Shhhhhh!

A brief site meeting this morning to discuss the positioning of a small shed beneath the large conifer to hide the oil tank had to be postponed.

The neighbours were complaining about the noise!

Worrying

Back in the Before, I rarely worried about anything. What will be, will be. That truly was what I believed.

“What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

I don’t know whether this was the arrogance of Youth, or simply the confidence of a person who had not yet experienced any life-shaking events. But, of course, one day the worst thing did happen, and it shook that little belief system to its foundations.

Since then I appear to have become a world class worrier.

It would be nice if worrying actually resulted in something in terms of action. But no. I simply freeze and become overcome with inertia.

It also doesn’t help having just married a man who does this sort of thing on a regular basis.

Note the high-tech safety Birkenstocks, invisible head protection and Kevlar walking shorts...
It did nothing for my blood pressure to look out of the window one afternoon and find him doing that.

Nursing the two broken ribs that resulted helped even less. Thinking about what could have happened if he hadn’t managed to throw the chainsaw out of the danger zone before the ladder fell makes me feel physically sick.

And yes, we have had words about it!

I rarely worry about myself physically though, other than a vague concern about what the long-term future might hold. Seeing my Mum struggle with the slow onset of Alzheimer’s, I worry about losing my marbles and my dignity, but hardly ever about physical illnesses or problems.

So when my 50^th birthday coincided with my first ever invitation for a mammogram, it provided a whole new opportunity for worry. I have seen the awful and devastating effects of breast cancer at close hand among my friends, but since there has been no incidence in my family as far as I am aware, it had previously escaped my worry radar.

Older friends also had no hesitation in telling me horror stories about squashed and painful boobs during screening, which didn’t help at all either. I am a complete wuss about this sort of thing, and I’m not afraid to admit it!

I did find it completely surreal that the screening would be done in the back of a lorry on Tesco’s car park. But in the event, the lorry proved to be something of a Tardis, and I was welcomed in by a kindly and efficient lady who bore a very striking resemblance to Claire Rayner, thus increasing the surrealism quotient severalfold.

And of course waiting for the results was equally fraught with worry, despite the fact I had given the issue barely a moment’s thought for the previous n years. Three weeks later, however, I am very happy to report that my lovely postman arrived this morning to deliver the all-clear letter. So that’s that then. I can stop worrying about that.

At least until 3 years’ time when I am invited for screening again.

New shoes

Because I shall turn 50 next week and have never owned such a frivolous pair of shoes in my life. So it's about time I did.

Because I like the way he looks at my legs when I'm wearing them.

Because every girl needs a pair of ruby slippers.

Just because!

Couch potato

That photograph was taken just over a year ago.

I had just run my first 10k (for the record in 57:58 – not bad for an old bird!) and was feeling rather pleased with myself.
Flushed with that success I planned to work up to a half marathon by the end of 2012.

Ah well.
Pride goeth before destruction and all that.
I ran two more 10ks during the summer, then the niggly cartilage in my left knee started to nag. And then to hurt after a couple of miles. So I stopped running and started cycling. Slightly different muscles, but good exercise and it was something Robert and I could do together.

I had just got to the stage of thinking about looking for a “proper” bike to replace my old jalopy when the next disaster struck.
In early October, I spent an afternoon digging over the veg garden to get it ready for the winter. A short bout of mortal combat with a particularly well dug-in cabbage stalk resulted in a torn rotator cuff; an injury I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Not a stabby sort of pain, but what I would describe as impossibly severe discomfort. It got to the stage where I could not stand, sit, lie or walk in any position for more than a few minutes at a time. For a couple of weeks, all I could do was half-lie, half-sit in bed, propped up with pillows like some crotchety dowager duchess. I am not a good patient!

But I am fortunate in having a wonderful chiropractor.
He pulled and prodded, wiggled and jiggled until he was pretty certain where the problem lay.
Then the solution amounted to rest, ice and massage. Robert could provide the last two. The first was down to me.

So essentially I spent from the end of October until Christmas sitting by the woodburner, slumped on the sofa and doped up with ibuprofen, either typing or obsessively knitting – the only two activities that didn’t hurt. Most of my family received scarves as gifts!

It took until the first few days of this new year to realise that the pain had largely dissipated.
In the meantime, all my muscle appears to have turned to blancmange. I don’t appear to have put on any weight, so it must be true what they say about muscle weighing more than fat, but there is a definite squidginess about the mid-section that really has to go.

As last year’s hubris appears to have courted disaster, I am reluctant to put forward any sort of plan. But my walking boots are by the door and the constant rain of the last two months seems to have metamorphosed into light snow and frost, so there is every possibility that the next few days might result in some sort of exercise.
At last.

Alpha and Omega

Supper this evening consisted of the very last home-grown bacon joint alongside the first of this year's new potatoes, broad beans and parsley.

The old with the new.
A fitting transition.
There is always new, isn't there? New life. New growth. New experiences.
All good.

And there are no photos because it has all gone!

A rare success

I love my garden.
Vegetables, flowers, trees, grass (well maybe I grumble about the grass sometimes). There is very little that gives me more pleasure than pottering about outside, pruning, dead-heading, digging and planning. It is all good.

Houseplants are an entirely different matter.
My intentions towards them are always honourable, but I cringe inwardly when someone gives me a potplant as the odds are that it will be a brown and crispy husk within six months. Having most of my windowsills point due South doesn't help either as the poor plants have the choice between thermal shock cycles there, or sitting further into the room in semi-darkness.
I could give the roll call of houseplants that have gone before, but it would be too depressing for words. Suffice to say, it is long.

So last year, when a visiting friend gave me a beautiful Phalaenopsis, I admired its beauty and simply expected it to go and join its predecessors on the compost heap eventually. But the blooms continued to flower month after month, and the plant appeared to enjoy my benign neglect. When the flowering stem finally died back, I felt that something so pretty and so tenacious deserved a chance.

After taking advice, I moved the pot to overwinter in the spare bedroom where it more or less dried out, but was given a watering whenever I noticed it - which admittedly was not very often. Amazingly it started to put up another flowering stalk a couple of months ago, so I moved it to where I would see it more often, gave it a bit of a feed and waited.

Last week it rewarded me with this. So lovely, and quite undeserved.

In the arms of Morpheus

Ahhh.
Sleep is a wonderful thing.
The coughing stopped long enough to allow 6 hours of uninterrupted sweet oblivion.
I would like to order the same again tonight, please.