Green eyed monster

Yay, it's time for the Annual Shrewsbury Flower Show with it's usual brilliant display of kids' veggie art.  Here's just a few examples.  I've got heaps more of these to come but will save them for future posts, after all I don't want to spoil you.

There were other displays that made me green with jealousy

and hello to the lady in the pink coat

Not to mention the fluorescent loveliness of the park itself

Do not adjust your sets, the colours really are this bright

My sisters came away with plants galore, whereas I came home with, obviously, a two foot tall wooden bunny

Every home should have one

My jealousy of all things floral continued with a visit to some friends in nearby Staffordshire who live in a lovely old cottage.  To make matters worse they have the most gorgeous garden (these photos really don't do it justice) I was positively emerald with envy.

And now on to green eyed monsters of a different sort.  The other-half has been decorating (yes again) this time the bathroom and bedroom.  Cyril, the three legged monster cat, decided to help.  Here's some of his handiwork.

Freshly painted window sills, wooden floors and a delinquent cat definitely do not mix.

OK, on to the tedious medical update.  I had the first dose of my new chemo on Wednesday.  The following day I was back at hospital as my temperature went haywire.  It was much like the time a similar thing happened in Cornwall a few months ago.  Once again, thankfully, my white blood cell count was ok, so the temperature wasn't indicative of a rampant infection.  I had some IV antibiotics and some oral ones to take home just to be on the safe side but the doctors seemed to think it was the result of new chemo on top of old chemo and my body deciding it was all a bit too much to handle.  Anyway, I'm OK now.  We shall see what happens next week when I go back for a swamp juice top up.  Let's hope it doesn't result in this:

Although frankly that would be an improvement on this, a picture of me looking truly dreadful while recuperating, truly I have no pride when it comes to seeking sympathy.

Hello beautiful!

Head in hands

Bugger, bugger, bugger.  My latest CT scan has revealed that the cancer in my lungs is growing.  This means I stop the current chemo and move on to a new (to me) swamp juice, Eribulin, next week.  Hey ho.  To console myself, since returning home from the hospital, I've had a glass of sherry, a custard tart and a snickers bar.  Now to add insult to injury I'm feeling a bit sick.  I wonder why.

Steamy weekend

As part of the never-ending celebrations of this year being the other-half's half century, we got together last weekend with several of his old childhood chums (also all 50 this year) and headed to the wild delights of Bridgnorth.  In their younger days they misspent a deal of time in this particular town.  This was all before my time so I don't want to know the details, after all what happens in Bridgnorth stays in Bridgnorth.

In between drinking and eating and more drinking we decided to take a trip on the Severn Valley Railway, an old stream railway running between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster, this being the sort of thing that people in their 50s do.  I loved it.

What's not to love?

Although I'm just a little bit too young to remember steam trains being in general use (I am!)  the carriages on the train were just like the ones I remember, all wooden and lovely and with windows that actually opened (unlike today's hermetically sealed trains which almost give me panic attacks).  I only took one interior photo (more on that in a bit) but found this on the internet which is the more or less the same as the train we travelled in and the ones I remember from my childhood. Thems were the days!  Except I never went first class of course.

Picture from here, with apologies for swirly thing

We got off at a village stop and headed straight for the pub.  Where more regrettable aspects of modern life were revealed.  Have you ever seen such a thing as this:

It's a travesty!

I tell you the country is going to hell in a handcart!

While I'm moaning about reprehensible things (like modern trains and 'ploughman's lunches'), the other-half behaved disgracefully on the train.  Look what he did

Look mum,  no head!

To be fair to modern train designers, the above (ie a twit sticking his head out of a moving train) is probably the reason that train windows no longer open and the doors are remotely controlled by hands unseen.  What a nitwit!  We had words.  He was unrepentant.

Anyway it was a lovely weekend and helped keep my mind of this Thursday, when I get the results of the latest CT scans, oh fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck (which is much like the sound the train made as it trundled through the Shropshire countryside).  Till next time (when I'll be either gleeful or miserable), stay tuned.