Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Image courtesy of beatlefans.com

I'm home, a day late but anyway I'm here now and well on the road to recovery. I was looked after wonderfully well in the hospital apart from an unfortunate experience where I was given far too much morphine than was good for me for some reason.

It's still a bit in my system so I'll leave the details and description until a later date. I will say it's not something I want to repeat any time but it has give WH a conversation piece with all the plasterers/painters/roofers working on the new house during his brief visits to supervise. I thought my ears were burning and if I listen hard enough I can hear the laughter from here. Seemingly I would have made a good comedy duo, single handed.

Grounded

Got a date with a sugeon and his knife again in a couple of days so it's busy, busy, busy here as I strive to do in 2 days everything I want to do in the next 4-6 weeks, the length of time I must take it very easy. This time around I'm going to be good, or even more of a pain as far as Worst Half is concerned, no cooking, cleaning or lifting anything heavier than a mug of water, and no driving for at least 3 weeks. I set out to do this last time but things didn't always work out and I just did what I had to. Now I'm having the resulting damage repaired so I've decided that as I don't want to go through this a third time, I might as well be over cautious instead.

Meanwhile, my lovely cleaner Mrs T is having one of those 'special' birthdays so I must be up early tomorrow before her visit to arrange her present. Seeing as she did enough ironing to last half a lifetime last week and I have another mountain again already the gift had better be good. Actually I really can't live without her now and I do feel a bit sorry landing her with all this but I've been sorting out my holiday stuff in advance and also digging out a load of really old favourites which now suddenly fit again, after 6 or so years in the 'just in case box' so of course it all had to be washed and pressed. I am the living proof that saving stuff 'for when I lose weight' does actually sometimes pay off. Now over 2 stones lighter, I have just discovered a long forgotten interest in clothes shopping, trouble is, I don't want to buy too much as at the rate at which I am going none of this will fit again in 3 months time, it will all be too big. Then I really will chuck it out and save Mrs T any more grief.

Shopping however is off the agenda for the next few weeks, even when I can travel there's no dampner like a bored male to stop you looking at anything interesting, as I will have to have a chauffeur for a few weeks more. I'll be living vicariously through those members of the family who can get out and of course there's always the internet. After all, I do have a holiday in a months' time to plan for. Accordingly I have ordered a few little goodies to arrive next week to give me something to look at although I expect I'll be sending WH to the post office to return most of it, especially if he catches sight of the invoices.

Tomorrow I'll be potting up the rest of my herbaceous cuttings ready for the move to the new house. Someone donated about 50 ten inch plant pots so I'm busy filling them with stuff which will grow up over the next few months and then be transplanted in the autumn to create an instant 'mature' herbaceous border. It also means I get to take most of my collection of hardy geraniums which I would hate to lose. We did move a few bits from the new house down to WH's garden prior to us totally devastating the back garden and it's amazing what has come up. Today I spotted a mouse plant and a tiny cyclamen amongst a jasmine we have saved. It breaks my heart that the garden was so overgrown and such a mess that we had no real option but to cut it all back. During our visits this time last year we barely saw much more than weeds and grass and now all these little gems are appearing. In what remains of the garden itself I search every day for seedlings and signs of unusual things. Earlier we discovered at least 20 varieties of daffodils and narcissi, some very old varieties when I looked them up and a row 2 metres in length of what I think must be colchicums but of course we won't know until they flower in the autumn.

Meanwhile I'll be looking at flowers of a different nature later this week, on the TV, and making mental plans of the garden I'm going to make when I've recovered.

See ya!

Sod's law

Damn, bugger and blast.

I did a lot of packing for the move last week and sorting out WH's house prior to No 1 daughter and family moving in and I thought I pulled something in my stomach as WH handed down some boxes from my loft. The next day there was a distinct ache. A timely visit to the GP confirmed it, my hernia is back. I'm really mad, things were going so well and now I'm back to not exerting myself, no lifting or carrying and being generally careful. Dancing for 2 hours at the Hayseed gig probably didn't help either.

I see the surgeon again on Wednesday and this time I will be begging him to do the 'proper' final stuff with the mesh. After all it's not the NHS and surely if I am paying I can have what I want? Last time I went with his considered opinion that it was not necessary the first time. No of course not, that way you get to pay for 2 operations when the first doesn't hold. Usually I'm moaning about the NHS, this surely makes a change.

I'm going 'Private' again for the same two reasons I did before, far less risk of catching anything with my lack of a decent immune system and the much greater nursing care given as I didn't know exactly how, as a Lymie, I was going to react to surgery. This time there is a third reason, my window of opportunity to have surgery is minuscule, restricted to one convenient week only. So another operation is looming again, hopefully as soon as I can fix it after we return from Denmark in 4 week's time. That would give me 4-5 weeks recovery before the great Corfu Holiday. I need all my strength for that.

Afterwards I had planned a fairly active summer, festivals, craft fairs and the like until August when WH is due to have his shoulder operated on again. He had this done before in 2002 and it wasn't too successful so they're doing something more radical so he can continue to use it. If that works he is scheduled for the second one a few months later. In the intervening time we will most likely decamp to Greece where there will be no temptation for him to use it to any great degree. In any case he has been told he will be off work 3-4 months, not the 6 weeks he managed last time.

Quite where this puts the house move in the scheme of things I'm not sure, I will be out of action for 3-4 months as far as that goes so it looks like WH will be doing it all himself; that's when he's finished the house which for the last 4 months has been a single handed job as it is. We did get rid of the semi-permanent skip last week so that's a start, just a kitchen roof to get on and a kitchen to fit and we might be half-way there.

The arrival in 4 weeks of WH's nephew back from his annual 6 month sojourn in the Far East will give a second pair of experienced and lightening-quick hands. He generally works for us for the other 6 months of each year but has been so busy with other things for 18 months we had to do without our Main Man. His return is eagerly anticipated, not least by me, so WH will no longer feel he is doing the whole kit and caboodle himself.

Sometimes I am really sick of being sick, after 16 years I should have learned it's always two steps forward and one step back.

Back from the front line

I'm home. I've got stitches. I'm sore. I can walk but I can't sit.

I was allergic to the dressings. I was allergic to some of the hospital equipment (Memo to self: Does this mean I have a latex allergy?). I was only in for 8 hours after all the fuss before-hand. I was accompanied by WH the WHOLE time.

I'll be housebound for the next few days. I will be able to drive in a couple of weeks. I'll be packing for the move in a couple more.

I had a hernia, which was nothing really to a 'normal' but to a Lymie, it's a whole other country, let alone the complications that having an infection in my foot brought.

It's over. Yay!!!!!!

Cartoon courtesy of www.piperreport.com

Pear shaped

Well most of my plans for the end of summer are now on hold. I am wating for a small operation to undo the damage I did moving two paving slabs in the back garden. I saw the consultant yesterday and I should be booked in for 2 weeks time, I'll know for definite on Monday.

At least the end is now in sight; however, I had to cancel the trip to Denmark, next week's break in Cornwall and so far the holiday in Greece looks a non-starter too. We are still off tomorrow for one night only, as they say, to see the Quo and the Hayseeds and to meet up with other Outhousers. Full report to follow.