat together, chattering all the while and eat the local bread and honey. Both couples make their plans for the day then begin to pack up. Good Mornings are exchanged and questions relating to today's plans are asked. Brit-girl doesn't have a plan and says she will see what turns up.

The male in the third villa, after much yawning and loud stretching has emerged and goes to the waterfront for a solitary cigarette. He talks to the fishermen and is in time to watch the arrival of a small boat which picks up two Greeks and takes them to their own boats moored some 40 yards away. Another lone Greek wearing goggles and a snorkel enters the sea with a net and a washing up bowl. Later, all we can see from the shore is the top of a head, a snorkel and blue bowl swimming from side to side about 20 yards out. Alpha-male then decides he is hungry, thinks he will have a fry up, Greek bacon, fried eggs and several rounds of toast. He sits and waits for Brit-girl to cook it for him. The other Brits smelling the bacon, beat it quickly lest they might admit it smells delicious.

Alpha-male and Brit-girl eat their fry-up in peace, the neighbours have long since disappeared to their chosen beaches. Yet another truck is heard approaching. The voice-over is just about intelligeable "Potatoes, tomatoes, courgettes, beans, onions, melons". There is a flurry of activity as women emerge to make their purchases. Kalimeras are exchanged as locals pass by. An ancient set of scales is set up on the quay and the goods weighed out.

Brit-girl and Alpha Male could watch all day. This is the real Greece.

Kali Nichta Kalamos

We are home!

We arrived back at 3 o'clock this morning and today has been one round of family visits and unpacking.

Just a quick picture of the sunset one night before a storm.

Our weather was brilliant but just a 4 hour drive away in the Thessaloniki area they had snow on Thursday.

Will be posting more in the days to come.