Checking in

That wasn't a good week to have had my second cycle of chemo, not in a heatwave it wasn't. I'm grateful for the cooler temperatures and showers of rain this weekend. It's been too hot to sleep and too hot to sit in our conservatory.  I'll just show you my two tubs of roses which did like the heat. These are the roses my daughter bought me for Mother's Day this year which I re-potted, I like the way they tumble over the side of the pot and are a pale yellow.

These others are what she bought me three years ago and yes I did trawl back through my photos. I cut them right back a couple of months ago, very hard and quite late but I'm pleased they are flowering again, a nice deep yellow.

Just a quick check-in, I'm sure you'll understand, I'm not feeling my best at the moment.

Father's Day

It was nice for my hubby to be made a fuss of today. He really liked one of his surprise gifts from our daughter, some solar powered paw print lights which he has placed in the mole garden. I can't wait to see them lit up at night, they will look awesome. I bought him a jigsaw made from an old photograph of him with our Annie and he really likes that too although he can't see the day when he'll actually be able make the jigsaw as the pain of losing her is still so raw. I'm glad hubby has had a special day as I have been feeling a bit down and that must affect him too.

It's three weeks since my first chemotherapy and my hair is now coming out if I so much as rearrange a sticky-out piece. I first noticed my navy blue t-shirt was covered in stray hairs and realised what was happening. I'm due the second cycle of chemotherapy this week all being well with my blood test results. I made inquiries at the hospital about the wig service which is offered to chemotherapy patients but due to the covid situation they are unsure when that will be restarting.

Good news for non-essential retailers though as they will be able to reopen from tomorrow with social distancing in place but unfortunately not so for hairdressers, pubs, cafes and restaurants. Good news for visitors and holidaymakers as tourist attractions will soon be reopening and bookings for self-contained accommodation should be able to start again next month. Obviously in my situation it would be a threat to my health if I caught the coronavirus so none of the seemingly good news is any good for myself and my family.

Anyway, I want you to know I am not feeling sorry for myself. I'm rather glad I cut my hair short when I did as I would have been really depressed not having had a haircut during lockdown. I chat to my daughter on Facetime and she likes my current hairstyle and told me that when my hair starts to grow back when I'm well again to keep it short as it really suits me. In the meantime I now have four chemo hats all ordered online that I'll be able to wear and soon hairdressers and the wig service will be available again all being well.

Funny little blackbird

An abundance of cherries

We have a cheeky little blackbird that visits our garden and has been teasing me for the last couple of days.  I've been trying my utmost to get a photo of her helping herself to the fallen cherries from our tree.

Most years I leave the cherries for the birds to enjoy and of course I don't mind but this blackbird is being a minx. She plays around with a cherry tossing it about and holding it in her beak and then as soon as I take a photo the cherry is no more. As the cherry tree is part of our mole garden I think the blackbird is joining in the fun.

Here she is posing in front of the sign although there are no more "woopsies in the grass"

She's moved along now but no cherry

Now she's turned her back on me

So she knows what I'm up to and flies off to sit on the neighbour's fence

I would normally have more patience to photograph her in the act but a couple of days ago I had what they call a PICC line inserted into my upper right arm and the district nurses are visiting my home to flush it out so I owe it to them and myself to be sensible. So little blackbird help yourself to cherries and play as much as you like, I'll leave you be :)

I forgot I had those mints

I have quite a few handbags stored away and many  have not been used for years. Looking for something the other day I discovered at the bottom of one handbag a tin of memory mints. I can tell by the best before date that I must have bought them about ten years ago. I remember buying them and the sad thing is I wasn't even a senior citizen then!

 Can I tempt you to a mint?  

Help yourself :)

All change

Since my previous blog post and my being placed on the shielded patients list as being clinically vulnerable to the damn virus, I'm happy to say my details have been passed on to different supermarkets offering me  priority access to their delivery slots with free delivery.  This is going to make life much easier for me and I can now to do smaller more frequent shops with less worry. I have a big weekly shop due to be delivered early next week so will leave that one as it is and then it will be all change.

Although I've been feeling pretty washed out since the first of my cancer treatments last week, I managed to re-pot my plants with help from hubby. Apart from spraying them with water every day they haven't really had the care they deserved due to me being under the weather the last couple of months.  These are the plants my daughter sent to me earlier this year for Mother's Day and in sympathy when we lost our Annie.

  That's how they looked in April, the white flowers sadly died off.

The basket now has just  two plants in it and I've put the Peace Lily into it's own larger pot on the table.

The yellow roses have new buds ready to open and I've put them into a large pot on the floor in the conservatory.

Hubby has been hogging the table for over a week with yet another Wasgij that he really enjoyed making and this one was quite a challenge, you can see just how different the puzzle is from the picture on the box.  Of course I'm never allowed to help him with the making of these puzzles but he did allow me to dismantle the finished puzzle to free up the table :)

Not cooking

I haven't felt like spending much time in the kitchen just lately but I must say I seem to be enjoying my food, just simple salads or a bacon sandwich or a ready meal.. I'm still managing to secure weekly online delivery slots  and have three currently lined up. What I  do is place an order for the basics and then add to the list  nearer to the delivery time and this system is working well for us.

I fancied something entirely different this week and I must tell you how much I enjoyed this meal with a jacket potato and a corn on the cob, I'll be ordering these again for sure.

Last time I went to the garden centre a fortnight ago I bought two mint plants and they have grown so much they now need a bigger pot. I haven't any white wine vinegar in to make mint sauce so that will need adding to the online grocery order for next week's delivery. In the meantime I just touch the leaves and the smell is wonderful. I'm going to make myself a lovely cup of mint tea this afternoon, what could be simpler.

Temperature

I'm keeping an eye on the temperature. Not the outside temperature as I'm staying indoors for the foreseeable future although as it's so nice outside I could sit out in my garden if I wanted to. Do you like how I've personalised my alert card with magnets on the fridge door?

I have to take my temperature twice a day and I'm convinced the thermometer, the one on the right given to me by the hospital does not work correctly and doesn't beep as it should do.

So I bought this forehead thermometer online and thankfully it arrived quite quickly and is so easy to use. If something needs doing it needs doing well.

I've had a shielding letter from my doctor's surgery today as I'm now classed as an extremely vulnerable person and the latest advice is to shield until mid-August.

Talking of temperature, hubby is about to bring me a nice ice-cream :)

Sausage bobbing

Thank you all my blogging friends for your good wishes as I embark on this new chapter in my life. I tried to write a blog post earlier this morning but didn't have much time as I had a journey to make to the Cancer Centre for my first chemotherapy session. I was there for four hours and I feel OK so far, I just have a slight headache and I'm glad to be back home. I have to return again in a couple of weeks time for a central line to be fitted as apparently I don't have the best veins.

For my blog post I was wanting to add a video of my daughter's two greyhounds sausage bobbing, it  was hilarious to watch them but sadly the file is too big for my daughter to send in an email. I hope you can see this three second clip and I'll go on to explain what happened.

So daughter and son-in-law put lots of sausage treats into the paddling pool. Molly who you can see would have hoovered them all up by herself but she had to be held back as she is on a diet. Their other dog Verne will not go into the water or even dip his nose into the water but was happy to be hand fed the treats scooped out of the water by my son-in-law. Half way through the video Verne may have had a brain wave and thought that if he had a good drink it would be a good way of retrieving the treats without getting his nose wet. We can't decide if he is a complete wuss or if he is actually quite a clever lad :)

I borrowed this meme which I think my daughter created as I think it's wonderful. Her hair really is all the way down her back and she would never dream of buzzing it all off like I did to mine.

Hair no more

My blood tests taken last week must have been OK as my chemotherapy will go ahead this week as planned. I was asked in a phone call if I was feeling alright and although I'm not a hundred percent that's to be expected I suppose. I asked the nurse if it was OK to change my mind about having the cold cap to try to prevent my hair from falling out as I've decided I can do without any extra discomfort, I've read all the pros and cons. I'm not that attached to my hair especially as we are all unable to visit hairdresser's shops during this pandemic and who knows when they will be able to reopen. It must be over three months since my last hair cut and that's far too long for me as I like to have a short hairstyle.

So I did it,  I charged up hubby's hair clippers and off came my hair. The highest setting is number 23 but that didn't seem to be working too well so I used number 19. I'm not at all sorry to see my hair go as I've bought three turban style hats for the hair loss eventuality. I'd rather cover up now so when my hair does fall out it won't be in big clumps but shortish tufts. I won't be showing my new haircut online but here's some of my hair.

There was more hair than you can see here in the dustpan and there are some grey hairs I had been trying hard to deny having.