Just a quickie to remind myself how I am at 4 days after infusion, because next time we will be away at Weybourne in the caravan. The tingling hasn't been too bad, but I think most of that is thanks to the very warm weather. I notice it if I forget to put gardening gloves on before I hose the garden, and this morning I had hoped to go to church in shoes with no socks, but found I was too tingly so had to resort to pop socks. A friend from our cell-group has knitted me two delightful pairs of stripey socks which are perfect protection during the week with my crocs (although not 'cool'), but I didn't think they would enhance my summer dress!
My guts have still not settled, and really cause me more distress than the chemo. I was up five times between 9.30 and 4.0 am last night, not that anyone else wants to know that but I want to be able to compare notes in the next cycle.
We are having plenty of fresh stuff from the garden: broad beans, peas, potatoes, courgettes, lettuce, cucumber, radishes, rocket. We grew potatoes in special bags this year, and put the left-overs in a patch of garden. The bag ones are brilliant, and the garden ones remind us of why we stopped growing potatoes - diseased, small, five or six roots needed for a meal. We didn't use the little access flaps at the bottom of the bags - by the time you get your hand through you are at such a funny angle you can't really feel around for the potatoes When we first tried we thought we hadn't got any.
We are having to water every evening, flowers and veg. It has been such a dry spring and early summer and what rain we have had hardly moistens the surface. I am disappointed with my flower border, which lacks colour and is full of gaps where the forget-me-nots were pulled up and nothing else has flourished. The pictures from last year are so colourful. I got fed up with the love-lies-bleeding, but at least they filled the spaces. We seem to have spent a fortune little by little at nurseries and on the market buying trays of geraniums, begonias, pinks etc, but nothing is any bigger than when we planted them. The perennials with established roots are only marginally better, but I think I will try to be proactive in the autumn and get some stuff in that is less labour-intensive.
Dave has been trying to get the patio finished. The part where the mobile was is still rough ground and there are two large mounds of clay where we had the soak-away dug. Will is coming next weekend to fill a skip and level it off to the orchard so we can re-seed and get things looking a bit more loved. Once we have finished with heavy plant we hope to get the drive re-surfaced. We were hoping to get an estimate for resin-bonded shingle, but don't seem to be able to get a response from the agent. An internet comparison site promised to send us estimates for tarmac and brick-weave, but nothing is forthcoming. In any case I have been put off brick-weave by the sight of my neighbour spattered with black from her hair to her toes as she power-washed her drive this week. She still has to weed-kill it.
Anyway, there is now continuous slabbing from the back patio to the playhouse. It has a little slope down, so we visualise the children crashing their bikes and cars into the door at great speed, but we decided it was preferable to a step which they would trip on every time they go up or down.
This is not a quickie! I have to design a bunk bed for little Joe, either a tree-house, or a somebody lightning racing car or a pirate ship. (I know its not Buzz Lightning, but I can't remember the latest fad. Probably Google will give me a clue.) I asked Mary-Ann how big is a sheet of MDF but she has no idea. She wants me to come up with a design and then her brother-in-law is expected to realise it with his jigsaw. I'd better get onto the internet and look for some inspiration.
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