Change of luck?

I was beginning to think that my luck would never change that I was on a permanent downhill spiral for reasons unknown….However I lurched into Burford this morning and swung into a parking spot which to my surprise neither cost anything nor had any time limits. For someone from Oxford, this is an unknown delight…luck on an unimaginable scale! The money “saved” on parking was easily spent elsewhere as Burford is not a place of cheap wares…

I also now have a very interesting hat – handmade in Ireland…and not bought in Burford. It is large and beret like (needs wearing at a jaunty angle) and is crocheted/knitted (?) in bright pinks, greens, purples and blues and is giving everyone a good belly laugh (Why??) Nonetheless, I feel that any attention that moves away from me and my hairless state and onto my hat instead is good attention and to be encouraged!

Having cursed my “luck” earlier in the day, I wonder if today’s good fortune is crumbs from the table or a real change …I leave you “wishing and hoping”  and watching and waiting!

She really was a right sew and sew…

I seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest with my “handicraft” school memories…I obviously got completely carried away remembering my clumsy gene rather veering off the the point I was trying to make. Losing my coffee tasting capacity is about more than the lingering smell of roasting beans and the taste of freshly brewed coffee. Whilst I have no problem with tea drinking per se – I cannot disengage the idea of tea  from my nemesis in the sewing corner….who is forever held in a whirl of stale tea breath halitosis! Anyway enough of that…suffice it to say that coffee being off the agenda is probably better than sewing being back on the agenda!

The past couple of days have been exhausting. We “funeraled” Tim yesterday on a bright November day in his woodland site, surrounded by scores of mourners and tear-tracked faces. We scattered flowers, wine corks and frogs (I am led to believe) on his coffin and returned to Warwick Street to face the yawning chasm his death has left. Despite this (or because of this), we followed-up with the party Tim would truly have expected of us, with hosts of memories  and stories egged on by copious quantities of food, booze and fireworks!

Today I am back facing my own destiny with doctors and hospital. Chemo – round 5 (of 6) looms next Tuesday but only if I can actually rid myself of the lingering traces of infection on my arms…so more antibiotics have been prescribed and a visit to dermatology today as well. Inevitably this meant hours of waiting in a variety of places around the hospital.

Despite the huge help and support they give me, I no sooner go through the main entrance of the hospital than I want to “escape”. However,  I have to knock this infection on the head as the thought of any treatment delays now (however little I want to attend each round of chemo) feels unbearable. Some days I only get through by seeing the “end” date of chemo draw ever closer so will do anything I am able to avoid it being altered.  My final scans (post chemo) have now been scheduled for the week before Christmas and my post-chemo treatment is due to start on 24 December.

I am exhausted…Iast night Stuart found me propped up (with pillows) in bed, glasses on, Kindle in position but fast asleep! Guess I now have a week to get stronger, kill off this invasive infection and be ready to face more…maybe more sleep is needed!

Nice cup of tea?

It’s hard to believe that a week ago I could neither move, drink nor eat and today I can manage all 3 before midday…fancy! That said I am still taking antibiotics and skin infection still hasn’t gone so who knows where this calm moment may segue.

Now I am in a lesser state of panic my thoughts turn to the important issues of the day which, given, my limited life at present, are of more limited scope. Through the rather dirty early winter light this morning I sat over a pot of tea. That may sound like the start of the day’s ponderings but in fact that is it…”a pot of tea”. Despite my northern roots I am not a morning tea person…never have been…thought I never would be….I certainly don’t remember in the many booklets, websites, advice I have been given seeing anything about cancer changing you from a coffee to a tea person. I can’t seem to find the right words to carry my rage about this…

You may have thought that I would know better than to be raging about something so unimportant whilst bobbing about on my little lifeboat. However, I think my strong feelings to associate myself with the smell of coffee rather than any possibility of the whiff of stale tea  transports me back to the 1970s and a former teacher of mine.

My nemesis still sits behind the same desk in the same room. She is a permanent fixture in forming my lifelong hatred of handicrafts. 2 o’clock on Thursdays she took control of the sewing room like a wizened despot. An orderly queue of girls destined for domesticity formed beside her. This left the disorderly rabble of which I was one, the ringleader if she is to be believed, playing with the sewing machines. Despite many yelled commands from the demon who exuded stale tea, I was “a complete failure” unable to master even the most basic skill of threading the machine. I spent week after week unpicking the birds’ nests that I had creatively made rather than accomplish any of the tasks that were set.

Sometimes she rose from her throne and stalked the room – the cigarette drenched cardigan giving a short warning of her approach. This alone, reduced me to a helpless mass of uncontrollable giggles and I was sent out of the class. I was sent out of the class most weeks.

Perhaps the final straw came when I called her class “a fate worse than death”. She swooped on me, her prey, with venom, yellowing teeth bared, breathing forth the last over-steeped cup of tea “YOU…you can’t possibly know what a fate worse than death is, do you?” There was no answer to that although it caused much speculation and I still spend idle moments wondering what raw nerve I hit that day. By half-term it was easiest to graciously accept that I was indeed “a complete failure” and at 2.00 on Thursday I just made my way to stand outside the headmistress’ office rather than face needlework ever again. I was proud of being a failure.

That said, I enjoyed my pot of Yorkshire tea this morning and may just have to leave the roasting coffee bean smell for another day…