Big C, little pleasures

Ugh! So sleepy! Hoped concentrating on this might help...

Grateful for a car to take me to the hospital...hope it's someone who doesn't want too much chitter chatter.

Grateful I don't yet have to rely on strangers for everything...if you can't be with those you love sometimes alone is best.

Grateful I'm awake before the alarm...time for a cuppa while the water for ablutions heats up.

Grateful for the 'big C'. Meant to write about this yesterday but forgot. There was quite a breeze and the best shelter from this in sight of the sea was under the curve of the C shaped sea wall. It's built like that to help defend the town from the power of the waves but the effect if you're sitting right under it is amplification of their sound. Tiny little tricklets can be landing on the shore but you hear mighty breakers!

...and for identifying the strange faint musical whistling sound I could hear whilst walking across the promenade to the steps down onto the sand. It was the wind blowing through the sipping hole in the lid of my takeaway cup!

I'm grateful I'm off to the separate specialist neurological centre which is part of the NHS hospital but next door to the private one and slightly more influenced by the latter in decorative style. I must admit to a fondness for the already old fashioned hospital buildings of my youth with fancy brickwork outside and bulbous pipes and radiators within. They were deemed difficult to clean...but no one cleans hospitals properly nowadays anyway, ha ha!

I'm grateful the heatwave has broken so the trip won't waste a sunny day and that my upstairs partying neighbour and friends stayed all night on the other side of the building so I could get some sleep. Look...awake enough for real sentences already!

Holely satisfied

Mmmm. I feel lovely and acupunctured! Thank you to Rachel. Thank you also to Rachel for understanding so easily things I try so hard to explain to other people. Of course I still explain them to her just for the delight of hearing her say 'Yes, I know!!!' Ha ha!!! Someone might want to report me to the pun police I reckon though...

I'm grateful for not being too spaced out after to do my in town chores and for then finding a bit of relative peace in a patch of sun at the end of the promenade to enjoy the last of my Lovington's marmalade ice cream. Marmalade? Yes, honestly! I'd never heard of it too and it's absolutely delicious! The sea was flat and calm and clear. Quite a few people taking an early evening dip so I remembered what that felt like and that was quite enjoyable too.

I give thanks for finding a really interesting and readable article about the science behind the placebo effect...oh actually I've just found another! Of course there's no such thing because the pretend medicine cannot not make you better but 'scientists' are very interested in finding out what does...what's going on in your body and mind. Some of you might find them interesting...let me know and I'll send you links... Oh and Pat and Carol, I was going to message you both later but just in case I don't get round to it: Thank you for the invitation but it didn't sound really 'me' if you know what I mean. I do have a plan of my own in mind tho...will get back to you on that so let me know if you're interested (or any one else)as it's more 'my kind of thing' so I think I'd enjoy it more and hopefully some benefit will come out of it too for everyone involved.

Now to the really important questions in life...what to have for tea and what to watch on TV ha ha!

Through a glass wetly

I did get out eventually...and was grateful for a bus happening along not factored in my plans and making it quicker and easier to get to my destination - the beach on the other side of the river that you get through via a tunnel under the headland. The bus doesn't go throught the tunnel of course and there are a lot of steps down but a very different atmosphere from the other three beaches we have in a half mile radius. In fact they're all very different and nice to have so much choice...two on the river and two on the sea. Haven't been to this one for a while and I'd forgotten how busy it can get in the summer but also one of the reasons why ie. that it's such a suntrap and sheltered from many breezes especially at sand level. I remember the first time I went there there was quite a chilly and brisk wind blowing and I thought all the people lying there in their swimwear must be very hardy until I lay down too and wished I'd brought mine!

I'm also very grateful to Sony for creating such wonderful devices for keeping my ears happy and for Johann Ambrosius and Maria Elisabeth for creating their youngest musical son. And for his magnificent and moving double violin concertos. And Tamar Valley honeycombe ice cream. And the fragrance of the pinks I bought on the way home. And the sound through the open window of summer rain falling through leaves...

Walk talk

My third happiness of the day is that my cooker now fits properly between the kitchen worktop ends instead of being wedged in with not a crumb's worth between a cut and trimmed side and an uncut one that every man I knew had done the head shaking/sharp intake of breath thing about. Thank you Alan! It looks so different...like a real kitchen! And no, I'm not putting a pic on here because I what I think is wonderful and 'done' is probably still like the 'before' pictures in some peoples' homes. Trust me...unless you've seen the before pictures from here you've really not seen horror!

I had a late acupuncture session to accommodate the oncologist's call and managed to walk down and back... the first time I've managed both ways for a while. I didn't take any especially scenic routes just the normal one that takes in a few metres of seafront. The early evening sun strikes the rocks and headlands at an angle that really accentuates their shapes and they look even more beautiful than in the day. It was warm and I thought how lovely it would be to be going out for the evening for a spot of something to eat perhaps or just to linger with someone enjoying the view. Send your request to the cosmos I thought tell them you want to eat out... and as I neared my flat some people leafletting for one of the local Indian restuarants handed me a menu. The cosmos really needs its ears syringed sometimes! But I give thanks for the fourth time for living in such a lovely place and having the opportunity to see it at such a lovely time of day!

And fifthly I give thanks for having someone to listen to me moan in real life once a week and stick needles in me to try to make it better. Thank you Rachel

What a difference a day makes

Third happiness was that I went to acupuncture. I figured just being properly listened to would do me good, plus a nice lie down and hug (any treatment being a bonus!). Afterwards I felt well enough to hobble down to the beach for an ice cream in the sun. Today the sea looked summery blue again...

Then when I got home after enjoying the sunshine it had been the second most perfect Wimbledon weather (ie rainy there while fine here) so still plenty to watch. And the first thing I watched was several rounds of jovial Mexican waving after the covers came off on Court Number Two. I love watching Mexican waves, being in them's even better, of course, but not been in an appropriate situation of late. Love anything where groups of people doing similar things create a visual effect. The beauty in the cooperation and coordination of different formsreally moves me emotionally...Spencer Tunick's nude tableaux, Busby Berkeley's dressed dancer patterns...even a line dancing troupe at a pinch ha ha! But flash mobs are the best of all, they actually make me cry...but in a good way ;-) So the entire previous paragraph will be my fourth!

Cancer patient...life's too short (2)

Well the rain and pain stayed mainly on the wane and I was able to do a few chores in town and enjoy a little picnic on the beach. The tide had only just receded enough for there to be room to sit and stroll and hardly any humans or gulls had arrived. For a while it was just me and the pigeons which was very pleasant! My first full time job was for a pigeon newspaper and whenever I say that someone always quips ‘I didn’t know pigeons could read’ so it’s a good job I can’t hear you. Its claim to fame (as far as I’m concerned) was that a few years back it was the ‘guest publication’ on the Have I Got News for You? missing words round...

Bought a small hairbrush amongst other things. Not really necessary yet, more a case of wistful anticipation... a bit like an adolescent boy’s first razor or a prepubescent girl’s training bra!

On return, as I wasn’t finding the tennis matches totally gripping, did a little light housework. The dying are not excused the tedious aspects of living and it’s hard to be always unconditionally grateful for the physical ability to carry them out! You can’t flash your ‘Cancer patient...Life’s too short’ card and your clothes and sheets are miraculously smoothed, your vegetables chopped and your work surfaces free of crumbs... Then a bit more branch application on my picture...it’s slow progress, sometimes I think it would be quicker to grow a tree! And finishing off, printing and posting my second letter to my incarcerated penfriend answering the questions in his while posing a few more of my own.

Have thought of a few things to be grateful for today but just now I want my tea so I’ll have to tell you later!

waving not drowning

Well, I’ve been wielding my crochet hook and have ‘turned over’ a few new leaves as shown above. They will look like leaves when they are scattered over the things that will look like branches eventually...honestly!

Made a roast dinner of sorts with Quorn sausages and some of my famously delicious gravy that carnivores gaze in amazement when they taste and say how do you do this without meat? Finally about five pm getting out and walking along the sea wall a little way. There’s a part just outside town that was known as Old Maid’s Walk some years ago and something to do with the lie of the beach there makes the waves make such a soothing sound. I like to think they liked to go and calm their emotions listening decorously to the sound before Ann Summers was invented.

There are a lot of ways I like to spend Sundays and finding something possible within my current limitations and without kidnapping, carjacking or otherwise breaking and entering into people’s lives is constant challenge. Thus finding five things to be grateful for is too but here we go...

1) Finding the cherries

2) Making gravy (and thinking to try freezing the remainder as it’s hard to make just three spoonfuls at a time)

3) The sound of the waves

4) watching fascinated with a small randomly gathered group as middle aged swimmers cavorted with glee in the surf and a man apparently fully dressed in normal clothes (including knapsack) attempted to launch a canoe from the beach while sitting in it. He made it, but I think he might need to use the washing machine when he gets home

5) The young man serving in the supermarket having a little chat with me when I said I felt self-conscious being the only one in the store not buying alcohol!

Life's too short?

These long summer evenings I look out my window and long to be out walking on the beach or having a little barbecue there as the sun goes down maybe. I could even camp with kindly help. If only the joy that these things would bring me could outweigh the hassle involved for anyone I asked enough for it to actually happen!

I've never been scared of asking...I even once, in a moment of astonishingly misguided self-belief, asked a man to marry me...but I've learnt that yes means no, and silence means no, and excuses are rude, and only a straight no is truly respectful and kind.

Everyone's entitled to preferences as to how they spend their time and with whom and if, even in the knowledge that opportunities to do so are running out, people I would prefer to be spending my time with in some way choose not even to spend a minute of theirs answering a text, or five or so responding to an email let alone an hour or two in my company then I absolutely respect that decision. It might make me sad, and that's fine too...I think it's great that I still have feelings albeit misplaced. I think it's great that the people I miss now won't miss me when I'm gone as they all have plenty of people they do love that they will and who wants to bring extra suffering into this world? Not I!

* * * * *

Last night I watched a programme about disabled children growing up. Lots of moving moments about them or their families overcoming ordeals but the most uplifting bit for me (absolutely no pun intended) was a young boy with achondroplasty who had moved to New Zealand where they have ski instruction programmes for the disabled. And he had turned out to be super-abled at this sport where lack of height and weight don't matter and won a gold medal competing against his normal peers! I love that he's found a way to shine...and he's only ten years old. Brilliant!

Later...

Noon (ish)
Unless something my physical and mental state improves I can tell today is going to be one of those days when finding five things to be grateful for will be a challenge. So will make a start right now...pause while typing to enjoy the birds singing...um, so here we go...

1) Birdsong outside my window

2) sent FB message to the aforementioned Chris to say he had been mentioned in despatches and he sent one back saying ‘Bless You’. Heaven’s above, blessed in the morning and a hug to come in the afternoon (from the lovely Rachel) ...feel almost cherished!

Later... acupuncture, hug, a little light retail therapy and ready to chill, maybe nap but still waiting for nurse who didn’t make it this am so can’t relax. Must try not to be grumpy with her. Back to list...come on...what to be thankful for?

3) Little boy in blue on the beach with ball and black Labrador, so happy and absorbed, made me chuckle not just smile

4) Bunch of big orange lilies for £1.75 (would have bought them for even more but what a bargain eh?)

5) Becky’s ever cheery welcome at the Fountain, bless her too!

Nurse been...all patched up for another week. Chill time...woohoo!