Through The Gate

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

The grass is greener, the saying goes, on the other side.

In this case everything was more yellow because while walking round Westonbirt Arboretum, my friend and I saw the lovely sight of buttercups through a gate. I had to go and look and thought the field of yellow was a feast to my eyes.

This week I am looking after my granddaughters again while my son, Sam, returns to Southampton to do another week of fieldwork and to take an exam at the end of the session. He seems to be getting on well with it and Granddad and I are only too happy to help him out in this way.

I might be busier than usual and will get back to commenting as often as possible.

I am hoping that we are both in a much better state of health this time.

Ash the rabbit has obviously grown but is still smallish. He is a willful adolescent now of 10 weeks and can jump quite high. He seems a contented animal and is very friendly and likes lots of company.

We have had to alter our lives a bit to fit in with him. He has a rabbit playpen and because of his tendency to rip up plastic tablecloths that I put on the floor, we have had to buy a large piece of vinyl floor covering to protect the carpet. Obviously he likes to dig, being a rabbit.

I keep finding a huge amount of large feathers in the garden from collared doves that have been plucked and eaten by something, so obviously I will not entertain the idea of Ash going outside. The culprit is probably the fox because those birds were rather big for them to be the victim of cats, but you never know.

Ash has learnt to use his toilet tray all the time for a wee and a fair amount of times for poops. I am pleased with his progress. I am also relieved that I didn't get the rescue rabbit now because it would have been impossible to train an adult one to use a tray.

All things work together for good....... Rom 9 v 28 NRSV

Grave Yards

Photos are copyright: Maggie May

I wonder if anyone else likes to browse round grave yards like I do? I can spend hours on my own looking at the stones themselves, looking at the names and how old people were when they died and also looking at the beauty of the place. There is a peace about a grave yard, especially very old ones that are a bit run down. These headstones were very old and had been moved to the wall to make more room I suppose.

They were found outside an old church in Topsham, Devon, when I went on a trip with my son and granddaughters back in the summer.

The girls found these little headstones while they were playing in a little green square just off the High Street and I couldn't resist a few photos. I think the stones are very decorative.

When we recently went to Clevedon on our day by the sea, Sam and I found ourselves in the very old graveyard high on the cliffs. We had taken a short cut through there but ended up looking at the head stones and eventually getting to chat to another man who was doing the same.

My husband thinks it is a morbid fascination.

What do other people think?

The Grandchildren and Teeth

Photo Copyright Maggie May

It appears that the grandchildren have come to stay early. They arrived on Friday evening with bags full of their belongings. However their daddy will be here until Monday morning and then they will be alone with Harry and me.

Amber the oldest granddaughter has no teeth in the front of her mouth at all because being seven, that is what happens to the baby teeth. They all seemed to go one after the other and the tooth fairy was very busy for a few weeks. She will look very different when the new ones come through. I always think that baby look disappears when that happens, as they look more grown up.

I was worried about my teeth at the beginning of the week because I hadn't been able to have cleaning or dental inspections while having chemo and for some reason or other, I was convinced that chemo had wrecked them.

My appointment was for Friday afternoon but early in the morning I had a telephone call to say my dentist had to cancel as he wasn't in that day. I wasn't very happy about that.I felt that I'd waited long enough, though it wasn't the dentist's fault.

Anyway, I went along to the hygienist appointment and had them all cleaned professionally.

Although she isn't a dentist, she did assure me that my mouth wasn't full of cavities (as I'd imagined) and she said my mouth, teeth and gums were in good condition. So all the mouth wash I used was obviously a good deterrent against decay during chemo.

I have another appointment in two weeks to see the dentist anyway.

In my last post I mentioned the poem below that was going around in the seventies and eighties and we all thought it was very funny. I hope you have time to read it.

OH, I WISH I'D LOOKED AFTER MY TEETH
by
Pam Ayres

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,

And spotted the perils beneath,

All the toffees I chewed,

And the sweet sticky food,

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

I wish I'd been that much more willin'

When I had more tooth there than fillin'

To pass up gobstoppers,

From respect to me choppers

And to buy something else with me shillin'.

When I think of the lollies I licked,

And the liquorice allsorts I picked,

Sherbet dabs, big and little,

All that hard peanut brittle,

My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My Mother, she told me no end,

"If you got a tooth, you got a friend"

I was young then, and careless,

My toothbrush was hairless,

I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,

I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin'

And pokin' and fussin'

Didn't seem worth the time... I could bite!

If I'd known I was paving the way,

To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fiIlin's

Injections and drillin's

I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist's chair,

And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine,

In these molars of mine,

"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."

How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath,

But now comes the reckonin'

It's me they are beckonin'

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

Appointments

I have recently been for a CT scan in our large city hospital.

I had to arrive early and drink a jug full of insipid tasting liquid that looked like urine, very slowly over a period of 45 mins. I soon calculated how quickly/slowly to drink it and got down to my last cupful of liquid that had to be drunk inside the scanning room.

"Good," I thought, "I will soon be in the scanner and then out of here."

Suddenly all hell broke loose. Alarms going off everywhere. Staff came out and told us to leave the premises as they were fire alarms.

Still clutching my drink, I moved down the long corridors with all the other out patients and headed for the street. There is a fairly large forecourt outside the hospital but that was soon filled up with patients and staff.

No sign of Harry, who had been with me. Another woman had also *lost* her husband, too.Within five minutes the Fire Brigade arrived. The first fire engine parked along the side of the hospital and the crew disappeared inside the building. I was hoping they'd rescue Harry wherever he was, but they weren't letting any of the public back in.

Eventually, Harry came out, looking sheepish. He had decided to go to the toilet on the way out of the building.

Words failed me......... isn't that just what you are NOT supposed to do?

Well when Nature calls......... as it obviously had, I suppose you have to go but it wasn't as though he'd had to drink all that liquid like I did.

Two more fire engines arrived. By now I was wondering if my appointment would still be valid.

After much coming and going, the Fire Brigade left and the hospital was declared safe to go back into.

I was very near the front of the surge of people returning

and as soon as I sat down in the out patient area, my name was called. I managed to lie still under the scanner without coughing, as I was getting over a bout of laryngitis. That had been my main concern until the fire alarm incident. Would I stop coughing long enough to have the scan?

As we left the hospital, I was still telling Harry how unwise it was to go into a toilet when there was supposed to be a fire. He replied that he didn't smell any smoke so thought it was not an emergency!

Last week, I was rather surprised to be given a Councelling Appointment that I will attend very soon. It is five months since the moment I heard that I had cancer, and after completing six sessions of chemo therapy it seems strange to get the offer of councelling now. I really needed this last November when I first was diagnosed, as I was then shocked and angry and frightened and upset. I had felt that I'd lost my identity and purpose in life, suddenly being an invalid and not being able to work. However, I soon discovered that I was a fighter, more than I had visualised and I learnt to live each day as it came. This was so not easy for me and I am still learning.

I will go to the appointment this week, if only to tell them that I needed to talk when I was first diagnosed.

Then there is the question of my teeth.

I was told that while I had chemo, I could not have any dental work done because of the risk of infection. I was appalled by this because I have always looked after my teeth. (Unlike Pam Ayres) Does anyone remember her poem *I wish I'd Looked After My Teeth* ?

So this week I have also got a dental appointment and I believe I see cavities when I look at my teeth. I dare say that chemo blasts away enamel too. I am not looking forward to this appointment as I am squeamish about teeth but even more squeamish about losing them.

I must also get an appointment to see my chiropractor soon. All that sitting about while I felt ill was not good for my back and I have twinges much of the time.

You might wonder why I chose bunk beds to illustrate this post.

They are the ones the girls sleep in when they stay.

Next week Sam, my son, is going away to the south coast for some training for a course that he is doing. So I am having the children for the week. I am quite looking forward to it, as I feel very much up to doing this now. I have missed looking after them while I was on chemo. All being well, it is just a question of feeding them, taking and collecting from school, amusing them until shower/bath time, putting to bed x 5 days. Sam will be back on Friday evening so I won't be putting them to bed early that night.

I might not have as much time for blogging next week though...........

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.

Gift and Nativities

I went to the school today to watch the second of the Nativities that my granddaughters were in and when I got back, there was a parcel waiting for me in the porch. On opening it, I found it contained two hand knitted face cloths made from bamboo and a bar of lovely rose soap. This was from my friend Michelle who lives in New Zealand, Mickle's Pickle

I was thrilled to bits and will thank her personally by email.

I am amazed that knitting wool can be made from bamboo! I will be cooling my fevered brow with them soon Michelle.

Such a thoughtful thing to do.

Photos copyright: Maggie May

Nativities have changed considerably these days with bits and pieces added on here and there. This scene was about busy bakers at Christmas time making all the Christmas puddings and cakes. It was a lovely play and eventually the Nativity did come into it in the end.

The other granddaughter was a sheep racing around the shepherd's legs as they were visited by the angel.

It is marvellous to go to these Nativities. I wouldn't normally miss them for the world. I was so pleased that I didn't have to this year because of illness and hospital appointments.

Sleeping Daddy

Hosted by Cecily and Carissa

Photo copyright:Maggie May

This is what happens in our house when a Daddy tries to have forty winks. Those naughty granddaughters stuff toy cats down his ears.

There is no peace for the wicked.

I recently posted here about a 65th Birthday celebration with Eddie Bluelights and my son, Sam, thinking that people would twigg that we were all related to each other (as I was sure that people didn't know) and I was quite amazed that this passed right over most people's heads and that they really did think that we met up by accident in a pub when we were at other individual 65th Birthday celebrations.

It was meant to be a conundrum.

Each of us left a clue on each of our posts that went out at identical times with identical pictures.

Quite funny, really, when you think of it. How amazing would that be to meet up by chance while enjoying other people's 65th Birthday meals ?

We had fun doing this as a team.

I wonder if there is anyone else who doesn't know what we are talking about?

Forgive us if you don't.

Photostory Friday is hosted by Cecily.