what a day

Well, check up day today and all the usual sensations when returning to the Christie. Mostly now I don't think about last year (except for the extraordinary rush of writing about it on my earlier blogs, must retrieve them but don't know how) but walking the corridors there brings the slow shuffle with the drip stand and the bag right to the edge of my memory. I turn away from it.

I explain some slightly odd symptons and the doctor examines me. "I'm pretty sure everything is ok" he says. "We'll do another scan just to be sure. I am practically certain there is no recurrence but we will check."

He is about to retire from the Christie but will continue to work at a private hospital. I have medical insurance through work. Would I like to transfer to someone else here or come to the other place? I like this man. He has a calm, kind face and is reassuring without patronising. I feel he sees something of me as well as the patient. "I'll come to you" I say. They will send me a date for the new scan.

We drive away and Ian drops me so I can get a bus into the city. He is going into work. I must not be pissed off about having a scan. It is the right thing to do and the only way of getting complete reassurance. As I sit on the bus I give myself a little mental shake and realise that the person sitting next to me if shifting away slightly. Whoops! it was a physical shake too.

I am having my hair cut and going shopping to fill the rest of the day rather than going back to work. These days I am only ever in the city when I go to work. Otherwise I am home which is where I want to be but definitely no shops. I hate window shopping and shopping as relaxation but I quite like a blast of shopping in a short space of time.

My usual hairdresser is busy but I was so determined to make this day have useful stuff in it that I have booked to see another girl, small and sweet and younger than Nicola who is practically a friend as well. This means I come out with shorter and blonder hair than usual but what the hell. I never look like me when I go to the hairdresser anyway because my drying skills are nonexistent and they produce a smooth and glossy look which I never repeat. My hair really wants to kink and bend and go its own way.

After the hairdresser I go for lunch in Waterstones, and then go to buy a beautiful pale blue and white linen dress (yes, yes, I know, last time I bought linen I said never again but it is just lovely and far too expensive and sod it, when I put it on it moves around my legs in a way that reminds me of me).

I talk to my sister and we plot a girlie night away. She and her partner with five children between them live on the edge of Dartmoor and time to herself just doesn't happen. I suspect she would kill for the night to myself I blogged about the other day. We will meet in the middle of the country somewhere and drink white wine and talk all night.

Ian and I drive home together and arrive with the evening light vivid and gold on the other side of the valley against a granite sky. We live here. Will we ever take it for granted? We walk around the garden, check the greenhouse, walk through the field to inspect the new trees. Everything is now in leaf except the whitebeam. Does anyone know if they leaf late? It doesn't look dead, with swollen buds but still resolutely bare.

Tomorrow it is down to Oswestry to collect the eggs for hatching to produce our Welsomers. Isn't life good?

Comments

  1. Lovely blog, hope scan comes and goes without any worries. Your garden sounds lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It sounds great - and you'll never take it for granted! I love the pix!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think they do leaf later. Our apple blossosm bloomedove rnight.Isn't nature wonderful!!Keepfocusing on that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I' sure the scan will be fine, Elizabeth, and it's better to be sure. You are bound to feel like that though. Egg collecting tomorrow will be great. I remember when we hatched our first duckling in an incubator- sooo amazing to see this little thing chipping away at the shell xx

    ReplyDelete
  5. Trust the nice doctor. You WILL be fine. I can only shop in short sharp blasts too, loathe window shopping.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi elizabethm! Have finally caught up with your page, it is looking really lovely. I would definitely try and stick with the doctor you trust, thoughts are with you there - all the very best for the egg project tomorrow, so glad we didn't miss out on any of this!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Enjoyed your blog and am optimistic on your behalf re scan. It's good to hear about the activities you planned around the main act of the day!

    ReplyDelete
  8. It sounds like you managed to turn what could be a rotten day into something fabulous! Good for you! Blonder sounds fab to me.....
    hey, Wicker Man on both our favourite film lists - and I am a HUGE Philip Pulman fan....give the chap a knighthood....
    I'm afraid that there is no alternative (that I've found) of doing anything other than tediously cutting and pasting to get an archive.....It's weird going through the old ones - and I have to say TONS of repetition (me, me, house, house, poo, poo, wine, wine, chocolate, football, poo, poo, house, house etc etc) so I'm cutting out a fair few.... And THEN (ta-da!) I might feel ready to get back to proper blogging.
    Janexxxx
    Oswestry? Ah, memories. My best friend at University came from Oswestry....

    ReplyDelete
  9. It sounds like you managed to turn what could be a rotten day into something fabulous! Good for you! Blonder sounds fab to me.....
    hey, Wicker Man on both our favourite film lists - and I am a HUGE Philip Pulman fan....give the chap a knighthood....
    I'm afraid that there is no alternative (that I've found) of doing anything other than tediously cutting and pasting to get an archive.....It's weird going through the old ones - and I have to say TONS of repetition (me, me, house, house, poo, poo, wine, wine, chocolate, football, poo, poo, house, house etc etc) so I'm cutting out a fair few.... And THEN (ta-da!) I might feel ready to get back to proper blogging.
    Janexxxx
    Oswestry? Ah, memories. My best friend at University came from Oswestry....

    ReplyDelete
  10. I do hate that lurching, though. You psych yourself up for one date (hospital appointment) and then a crampon is thrown into the future of another thing to prey on your mind. Lots of deep breathing and stroking your plants. I love(d) Christopher Lloyd (have you read his correspondence with Beth Chatto?) and Anna Pavord (love her 2 planting companion books - so many gardening books take the easy option of describing individual plants but it's the making them go together and live and die gracefully which is the tricky bit).

    ReplyDelete
  11. Matron has just popped in to tell you not to worry, the chat room has gone down temporarily owing to an error on Google which is preventing us cleaning out the fosses to make room for new posts!

    You can still blog away merrily here on your own page, and to leave comments on all the others.

    ReplyDelete
  12. What a lovely idea to plan a girlie night away. I do hope scan proves all is OK, but I can imagine how you must be feeling and I'll be thinking of you. Much better to stick with the Dr you know too.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The dress sounds divine, hope you get your break away too.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hello - just a quick visit before picking up the gang! You sound very chic! Are you sure you wouldn't like to match your lovely hair and dress with a pair of my frumpy slippers? Tom was checked for 13 years after his cancer - we always worried whatever they did but, touch wood, he's still fine. (Well, sort of!! Only kidding!)

    ReplyDelete
  15. The blogs are so much more interesting here with all the pics. It is lovely seeing the things people have been talking about views, gardens etc. I don't know what you went through last year but I do hope you find the scan re-assuring and hit is hard enough talking to medical professionals I find without having to change around so you are right to stick with someone if you are comfortable with them.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Beautify blog as always - I do hope scan brings positive news. Best to get it checked though. My mum kept free range chickens and they were called Monica's mammouths and she was Grandma Chickens to the kids.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I lived through your story of last year with enormous admiration for you and your courage. It is always safer to check, but I'msure it'll be OK. My prayers are with you. Luv Rho

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are the best thing and the conversations they produce are the whole purpose of blogging for me. Do tell me what you think!

Popular posts from this blog

I love November

New house, new world, new garden

Making lined curtains