A Lost Family

 I went to The Royal Marsden Hospital to have my routine six monthly blood test first thing yesterday morning. It is such a wonderful place and so perfectly run. When I first got my Royal Marsden letter three and a half years ago I left it on the coffee table unopened all day. I didn't want to open it, I didn't want to go there at all. When I finally did open it and of course go to my appointment I was so surprised at how different it was to what I expected. It almost didn't feel like a hospital it's so friendly. It's not just the feel of the place though, they dealt with each problem in such a matter of fact way and organised way. I really trust them and as soon as I walk in I feel as though I am among friends. Hopefully I will be told my blood results are fine when I have my appointment next week, but if they aren't I'm sure any problems will be dealt with in their usual professional way. 

It was quite a coincidence, as I mentioned a while ago a young woman had contacted me to say some family had found two large framed photos from around the 1920s in their loft when they moved into a house in Shirley near Croydon. They contacted the previous owners who weren't interested in them and a local history society who didn't want them either. After an internet search this young woman found my Photo Archive website and asked if I would like them. Of course I was thrilled, it is just the sort of thing I put on the website all the time, forgotten photos that no one knows what to do with. She emailed me this week to say she had an appointment nearby and would drop them off yesterday. When she arrived with them she told me she was on her way to The Royal Marsden, which is just up the road, to have chemotherapy which she was receiving for cancer she was diagnosed with last November. I told her I had been there that morning and we had a little chat about it all, she was so young and kind and I couldn't get over she was taking the trouble to bring these photos round while she was in the middle of her treatment. I wished her all the best with her treatment but told her in my experience she was being treated in the best place in the world. Sometimes fate can make you meet someone in your life, just fleetingly, but you feel all the better for having met them.

I spent an hour yesterday taking the backs of the photos and giving them a good clean. They are enormous! Sadly there is no way yet to identify the photos but the photographer was in Peckham. I love them! I think the family look almost theatrical, definitely different with lots of character. I copied them while they were out of their frames so I can add them to the website. 

It turned into such a lovely afternoon, I managed to get a few jobs done in the garden. The little fox cub was round and about again. It seems rather sad to see him on his own all the time, with no siblings. In the evening when I was putting things away, he (or she) was asleep on our neighbours shed, no doubt sleeping off his evening meal we had put out earlier.  

Of course there's another big game tonight. Poor Tom is on a late duty and will miss it all, driving an empty bus around all evening, in the rain apparently, while everyone else is watching it. Have a lovely day everyone what ever your plans and I hope you manage to avoid the rain. xx

Putting On Weight And How To Lose It

 I think I may have to give our Too Good To Go bags a miss for a while. They have been so good and saved us so much money but Tom and I have put on weight. There are always pastries and doughnuts that I don't eat but Tom loves and always crusty bread which is so hard not to eat slices and slices of. The other sort of food I have been eating a lot of is prepared salads like coleslaw and potato salad. I hate waste and as they are at their sell by date when we get the bag we find ourselves piling more on our plates. I'm also eating more processed food than I would normally buy. In the last few weeks I have put on a few pounds, not too much in itself but if it carries on every few weeks goodness knows where it could end up! I have tried to convince myself that it's the weight of my brain growing with all these new Welsh language skills! Sadly I know this is not the case so these bags will have to be a bit more infrequent I think. 

There is one way I find of eating that always makes me lose some weight and I discovered it when I had to go on a special diet before my treatment for thyroid cancer. As I had to have an iodine free diet there was a lot of foods I couldn't eat but one group of foods I had to cut out completely was any pre prepared foods and I'm sure this was the reason that I lost weight. I felt so well while I was on this diet I promised myself I would never eat processed food again. Of course they have crept back into my diet a bit as it is hard to avoid them totally but after watching a TV show the other night about how these foods alter our brain I think I will have another go at cutting them out an hopefully lose the few pounds I have put on. In one way is is so simple, if you look at a food label and it has more than five ingredients or ones you can't even pronounce don't eat them, but that is very hard in this day and age I'm afraid. If you look online there are some people who take a 100 day challenge of the 5 ingredients or less rule in pre prepared  food and I really admire them but I'm not sure if I would be able to do this. 

I've been trying to persuade the rest of the family to join in too as it would be so much easier if we were all doing it, but it's been falling on deaf ears I'm afraid. Youngest son was happily munching on a doughnut out of our Too Good To Go bag while I was explaining it to him. "You're looking at this all wrong Mum" he said "There are only two ingredients in this, a doughnut and sugar!" Now you see what I'm up against!  I will allow myself the odd lapse, especially when we are at the caravan, but I'll let you know how I get on. 

One of last years cubs seemed to have returned to the garden again as there is another young fox, but not as young as our cub, hanging around. Yesterday afternoon was so lovely and sunny youngest daughter fell asleep on the sun lounger in the garden and when she woke up the male fox was happily sitting in the sun too, just a few feet away from her, not a care in the world. I have bought a toy for our only fox cub with our Pets At Home delivery and thought I better buy a new one for Tess and Layla to play with too. I don't want them feeling left out! The trouble is as breeds they play in such different ways. Tess wants to play with the toy and tug it and chew it, but Layla just wants us to throw it for her, then she brings it back and carries it around all day. I think I better buy another one as Layla is certainly not giving it up!

I'm going to my Dad's house today to do his shopping and I'll be checking some of  the curtains I have made for the caravan too. Today is going to be very warm, which is lovely after all the rain we had in May. So it looks like it's onwards and upwards into June! Have a lovely day everyone what ever you are doing. xx

Coronavirus Vaccinations And Tomato Plants

 Scarlett really enjoyed being here on a Saturday too. We watered all the plants in the garden as everywhere is really dry. We haven't had rain for quite a long time now, I can't even really remember when it last rained. Luckily I had my little helper with me and all the plants got watered. There's a lot to water now. I can't quite bring myself to put my seedlings out yet, after all the hard work of collecting the seeds and growing them, I'd be ever so upset if they were killed by a late frost.

After lunch my eldest daughter picked Scarlett up, sadly the house they were looking at was no good for lots of reasons. It was such a lovely day I decided to walk into Sutton to get my second coronavirus jab. I had the AstraZeneca again and explained that I had, had a temperature and a headache after the last injection. The nurse advised me to take two paracetamol before I went to bed, which I did, and I have been fine. Maybe I would have been anyway, but so far I feel very well and am so relieved they are both out of the way.

On the way back I bumped into a man who works at the Co-op. He was telling me that they have had lots of tomato plants delivered for £1. We had a chat about what we were both growing and how it was all doing and I said I would pop down later to buy a couple. As the evening went on I forgot about it then at about 9pm I remembered. As I felt tired by then, Tom said he would go, he loves seeing what they have reduced at the end of the day, usually cakes he finds I've noticed! He was very pleased to have bought the last tomato plant left. "It looks a bit dead" I said trying not to appear ungrateful. "I thought you would be able to bring it back to life!" I'm not sure about that. It's in "intensive care" on the kitchen windowsill but I still I think I may watch for the delivery lorry going by today and then run down an hour later and see if I can buy a few more. 

I've got some spare time today so I think I may have a go at fixing the old Robert's radio. My fingers have been itching to do it but I have needed a day with some free time. I hope everyone has a lovely Sunday what ever your plans. xx

Grateful To So Many People

I felt much better as the morning went on yesterday and by the afternoon could get out and about as normal although I did feel very tired. I have been reading up about the side effects of the coronavirus vaccine (I probably should have done that before!) and interestingly it seems you are much more likely to get the sort of effects I had, after the second vaccine as the body now recognises this invading threat and fights extra hard against it.  There have also been reports that there is evidence the same thing happens and you are more likely to experience flu like symptoms if you have already had the virus. I find all this information so interesting, something I have never really paid any attention to before but now always watch the television interviews, I have even finally got my tounge around the words virologist and epidemiologist! What ever the causes of any of it, I am just grateful to the skill of the people who developed this vaccine and grateful to our NHS that I have been able to receive it. 

We worked hard yesterday afternoon and have put part of the new railings and gate up in the back garden. The little fence that was there before is mainly rotten and Tom has an appointment at the dump this morning, which is the new way of doing things. I am very pleased with the arch and gate and will take a photo when it is all completed. My only slight concern is if it is substantial enough to contain Layla our Springer Spaniel. 

The other success I have had over the weekend is fixing the lights in the little dolls house room made by my Dad. In the end it just needed a higher wattage fuse and the lights are shining brightly away now. 

Tom is off today. but youngest son and daughter are back at work after half term. It looks quite bright so I'm hopeful we can get the railings finished in the back garden. I'm also pre-empting Tom's phone money being paid in and ordering the new duck run. Hopefully we will be able to get all these big jobs done before the start of spring. They are going to be announcing later about relaxing lockdown restrictions in England which will hopefully mean we can plan for a bit more of a normal family life.  I hope everyone has a lovely day what ever you are doing and get a bit of positive information about the end of lockdown coming. xx

Taking It A Bit Easy

 After me being so rude about weather forecasters yesterday it turned out quite nice weather wise. I spent the morning in the garden and got lots of jobs done. A lot of the time felt wasted really as I had to clear the bamboo that was coming through from next door. It is impossible to dig out so I just cut it off at the base with loppers. Of course it just keeps growing back and since I did the job last year so much has grown again. It takes a long time to chop it all up and dispose of it but at least it has been done for a while now. Bulbs are coming up everywhere it really is a nice feeling spring is around the corner.

After lunch I left to go on the train to the doctors for my Coronavirus vaccination. I had the Oxford AstraZenica jab and was in and out in two minutes, no sitting checking to see if I had a reaction that I had heard from other people. As I had been a little early I was on the train home before my appointment time was due! I felt absolutely fine. When youngest son asked how I was feeling when I arrived home I said "Ready to take on the world!" and I really did. I thought I had no reactions at all as I was going to bed yesterday evening.

 Then at about three in the morning I woke up shivering,  my skin felt burning to touch and I had headache. I had to get up to take some Paracetamol. All night I felt quite unwell and forced myself to picture all the antibodies building up in my blood so it was worthwhile. I felt a bit like I did at the beginning of having coronavirus last year and I'd rather not be reminded of it! I feel a lot better this morning but had a lot planned working in the garden and I'm starting to think I may take it a bit easy today. I hope everyone has a lovely Sunday what ever you are doing.