Happy New Year!
The hair is back and it has started to go into tiny baby curls. Still no need for a hairdresser just yet.
We have had a very happy and relaxing holiday week. Hope you have too. We are lucky with beautiful weather and being treated by friends and neighbours to delicious dinners.
Christmas Eve BBQ steak on the deck with Sarah in glorious sunshine
Christmas Day was spent playing with a wonderful range of new kitchen gadgets/thingies. Here are a couple to guess what they are used for:
and a beautiful new board made by Simon King; Sarah hopes to copy it.
We had our first real wet day so picked a woodland walk up through the forest to Queenstown Hill.
At 3pm the sun burnt away the clouds and roasted us all. Luckily with nothing to cook we could throw on the shorts and head off to our wonderful neighbours Krysia and David who managed to cater for all tastes.
Sarah has been playing with her new SUP (Stand up paddle board) in the Lake.
managing to stand up most of the time before falling off (once is enough in 5C water)
We tried walking up Ben Lomond together on Boxing Day 2017 but I could not make it. Wrong timing!
I had to turn back and let Sarah go on by herself to meet the resident Kea
and enjoy the magnificent moody views.
I meandered down into the pine forest listening to the wind washing through the trees and the intermittent groaning of wood against wood. I sat down 1/3rd of the way down and cried. Sometimes, it just gets to you. The mind is willing but the body is fucked up with drugs and it gets depressing.
It’s the third year in a row that we have attempted this walk around this time of year. First time, I struggled up after my bike accident and replacement hip op; in 2017 I managed to walk up despite Pulmonary Emboli in my lungs, but this is the first time I failed.
Physically I am in better shape but the timing and concoction of current drugs did not help.
Never mind, better luck on the next steroid high.
A chemo injection, multiple pills and a few steroids later, we tackled a very long day out in Roxburgh. We were there for a golf tournament (both of us winning pottery and glass prizes)
but wanted to see all the attractions of the place. It’s a bit of a blast from the past and very Scottish. McKenzie antiques on Scotland street and Jimmy’s pie shop were both closed
as was The Speargrass Inn cafe, the forge and both art galleries. Plentiful fruit farms and a good sculpture outside public loos was the best we could find.
It is now New Years’ Day.
I’ve started 2018 on day 26 of my first 35-day chemo cycle and I am doing relatively well. I am getting used to the new regime and pattern of each week and am coping just about.
I now bounce around for a couple of days when the steroids kick in, get up in the early hours of the morning as I can’t sleep, do everything at a rapid rate and cram the hours with activity. This is immediately followed by a huge down; I wake with a heavy head, I move like a slug and feel like I have a hangover, without the enjoyment of drinking. I ache all over and yawn constantly. Not great to be around. It only eases up after I have taken the next dose of steroids and here we go again… Duracell bunny appears.
And so the week goes.
You have just got to catch me when the steroids are active, otherwise the energy sapping Thalidomide takes over and I am at my most dull.
Sarah has gone off to play golf without me today as I am too buggered to play. Instead I am having a mufti day, pootling about the garden trimming this and that, watering the wilting pea and tomato plants (first harvest this week)
attacking the sticky kitchen after we’ve cooked up a storm of bread, ice cream, peaches in syrup, Gyozo dumplings and made some candles.
Resolutions? Two.
1. To find all the tissues BEFORE doing the washing (Why do they only show up when you get washing out of the machine; finely shredded and dispersed all over the rest of the clothes.)
and
2. To get through all the treatment cycles.
After that who knows?
Enjoy the roses.
Christmas Eve BBQ steak on the deck with Sarah in glorious sunshine
Christmas Day was spent playing with a wonderful range of new kitchen gadgets/thingies. Here are a couple to guess what they are used for:
and a beautiful new board made by Simon King; Sarah hopes to copy it.
We had our first real wet day so picked a woodland walk up through the forest to Queenstown Hill.
At 3pm the sun burnt away the clouds and roasted us all. Luckily with nothing to cook we could throw on the shorts and head off to our wonderful neighbours Krysia and David who managed to cater for all tastes.
Sarah has been playing with her new SUP (Stand up paddle board) in the Lake.
We tried walking up Ben Lomond together on Boxing Day 2017 but I could not make it. Wrong timing!
I had to turn back and let Sarah go on by herself to meet the resident Kea
and enjoy the magnificent moody views.
I meandered down into the pine forest listening to the wind washing through the trees and the intermittent groaning of wood against wood. I sat down 1/3rd of the way down and cried. Sometimes, it just gets to you. The mind is willing but the body is fucked up with drugs and it gets depressing.
It’s the third year in a row that we have attempted this walk around this time of year. First time, I struggled up after my bike accident and replacement hip op; in 2017 I managed to walk up despite Pulmonary Emboli in my lungs, but this is the first time I failed.
Physically I am in better shape but the timing and concoction of current drugs did not help.
Never mind, better luck on the next steroid high.
A chemo injection, multiple pills and a few steroids later, we tackled a very long day out in Roxburgh. We were there for a golf tournament (both of us winning pottery and glass prizes)
but wanted to see all the attractions of the place. It’s a bit of a blast from the past and very Scottish. McKenzie antiques on Scotland street and Jimmy’s pie shop were both closed
as was The Speargrass Inn cafe, the forge and both art galleries. Plentiful fruit farms and a good sculpture outside public loos was the best we could find.
It is now New Years’ Day.
I’ve started 2018 on day 26 of my first 35-day chemo cycle and I am doing relatively well. I am getting used to the new regime and pattern of each week and am coping just about.
I now bounce around for a couple of days when the steroids kick in, get up in the early hours of the morning as I can’t sleep, do everything at a rapid rate and cram the hours with activity. This is immediately followed by a huge down; I wake with a heavy head, I move like a slug and feel like I have a hangover, without the enjoyment of drinking. I ache all over and yawn constantly. Not great to be around. It only eases up after I have taken the next dose of steroids and here we go again… Duracell bunny appears.
And so the week goes.
You have just got to catch me when the steroids are active, otherwise the energy sapping Thalidomide takes over and I am at my most dull.
Sarah has gone off to play golf without me today as I am too buggered to play. Instead I am having a mufti day, pootling about the garden trimming this and that, watering the wilting pea and tomato plants (first harvest this week)
attacking the sticky kitchen after we’ve cooked up a storm of bread, ice cream, peaches in syrup, Gyozo dumplings and made some candles.
Resolutions? Two.
1. To find all the tissues BEFORE doing the washing (Why do they only show up when you get washing out of the machine; finely shredded and dispersed all over the rest of the clothes.)
and
2. To get through all the treatment cycles.
After that who knows?
Enjoy the roses.
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