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!

The sandwich bandit

The other-half, Cyril (three-legged monster cat) and I have now been staying with sis no 1 for about six weeks as building work takes place back at Discombobulated Towers.  We are very grateful for this place of refuge but quite frankly it’s amazing we haven’t been evicted due to Cyril’s behaviour.  As well as intermittently bullying my sister’s cat, Tuppence, commandeering the best seats in the living room and demanding his share of the breakfast bacon, he has now taken up thievery.  Yesterday he got through a plastic bag and some cling film wrap to have a good nibble of my sister’s ham sandwich. As you can see from the picture below he is consumed with remorse and sleepless nights over the whole incident.

Still wearing the bandit mask too

Meanwhile poor Tuppence has resorted to befriending the vacuum cleaner.

The end is in sight with the building work.  On the plus side the new room looks fantastic on the downside the kitchen fitter turned out to be completely fucking useless.  Sorry, but there really is no other way to put it.  I wouldn’t trust him with a lego set.  Anyway the work is being redone but, of course, this is yet another delay.

I’m also waiting to hear from the oncologist in Warwick.  I want to give the chap a chance but I will start chasing next week.  I’d really like to be on something to try to combat the buggers in my lungs.  I have started another hormone therapy, Letrozole (replaces tamoxifen in trying to block the oestrogen which my type of cancer loves).  It seems to be causing massive hot flushes (a small price to pay) which have even resulted to me standing around in the garden at night, flapping my dressing gown around like some kind of giant albino vampire bat.  

Yes, I know it's a crap photo.  But would you really want more detail?

Here's one I did not make earlier ...

The plan today was for a trip into Wales. That got the kybosh due to the other half’s poorliness (he’s got the lurgy, hence yesterday’s attention seeking coughing fit at hospital). So instead we thought we’d stick closer to home and head off to Church Stretton and do a bit of walking round Carding Mill Valley. Well we got there. We parked. We walked for about 15 minutes then the other half turned a whiter shade of pale (my most hated song ever by the way) so we gave up and came home, but at least I took a photo (and got some fresh air).

And that’s about all there is to report on the ‘doing’ front. I’m afraid today has been a bit of a wobbly day for me (though not as wobbly as for my other half who is now, 5.15pm, tucked up in bed with a bottle of Night Nurse and the latest Wickes catalogue). I know I’m going to have ups and downs with this whole cancer malarkey – it’s just that I want someone to write me a note to excuse me from having to do the down bit (or indeed any of it).

Anyway thanks to those who helped out this morning when I was thrashing about in a pit of self-pity. I think the upshot is that sitting around in my dressing gown every day until the early afternoon just thinking, thinking, thinking is not doing me any favours. Not least because said dressing gown is held together by toothpaste stains, cat fur and assorted other dirt and may well kill me by giving me Ebola or something similar before anything else gets the chance. So thank your lucky stars that today’s photo is of a nice Shropshire hill rather than my revolting dressing gown – it was a close run thing.

Well, tomorrow is another day. Hopefully I’ll be a bit more up and at ‘em and even if I’m not I promise I’ll try to get that dressing gown in the washing machine. Or maybe ceremoniously burn it.