The ease of pottering around

Following the tricky events of chemo 7 this last few days have been spent generally pottering around to the great benefit of all involved. Previously chemo had been set up on a friday allowing most of the weekend and Monday to recover before the demands of conference calls and "events" began to require the attention of my work head. This has been pretty effective from a work point of view, but this week with chemo 7 on tuesday I had to survive thursday and friday (my low points after the chemo). So in essence I slept between phone calls or took them from under my duvet on Thursday and when it came to friday I just slept, literally from 7.30pm thursday night to 11am Friday, lunch/phone call and back to sleep for most of the afternoon, back in bed by 5pm up for a few hours around 10pm and then back to sleep again. The chemo fatigue is cumulative so as I get further chemos then the "wipe out" phase becomes more pronounced.

Anyway the big surprise was waking up on Saturday morning thinking "I feel all right again" having been watching the clock go round on thursday so I could take my next dose of anti nausia pills and sleeping most of Friday that was a real relief. The sun was shining so I pottered off to the garden and cut the lawn and my neighbours lawn, then I fitted my new seats and walnut door cappings to the MG while cleaning and polishing it for the show on Sunday. I started fitting bits to the car around 1pm and finished polishing the chrome around 9pm but it felt like only a few hours had passed. Along the way different friends and neighbours in the garages turned up and chatted or held bits while I tried to assemble them. Lee even came out with cups of tea and later with a medicinal gin and tonic around 6pm and helped me lever some washers into place on the seat anchor points. As I went back into the house the sun was just setting and the smell of the cut lawn was still in the air, car safely tucked up in its garage polished and ready for the morning. Emotionally such a contrast to tuesday I felt stable and happy again which was great.

This last week it feels like Poppy has moved out at 11 years old, she went to Aberfeldy on a week long school trip last Sunday and has come back even "cooler" than she went away, luckly practice on the local climbing wall with Holly and I meant she was totally unphased by the events and really enjoyed her time away. Her friends from the trip are now friends for life, right up to the day after she got back when she went for a "sleepover" with some other friends and then straight to a football competition on Sunday so we have hardly seen her all week. We finished up today with a walk to the local park which has a funfair running at the moment Poppy and Holly tried to get me to go on the rides but I am to wimpish to compete with them. My friend Jim and his daughter Lucy were there at the same time so we were able to swap favourites for the world cup while watching the childeren scare themselves to bits.

I set off to the car show at Thirlstane castle early this morning with the MG club folks, all in convoy down through the scottish border country. It was a beautiful sunny day and stupidly early on a sunday so we roared through the sleepy villages. Once we got to the grounds we set up our stand of 15 cars, flags, posters and bunting to try to win the "best club stand trophy" from our arch rivals the Trimuph club. Sufficient to say we have the number 1 cup still in our pub at the end of the event.

Lee and Holly came down at lunchtime with a nice picnic and we wandered around the cars, bouncy castles, real castles, candy floss etc for a few hours in the sunshine and generally enjoyed ourselves. Holly elected to stay with me when Lee headed off to beat the end of show rush and helped dismantle the stand with all the "grown ups" giving her stuff to take to the little trailer we use, she reveled in the attention and ended up with a few pound coins in pocket from club members (many of whom are retired with grandchildern and have a soft spot for Holly). So Holly and I headed home in the MG on the old A68 zipping past slower cars on the straights as the MG has a tuned up rally engine so is about 40% more powerful than standard.

Once we got home and put the car away Poppy came home and we headed to the Fair for an hour, as I walked back, with the sun setting, I thought some of the happiest times are just pottering around doing silly things on a summer sunday, and without a care in the world.

Sometimes the simple things are the most satisfying and peaceful

So childeren are now in bed and snoozing happily, I am finishing my blog with a glass of wine, the cats are asleep on the sofa, and Lee is watching her singing contest on the TV, all is well in Edinburgh !

Cheers

Gerry