Spring-like Weather

(Saturday) It's a really sunny and bright morning. There are even more flowers thrusting their way through the soil. Not just snowdrops, daffodils (though I don't reckon all of them are technically daffodils) but also what look vaguely like bluebells and violets and there are catkins on some of the willow bushes (I imagine they must be because willows have catkins) and there is blossom coming out on the May trees. Well, I think they're May trees or Hawthorn. Since looking via Google I learn that they are one and the same.

(Saturday) From bright and sunny yesterday to being chilly and foggy this morning. I imagine that it will burn off if and when the sun comes out.

(Sunday) Another foggy morning. It hadn't burnt off when I went out with Alfie around 9.15.

I've seen several of the little robotic 'pods' over the last few days. One crossing over Strudwick Drive from the path leading to the primary school. It waited at the kerbside to cross over. How on earth do these things 'know' when it's safe for them to cross the road? I presume they have some sort of sensor which can tell when something or someone is close. But how far away? It then crossed the road and went in the direction of Fishermead. For some unexplained reason I can't use this service as they won't take orders within Oldbrook. Which seems odd, when I see these 'pods' going through the estate. I saw another one further down Oldbrook Boulevard, crossing from Oldbrook Green towards the school. I would like to order something just to give it a try. A newspaper of some sweets. Just seems ridiculous when they come through Oldbrook.

(Monday) Another Monday and a new month. I find it really hard to believe that we're three months into 2021. Christmas, such as it was, seems lightyears behind. It's cold out, and there's a thin fog hanging over Milton Keynes. I imagine it will burn off when, or if, the sun breaks through.

Later. I have managed to transfer all my handwritten material into word processing. I have used speech to text, which saves a good deal of time, as I merely read it out and it appears in more or less perfect word processed text. Mind you, it has a habit of mistaking some words and I need to check it, but apart from that, a few tweeks here and there and it's done. Around 27 pages and 7,000 words.

We're now being informed that there's yet ANOTHER virus variant. So? What do you expect me to do about it? If we keep on running away from this 'virus', in whatever form it's in, we'll never get out of lockdown. We should get some form of herd immunity as we do with any virus, be it from flu or other winter bugs that are flying about. You can't keep running away from it forever. I'm sure mankind has been able to survive for thousands of years with various viruses and bacteria. I remember my mother exposed us to all manner of bugs when we were children, having every sort of ailment going, from flu through mumps (not nice, I can tell you.) so we got through all those illnesses when we were young and built up an immunity. Also, living on a farm exposed us to dirt and muck and must have helped up build up immunity. As it is, today we're far to obsessed with cleanliness, anti bacterial this and that, which, in the end, does more harm than good. Killing off the natural flora which the body needs to fight infection. Look what has happened in hospitals with MRSA, the over-use of antibiotics such as penicillin and other similar drugs.

(Tuesday) A relatively mild morning with no fog. We were out around 6.30, which is great, because it's getting lighter earlier and earlier each morning. Very spring-like. Not much else to report at the moment.

Alfie, the Pussycat and Mixed Weather

(Wednesday) I took Alfie out for his walk across Eaglestone Park. We did the full circuit because it wasn't raining. Infact, it wasn't particularly damp, fortunately. We got almost to the completion of the circuit when Alfie spied a cat, minding it's own business, almost asleep, it looked to me. He hared off and went to investigate, but I was concerned that he would chase after if if the confounded creature ran away, but I managed to capture him and put him back on his lead. I didn't fancy having to chase him along the Redway and over the road, otherwise he might have got run over by a passing car, but it didn't come to that. I think he was merely investigating the strange creature, as he would another dog. I don't think he connects a cat out in the park with the creatures who drift in and out of our garden and stroll nonchalantly along the fence, meaning he has to bark to warn them off. In that respect it's a matter of territory. He doesn't want them on his territory, so be barks to chase them away.

(Friday) Quite cold and foggy when I took out Alfie this morning. We didn't do a complete circuit of the park.

Carol is having a blood transfusion today. She texted me to say it began at 7 a.m and is likely to take three or four hours. She has her antibiotics through a drip and they had problems with the cannula in her arm into which the tube is fed. She has to keep her arm straight otherwise the drip will stop because he tube is kinked or crushed. Quite difficult for her to sleep with this drip going and she's being woken at regular intervals for the nurses to give her the various medications she is on, particularly pain relief medication.

Later. 2.00p.m. I got back from seeing Carol on Ward 19 a good deal earlier than usual. She spent a good deal of the morning asleep. On arrival at around 10.00 she was on the blood transfusion and fast asleep. A real wonder, considering all the noise there is on the ward. There's a door which leads into the next ward which bangs shut with a load sound. Nobody is able to go through without it making a noise. Then there's a woman domestic who cleans the ward and when she cleans the toilets, which are nearby, she can't resist banging the toilet seats. How on earth you can do that job and make so much noise I cannot think. Then there are a couple of patients, screams and hollerers who make a noise, then there's people moving around all the time. Not a quiet place, by any stretch of the imagination.

When I got home, because it was sunny and bright, a definite contrast with the cold and fog we had earlier, I decided to take Alfie out for a walk. Poor little dog, shut in all day, it's the least I can do for him. He certainly deserves a treat. So off we went, Alfie barking happily and keen as ever to be let off the lead in the usual place.

Pouring Rain

(Sunday) Poor Alfie! We couldn't possibly go our for our routine walk across Eaglestone Park this morning because it had been raining most of the night. I keep looking out of the window to see if there was any chance that it might clear, but, no, it didn't so he'll have to wait until the weather improves, but that doesn't stop him watching me like a hawk. I don't relish the thought of getting a soaking, the last thing I want is to come down with a chill of some sort and anyway, Alfie doesn't like getting soaked. He hates baths in particular. Also, he feels the cold and a soaking wouldn't help him either and he takes ages to dry, so it's just as well we didn't venture out.

I got home from the hospital at around 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon and the effect of the earlier flu-jab could be felt. Some discomfort in my left arm where the injection was done and I felt really off-colour. I slept for an hour or so and later at around 6.  I couldn't lay on my left side because of the  pain in the arm where the injection was done. Most of the night I felt fairly awful, and as a result I didn't go to church. But now, at 10.20 I can say I'm feeling a good deal better. From past experience of flu jabs I have usually felt off-colour for perhaps 48 hours afterwards, so this has gone off a good deal quicker than in the past, thank goodness.

The catheter which Carol had inserted when she was in A and E when she first came into Milton Keynes Hospital has come out. I'm not sure how it came out exactly, but we are waiting to see whether the doctors will want it reinserted. Hopefully she won't need it and this should lead to her recovery from the discomfort and pain. There should be results of various test back from the laboratory tomorrow so, when the doctor does her ward-round tomorrow morning we should hear something. Apparently the antibiotics are doing their job and the infection is under control.

It's been damp and miserable most of the day and by mid-morning the discomfort from the flu jab had passed. Not just that, the feeling of sleepiness and total lack of energy, but as I write this (3.5 pm.) I feel more or less back to normal.

When I left Ward 19 I walked out of the hospital and had to go to pay for parking at the machine which is near the entrance to the Cardiology Department. There was a man already there at the machine having problems paying. He had put his ticket into the slot in the machine but it kept rejecting it. The whole idea is that you put your ticket in and the machine calculates how much you have to pay. He did it again, infact several more times. I then said that if I put mine in it would show whether the machine was working, which I did and I had to pay the £4.50 indicated on th digital read-out. The man went off to the carpark with the ticket and he managed to drive out through the barrier using his ticket, so he got to park free whilst I had to pay. There is definitely something wrong with the parking ticket machine if he went through the normal procedure and his ticket worked the barrier without paying whilst I had to pay, somewhat annoying as you can't have free parking at the weekend because the Macmillan Unit isn't open to have your ticket clipped (that is, if you are a cancer patient or a relative.) Such is life!

Such Is Life!

To be honest, there's not an awful lot to put in a blog post at the moment. Carol let me take Alfie out for his walk across Eaglestone Park on my own yesterday morning. I don't think she wants to let me go anywhere much on my own since what happened two Sundays ago. I suppose I can't blame her. She's not feeling too well herself. She's experiencing a lot of pain which is as a result of taking the antibiotics, or, at least that's what we've discovered by reading the leaflet which comes with these tablets. I don't understand how antibiotics can have that effect, but it's a good idea to always read those leaflets which come with packets of medication just to see what some of the side-effects might be.

I haven't driven the car since the 'Incident' two Sunday's ago. Not that I don't want to, because I do. Carol has been driving. I haven't been back to S.C.F. yet. I hope to go again next Sunday. I don't think Carol likes the idea of me going off on my own since what happened. We'll just have to wait and see. I have been feeling incredibly tired since the heart attack. Which just goes with the territory, unfortunately, but I don't feel as tired as I did after the first heart attack in 2006. The bruising is beginning to receded as the days go by, but none of the bruises are as swollen as they were when I left hospital. Some of the medication can make you feel quite unsteady as well as effecting my appetite and making food taste peculiar, particularly making things tasteless.

I mentioned wanting to by a long-sleeved top in Marks and Spencer's in my last blog post. We went to their central Milton Keynes branch on Friday and couldn't see any of the rugby tops, two of which I have already. It seemed odd that, if you go on their website, you have a good selection, but then these garments aren't available in their stores. The Carol suggested going to their store at the football stadium and it was the same there. Yesterday we drove to Kingtson hopping centre and went into the M&S store there and there as a much better selection and I chose and bought a plain blue shirt in a similar style to the Rugby shirts with long sleeves. When we came out of the carpark there was a long queue coming out onto the grid roads, but I have no idea why it was so busy, perhaps we had just come out at a particularly busy time. It would seem most people, on a Saturday morning, don't go out shopping until a good deal later, say 10.00-11.00 a.m., by which time we've normally been shopping in wherever we go, for example, Sainsbury's, when it is relatively free of other shoppers and you can get in and out easily.

Alfie's taken to running upstairs and hiding under our bed. I can't think why. Perhaps he thinks he's done something wrong. If we're about to go out and I say 'Alfie, Kitchen!', he has a habit of running upstairs, but sometimes, he will obey and comply and go into the kitchen and then get in the bed he has in the corner by the patio door. I think it must be very snug and comfortable for him, so I can't see why he would go and hide under our bed on the cold floor. Although there are a couple of storage baskets under there where I have sometimes found him hiding. Funny little dog.

We've been back over to the Kingston Centre because Carol needed some pain relief medication so we went to Boot's, which opened at 10a.m. Being a Sunday, shops open later than during the week. We were confronted by the sight of hoards of starlings in the trees around the carpark and some wandering around on the ground. I reckon they were preparing to migrate which they do at around this time of year. They were making a lot of noise, sounding to me a bit like an audience in a theatre before the show starts. One we saw busily eating the dead flies caught in the front of the radiator of a car parked immediately in front of us.

Strange how I started this blog post not knowing what I was going to write, and end up with writing quite a lot, regardless how much garbage I actually end up writing. Such is life!

More Weird Sports

So, we've spent the last couple of weeks watching the European Championships 2018, mostly from Glasgow, but some from Berlin. So, how weird is it to have something like this from two cities, hundreds of miles apart? Just think of the coordination. We turned on the television to be confronted by what was called a 'Walking Race'. Really? They didn't look as if they were walking to me, more like waddling. Who on earth invented this strange contest? Over, wait for it, 24 km? Did I read that right? What's that in miles? I don't know, but it certainly wasn't walking. If I was to walk like that, I'd get an awful stitch, or my hips would ache. Then, apparently, they had two events of this sort at the same time, the men and women. How did that happen? Something to do with there being an incident with gas or something. But it just looked so odd. Is it me, or was it odd? It was, no doubt. How come none of them just began to run? I know, it wouldn't be in the rules, but walking? Doesn't make any sense at all.  Then, a bit later, the B.M.X. something-or-other. Young men, on bicycles which looked far too small for them (most of them must have been around my height, around 6ft plus, on bicycles that looked to me as if they were build for children), then they hurl themselves down a very steep slope (!) and then bounce around jumping over what look like little more than concrete-coated waves, along the course, going round in circles. Land badly and you ruin your chances of fatherhood. No, seriously, or have a nasty accident, which several of them did. I just hope the saddles on those bikes were comfortable, although, most of the time, they didn't actually sit down on them, a bit like jockeys in horse races, when they don't actually sit in the saddles on those horses, sort of perched at a rather peculiar angle on top of their mounts. 

The decathlon is another event which is quite entertaining ( more than 'quite.' It's very entertaining.) Who invented this? Swimming, running and then cycling? None of the different 'parts' is exactly a walk in the park. Figuratively or literally. I mean, a run, swim, or cycle in a rather attractive Glasgow country park. Makes football look more like a game of tiddlywinks by comparison. And none of these competitors earn a penny, unlike those footballers who earn telephone numbers. Crazy. They'd have a hissy fit if they so much as got mud on their over-sponsored football boots. In the olden days, back in the mists of time, footballers earned realistic salaries and then had proper jobs in factories or coal mines and played football as a sort of hobby at the weekend.

Thinking again about the road races. I'm intrigued by the camera-work involved. No, really. The actual racing is fantastic, which is odd for me, particularly as I'm not really that interested in sport, particularly those sports that go on interminably, such as tennis, or cricket or, for that matter, football. The last lot we saw, was it during the World Cup from Russia, a couple of weeks ago, (although most of it I watched whilst looking at email or other stuff on my MacBook laptop.) I have to say, looked really bland and could have just as well been a computer simulation or a computer game. The grass looks unfeasibly green and more like astro turf of even fitted carpet and all that advertising that they had all around the pitch was a real distraction. What I meant to say, before I digressed, was the way they shot the events for television. They had a sort of camera fitted to a line stretched across the course, and a camera ran along this line, which must have been quite distracting for the competitors. Then, during the road-races, they had cameras on scooters. How on earth did those cameramen manage to balance on the back of these scooters, and how did they manage to not fall off? I couldn't see how they were sitting on the back of the scooters, usually several yards in front of the leading competitors,  then shooting backwards at them, managing to keep the camera steady, and, by the size of them, along with the lenses, managing to keep hold of the camera and focussing on the competitors and generally taking decent shots. How did they avoid all the 'health and safety' rules and regulations regarding this? Just think of the risk assessments for this, or if it comes to that, the B.M.X. events.

Well, if nothing else, I've managed to get quite a lot of blog posts out of watching these events. And, very surprisingly, become something of a fan along the way. Probably because they've had several sports involved, and you can enjoy the scenery if you get bored with the actual sports, which is quite breathtaking. Perhaps it's my Scottish ancestry coming out, because my father's side of the family came from Glasgow, or at least, just outside somewhere or other.

After so many weeks of scorching hot weather, it's actually pleasant to be having rain, as we had yesterday. I can't believe I just wrote that, because, generally, if it rains in this country, it brings doom and gloom. At first we had a miserable rain, no more than a sort of dribble, but it's now a good deal stronger. I just hope it's enough to freshen up things because the grass looks dead and shrivelled all along the Grid Roads around Milton Keynes. I had hoped to take Alfie for a second walk this afternoon, but it really wouldn't be such a good idea, because both of us would only end up soaked to the skin.

I took the car back to Bleak Hall Motors to have the work done so that it could have it's MoT certificate. Got there by around 7.50 so I had to wait until they opened up. Considerably cooler so I wished I hadn't worn my shorts. Anyway, round about 9.30 they told me it as completed, so payed using my debit card and left. I'm just glad that's done. Fortunately the brakes don't need any work doing, they seem o.k., so that's less of a worry, although the car could do with servicing.

I took Alfie was a shorter walk than usual, because of the on-and-off rain. He'd been expecting to be taken out earlier, but there wasn't time before I had to take the car to Bleak Hall Motors.

Saturday morning. It's a bright and sunny morning. No sign of rain. What rain we had over the past couple of days hasn't made much of an effect on the grass, the garden or any vegetation around where we live. Yesterday afternoon there was a quite violent rainstorm, with fairly high winds, but nothing too dramatic. There was quite a cascade of water running along the front of the house when the nurse came to give Carol her antibiotics. It seems she will still be getting visits until Sunday, so these visits haven't finished as we'd expected on Friday.

Short Trip To Hospital

Early morning and it's hot. It's going to be another scorching hot day. Just as well we don't have to do much, although Carol needed to pick up antibiotic tablets from Milton Keynes Hospital. We weren't sure where to go to collect them. It would have been easier for us to go to the pharmacy in the hospital.

I took Alfie out for his, by now, daily walk. He's following me around the house, making sure I'm aware that we hadn't been out. We do the usual circuit of the park and we see the two little dogs we came upon a couple of days ago. Chihuahuas both, one a brown-and-white and the other black. The black one, Poppy, obsessed with a rubber ball, very protective of it. Alfie just wants to be friends with them. He's not going to bother with the ball. After all, he's a terrier and not a reliever and don't you know it. He runs rings around both dogs and wags his tail frantically. Just having a lovely time. Really great that he's socialising with the dogs he meets.

Right. Having walked Alfie and had breakfast, we had to go into the hospital to the A.E.C.U.           (Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit) department in the Maple Centre.  Actually we didn't at first know it was there. We parked in the hospital multi-storey carpark and walked to the reception in the new hospital entrance. Well, not probably that new, as it has been opened for about 6-8 months now. It was here that we were directed to the Maple Centre. Had we known, we would have parked at the front of the hospital, in the ground-level carpark, which is actually directly opposite the Maple Centre. Never mind. We were somewhat surprised that there were notices along the top of the low wall outside the main entrance, telling you not to sit on it. Why? What reason was there that you couldn't sit on a wall, particularly at the moment when it's so hot? Might it be because the wall isn't designed to take a person or persons sitting on it? Are they concerned that it might collapse and then be sued for injury? Is it our old friend Health and Safety gone slightly crazy? Oh, never mind, there are a couple of benches further along which are designed to be sat upon and not likely to collapse if you sit on them. It was a relatively short walk around the hospital campus to get there. We spoke to a lady on the reception but then we had to go round the corner to the A.E.C.U., which is where Carol had to come a couple of months ago, when we had to wait virtually all day before a doctor could deal with a situation she had at that time. It wasn't long before on of the nurses managed to find the antibiotics that were needed and handed over a package of these medications to take home. Fortunately, when we returned to the multi-storey car park and out our ticket in the payment machine, we didn't have to pay anything, no doubt because we hadn't been more than half and hour, which means you don't have to pay.

A Bat In The Bedroom

No, please, don't mis-read the title of this blog post. But it is true. It was a scorching-hot day yesterday(Thursday) We didn't do a great deal, and when it came to bedtime we had the bedroom windows open and the electric fan on. We'd been listening to the radio, tuned to BBC Radio4 Extra. A lot of good stuff on there, 'The Goons,' 'Round The Horne,' 'I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again,' 'Just A Minute,' and a good deal more. One of our real favourites with the more modern stuff would be 'Clare In The Community.' I could discuss each in great detail, but I digress.  We eventually settled down to go to sleep, but it's not easy, being so hot. Then Carol said 'there's something flying around the room!' I wasn't sure what she was referring to. I could seen, in the partial light, something flying round and round the room. At first I thought it must be a moth, and it could have been that, but I don't think moths fly round and round. They flit sort of aimlessly and bump into the walls and the glass of windows. This didn't and it was completely silent. I got out of bed and turned on the lights and closed the door, as I didn't want whatever it was flying through into the rest of the house. I pushed the window open wider and stood still, eventually the bat flew out and I closed the window. Was this bat looking for somewhere to get out of the heat? In the shade, even though it was night-time? I'm not certain what sort of bat it was, mainly because I couldn't see it properly.

A 'sort of' letter came through the door early this morning from our landlord, giving a statement of the amount of rent we pay each month. Whether it will be accepted by the people at Milton Keynes Council for our application for Housing Benefit is open to doubt. It doesn't look official enough. It isn't signed properly and it looks more like something I could have written. It doesn't have his address on it, it's not typed and I am still sceptical that it is what they want. I can only take it to the Council offices and see what happens, but I have a feeling they will need something more substantial.

It's yet another boiling hot morning. It's bright and sunny, meaning it's going to continue like this for the rest of the day. I have never spent so long wearing shorts, and I'm only too glad I bought them when I did two years ago. Usually I only wear them for a day or two, when we are going out, but not for this length of time. I usually wear short sleeved shirts, as I don't really like long sleeved shirts, so the purchase of yet another polo shirt from Marks and Spencer can only be a good thing. The grass at the back of the house is looking decidedly patchy. It has longer sections which are looking like seeding but I may use the grass cutter instead of the mower to deal with it.

Later.I've managed to take the 'sort of' letter in to the Housing Benefit department at Milton Keynes Council this morning. I parked where I usually park, near 'The Point,' or at least, what's left of the rusting remains of this once-proud Milton Keynes landmark. I walked into the shopping centre and then through towards the Council offices in Saxon Gate. Fortunately I wasn't kept waiting too long. It appeared that I was only the second person in the queue (the number you are given on a ticket when you sign in comes up on a digital screen and a female voice gives out the numbers when it's your time to be called.) Fortunately the 'almost-letter' was acceptable as evidence of our tenancy. I had an idea that perhaps they would want something more official, but never mind. It would appear that we will now get Housing Benefit paid. Something less to stress over.

Now we need to sort out getting the car M0Td and insurance paid. I have managed to set up on-line banking so we can see our statements. I didn't think it was going to be possible, but we now have a new P.I.N. and password. Making things easier to track incomings and outgoings.

The nurse continues visiting to give Carol the antibiotics. We're about half way through the 12-days of this. Sometimes we get two nurses. I think the younger one is a student. Generally it takes around 45 minutes. They are scheduled to come between 11.30 and 1.00, but can come later, probably still here at around 1.15. One of the ladies doesn't like dogs, so poor Alfie has to go into the kitchen. We know he wouldn't bite anyone, probably sniff at them and then lick them like crazy. Although, to be fair, it's better he's not in the sitting room when they're busy with Carol as he'd just get in the way and there's a hygiene situation with a dog around.

Carol told me later, after I had come back from my visit to the Council offices and then Sainsbury's, that our landlord's wife had called, barely five minutes after I had left the house. She seemed concerned for Carol, having learnt that she had cancer. Which was quite a surprise. At least she's concerned for her welfare, intact, for both of us. Apparently they are coming to do an inspection of the house on Sunday afternoon , so at least all my efforts to clean the place will have at least had some purpose. The house might need a small amount of cleaning before they come, but at least it won't need a vast amount of work doing. The grass at the rear of the house needs attention, but as it's mostly shrivelled up due to the hot weather it shouldn't be too much trouble.

Windy and Wet

Saturday. Most of the day it's been sunny, but it's actually a good deal cooler. We've had wind and as I write this blog post, it's raining. Certainly it's a good deal more bearable than it has been for the past couple of weeks. We've gone from scorching hot to wind and rain in a mere few hours. It just goes to show how weather changes so rapidly in such a short space of time in England. Mind you, it must be frustrating for some people, who've just started their summer holidays. You've waited months and months, booked your holiday, it's been hot and sunny for weeks on end, you haven't been able to enjoy it because your either at work, school or college, then, no sooner have you broken up for the summer, than the weather changes completely, rain, wind, cold and miserable. Annoying, to say the least.

Around 10.15 the telephone rings. I think, O.K., that will be our landlord. I rush to the telephone. We don't get that many telephone calls, not on the landline telephone. It's a woman's voice, not the landlord, or this wife. I don't recognise the voice. It's the nurse who's coming to give Carol the antibiotics. She's outside the house, in her car. She asks, have we got a dog? I say, yes, she says, can the dog be put in another room? I say yes. I manage to get Alfie into the kitchen and shut the door so he can't get into the sitting room.  I open the front door and look out and see a car drawn up across the entrance to our drive. I see there is someone inside, sitting in the driver's seat. She waves at me. It's the nurse. She gets out of the car and comes towards the house and comes inside. She introduces herself and then says hello to Carol and me. She sits on my armchair and I sit on the footstool near the bookcase. Carol is on the sofa. She has to do an assessment. She has to ask no end of questions before she can proceed with the antibiotics. I have to find a coat hanger. I have no idea what it's for, so I go upstairs to our bedroom and find a wire one in the wardrobe and come back downstairs to the sitting room. The nurse goes through the bags of medication and the boxes of things that we were given when we left Ward 22.

Alfie doesn't much like being shut in the kitchen. He scratches on the door between the sitting room and the kitchen. The nurse says she is scared of dogs, that's why she had to make sure our dog, poor little Alfie, was out of the way, in another room, with the door shut. I can understand not everyone likes dogs. They don't have to like them. I think she must have had a nasty experience with a dog or dogs, sometime in her past. Perhaps she was bitten. I don't know and I don't ask. I can imagine you might encounter plenty of dogs when you are doing her sort of job, going to people's homes. Rather like I used to do when I worked for Guardian as a home carer. Infact, the manager of the operation used to do similar assessments of the 'end-users' or 'clients' as we called them, to make sure they were getting the best care packages that the agency could give, no doubt more likely, for the budget they were given.

The nurse used the coat hanger for a drip, putting a plastic bottle of saline solution on it and then hung from the light shade which is conveniently above where Carol was sitting, connected to a clear plastic tube that is then connected to the P.I.C.C. line in Carol's arm. It takes about 15 minutes to run. This has to be done before the antibiotics can be injected using a hypodermic. Once this is done, everything is packed up. We were given a yellow 'sharps' bucket which all sharp objects, such a s used hypodermic needles are placed after use. The whole visit lasted around 45-50 minutes. All very efficient and organised. I have to go upstairs and bring down one of the drawers from the unit Carol bought for all her stoma equipment which is in the bathroom, between the toilet and the sink. Downstairs the nurse puts much of the stuff she will be using when she visits in it and then it's put on the red IKEA table we have between the sofa and my armchair. The nurse fills in all the paperwork which goes with the visit, much like I had to do when I'd finished a 'call' when I worked for Guardian Homecare. The visit is then over and the nurse leaves.

Sunday. It's raining. Thank goodness it's not so hot. Considerably cooler. The rain will revive the grass around here. It was the first thing Carol commented on when we left the hospital on Friday evening. All along the sides of the grid roads around Milton Keynes the grass has become just brown and shrivelled, dried up by the sun. How quickly will it return to green? Probably not long. Alfie is expecting to be taken for a walk, but at 7 o'clock in the morning Carol is fast asleep upstairs and I don't want him making a noise as he's likely to if I even hint at getting ready to go out for a walk. It will just wake her up. We can go out later, when I get back from church.

When I get back from Shenley Christian Fellowship at around 11.15, Carol is still waiting for the nurse to come for the daily visit and give her the antibiotics. Alfie is already shut in the kitchen. He obviously doesn't like it. He scratches on the door. The nurse (I'm not sure she isn't a  District Nurse. She obviously does the job of one, or perhaps she's called a Community Nurse. It's not the same one who came yesterday morning. They are scheduled to come between 11.30 and 1.00 p.m., or thereabouts. She's here not as long as yesterday, basically because she hasn't got to do the assessment. It's over within about 30 minutes.

More House Cleaning

It was too hot yesterday to even think of cleaning the house. I took a load of cardboard and other rubbish to the tidy-tip, as mentioned in the last post. They said on the BBC Evening News that it was the hottest day so far this summer. I can well believe it. I was getting rather concerned when I started to get a tightness in my chest. A bit like angina. I used my G.T.N. spray and it did relieve it, but on the news they did say there was a health warning, to keep out of the sun and to not stay out in it where at all possible. The N.H.S. has issued a level 3 heat health warning to people with chronic long term health issues, (which I imagine would include myself, with a heart condition) and particularly keep out of the sun where necessary during the hottest part of the day, which would be between 11a.m and 3 p.m. The hottest place yesterday was Santon Downham, in Suffolk, with a recorded temperature of 33.3C. I know more or less where that is. It's not far from the road towards Norwich and Brandon, which was the base for some television work I did years ago and around where ''Allo,'Allo" was filmed in the 1980's.

Later. I went to Sainsbury's early. Same sort of shopping as usual, something for tonight's meal. Just salad bits as I don't fancy anything hot when the weather is so warm.

I drove into the hospital campus and waited at the entrance to the carpark, but the woman in the car in front was having problems with the barrier; it didn't want to rise. Stubborn refusal methinks. There was a car in the road in front of me. I couldn't work out what the driver was intending to do. A van arrived and a man got out. I think he was a security man, or at least a workman who was going to fix the barrier. Well, to at least get it to rise and let us through so we could park. No, the confounded things was steadfastly refusing. Just not playing ball. Just abandon the thing completely as the heat wasn't exactly helping matters. I gave up waiting. The heat wasn't exactly helping, so I decided to drive home and park the car and then walk in. I wasn't over-keen to have to walk in the intense heat, but there seemed no alternative.

After lunch (which was a bowl of tepid soup and a dried excuse for a ham sandwich. Surely it's possible to make a sandwich that isn't shrivelled up. Food from the British Rail school of catering, anyone?) as I was saying, after lunch one of the doctors came with some more encouraging news. They had found an antibiotic which could be administered which would work the infection and for two weeks Carol would need to come into the hospital on a daily basis to have this given via a P.I.C.C. line or something similar, possibly something which is mid-way between a canula and a line, which Carol had for her chemotherapy, but which was removed recently. No clear indication as to them the line would be fitted or exactly when Carol would be discharged. Hopefully tomorrow (Friday). Don't cross your fingers because if Carol is given the go-ahead to be discharged tomorrow it can take five hours for all the paperwork to be done as well as sorting out any medication that she will take home with her, as I can attest when I was in hospital some while ago. First a doctor had to sign the paperwork and it just went on for ever (figuratively, not literally.)

Wednesday morning. As I write this the house is spotless. I don't think it has been as clean. Alfie must be wondering what on earth is going on. There are one or two things that need wiping, such as windowsills, but I'm not getting to obsessive. I now just want the inspection over and done with so I can relax.

Alfie Has another Vet's Appointment

At 3.30 this afternoon (Monday) we had to make a return visit to the vet at Oakgrove. I think the residents of that area around Waitrose, of which there are likely to be quite a few, along with the customers coming and going at Waitrose, which is opposite Pet's Practice, will have heard Alfie's barking and general noise. He makes so much noise, barking vigorously as we get out of the car and then walking towards the surgery. We had to wait in the waiting area, but Alfie continued to let the whole world he was about, and then Rebecca, the vet, came out and we took him in to the consulting room. The antibiotics are working. The current course has been completed. I have been giving Alfie half of one of the tablets, crushed and put into his food twice a day. The congealed matter under each eye is receding gradually and the open wounds are healing nicely. Rebecca has given me a further course of medication, to again be given to Alfie twice a day and, again, crushed and put in his food.

Pets are expensive. The cost of this treatment is mounting up. But if you have to take a dog to the vet, for whatever, it is going to cost. I don't mind. Alfie deserves to have the treatment as it's no good leaving nature to take it's course. He gives so much love and deserves to be able to look after him properly. Dog's can't ask when they're unwell. Not that he has been seriously ill.  We let him get very untidy before he was groomed recently. His nails needed trimming. He was somewhat neglected because Carol's chemotherapy had to come first, for obvious reasons. But hopefully the rawness under each eye, due to the build-up of gunk, is responding to treatment with the antibiotics. 

When Alfie was a puppy we had him microchipped (as was Poppy, alas, no longer with us.) But, when we had to leave the house in Crownhill, we lost the details of how to get into the details of our address registered for the microchip. So, unfortunately, if he got lost or even stolen, and the microchip was scanned (as mircrochipping of dogs is now a legal requirement) the address that would come up on the register would not be our current address. So they did a scan for us and revealed the registered number so we can have the address changed, however it is done, on-line, or by filling in a form (which the receptionist at the vet's did for me.) I now need to go on-line and have this information revised so that if the worst happens he can be traced and Alfie returned to us.