Saturday, January 21, 2006

Bits and Pieces

Hi!

John's off on a birding trip today and I decided to stay and catch up with various bits and pieces at home. The posting just below this one will give you a bit more info on the progress of our garden, but this one deals with other little bits of news.

First: I went to see the surgeon yesterday for a regular checkup and everything with my cancer continues to be OK. The only problems I am having are side-effects of the arimidex treatment, so they should go away when I stop that in 4.5 years. These side-effects are rather nasty. It's mostly joint and bone pain, so I come downstairs one stair at a time in the mornings and sometimes I go up the stairs on on all fours like a monkey (no rude comments please!). The most disconcerting thing is the "trigger-finger" phenomenon where my knuckles lock up and I have to work hard to get my fingers to bend. The other bad thing is the pain and/or numbness in my feet which make me feel quite unsteady when we're walking on uneven ground. Still, it could be a lot worse - I could be very sick or even dying of cancer - and I'm very grateful to be as healthy as I am. I have to remember that this time last year I was housebound for two of every three weeks and couldn't walk more than a few hundred yards at a time. Now I can do several miles, especially when there's a nice pub at the end of the walk!

Second: We now have a new pair of birds at one of our feeders - bullfinches. They are lovely birds and they're a joy to watch. Over Chrismas our bird feeder collection increased and now we have them all round the house. Different birds seem to favor different locations, but there's plenty of life and activity around them all. Our most frequent visitors are: pheasant (we still have 4 males and goodness knows how many females), wood pigeons, blackbirds, robins, dunnocks, coal tits, great tits, blue tits, chaffinches and bull-finches. If we put out bread we also get crows, jackdaws and magpies.

Third: Just had a terrific trip up to see Dolly (my old Mac. flat-mate) and Jane who was at Mac with us all and who is here from Canada visiting her Mum and Dad. Needless to say, much wine was drunk and there was lots of talking, shouting and laughter into the wee small hours of the morning.

Now I'm supposed to be preparing for a day visit tomorrow. Joy (John's sister) and her husband, John, are bringing his mum and brother to visit us. If the weather is nice we'll be able to take them up to the top of the Mynd and show them the lovely countryside around here. If not - we'll have to go to a pub and have a drink around a roaring fire - what a shame! I'm plannning a Sunday dinner of roast gammon ham with roast potatoes and parsnips and other veg followed by apple crumble ... mmmmmm....!

Think I'll go and have a cup of tea while I avoid doing any more work.

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