New Life

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

Last week I searched the garden for any sign of new life and there didn't seem to be much going on. I noticed a few daffodils that were just beginning to shoot from the soil and I thought, *When they get a little taller I will take a photo.* We had a week of rainy weather and I didn't get to go out again until this morning when the sun was trying to shine.

In just the space of a week, the daffodils had grown a lot and I wished now that I had taken a picture of them so that you could notice just how much they'd come on.

My plants and my photos are not prize specimens but they just convey a few of the surprises that I found after a week of rain and very dull weather. It is always good to see new life.

I am expecting my daughter and my grandsons today and they will be staying until Sunday because it is half term, so I might be a little bit busy for the next few days.

I hope where ever you might be, that you are having some good weather too.

Children's Version of Things

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

After six days I have just managed to get out for a little walk and saw these lovely daffodils growing a long a path. It was a lovely day, in fact there have been some lovely days all week but I haven't felt well enough to go out.

Chemo 5 has not been easy for me and I have felt excessively tired and my skin reacted horribly to it and it will take a good while for the scratches to heal.

I have not felt anywhere near normal and was worried about the effects this is having on my family, not least my granddaughters.

Not long ago, my seven year old granddaughter, Amber came rushing in and said, "I know what your illness is called. Its cancer." That remark went through me like a knife but I didn't let her see that.

As it wasn't a word I have used in front of the children, I thought someone else must have filled her in so I asked her how she knew.

Apparently, there was a programme on Children's TV about a dinner lady who had to miss school for a very long time because she had an illness called cancer. The programme even showed the dinner lady coming back to school in a wig because she had lost her hair.

I was quite impressed by that programme that could have been written about me.

The other day, I was feeling quite miserable with my symptoms and was sitting watching TV, when my five year old granddaughter, Millie, sat on the arm of the chair and snuggled up to me saying, "Grannie, how are you feeling?"

I explained that I was tired & itchy and she told me that I would be better if I went to bed.

She asked me if the good medicine was still fighting the bad things in my body and she asked me if I had been ill for nine years.

It must seem endless to this little child.

She then went on about my hair and told me that she couldn't remember how I had looked before.

I did feel sad for her and hoped she would remember that I hadn't always been like this. I was once energetic and took them out and was a much more interesting Grannie.

She has always been a caring little child and some of the things she said made me feel like weeping.