Nearly February!  I seem to be busier than ever.  We moved into the annexe bedroom last night.  Our fancy Spanish mattress was the wrong way up and very very hard.  The room was too warm for sleeping under a 12.5tog duvet.  I discovered the radiator was hot in spite of the fire being on a very low setting, so once I had turned the room thermostat down we settled.  It's lovely having the toilet a few steps away, although I crept around in the dark in case the light woke Dave.  I am sure we will get used to it very quickly.  We moved some of our clothes down today, and threw out lots of things for Kate's clothes sale.  Her pre-school collects jumble and charity shop type clothes or blankets and a big van comes periodically and takes away the lot.

We are very pleased with the new decor in the bedroom.  The walls are paler than we intended, but the woodwok is a beautiful restful shade of very light olive - gooseberry fool they call it.  I gave up on the stencilling because I couldn't justify spending anything between £65 and £90 on the stencil alone.  So I sketched some dog-roses from google images and painted them above the bed freehand.  Dave likes them so that's the i mportant thing, and in any case we can't see them when we are in bed, only when we walk into the room.

The colours are not very good, as the wall looks blue rather than hint of green, but at least the design is there.

Last Wednesday Dave and I went for our Christmas present Chinese Circus.  (Pressie from Mary-Ann and Dom).  We had a lovely time.  It was at the Kings Lynn Corn Exchange, and you can park right outside in the Tuesday market place, which is a big bonus for Mrs.We'll-Never-Park!  On another side of the square was Prezzo, where we had a lovely Italian meal with wine and a cup of tea to follow.  All very relaxed because we had left home at 5.0 for an 8.0 o'clock performance.  Then the show: mind-blowing, impossible bodily feats by acrobats and martial arts monks.  (Yes, really.  They had the permission of the abbott to appear!)  We had to use the satnav to find our way out of Kings Lynn, and arrived home just after 10.30.  A brilliant present thank you Mary-Ann and Dom.

It was cold today, but sunny.  I got fed up sorting out clothes with sunshine coming through the window, so I had an hour cutting down old dead stalks of last years plants and re-filling the brown bin which was only emptied this morning.  There's not much growth showing yet, but a few hyacinths poking through and I am sure there will be daffodils and crocuses showing soon.

I am really enjoying my respite from intervention.  It turns out that my oncologist's idea of the first week in Feb was the week beginning Feb 7th, and my appointment has come through for the end of that week, the 11th.  I see him for the result on the 16th and we take it from there.  This means I still have 2 1/2 weeks to do as I like!!  Hooray!  If I was symptomatic I would be getting agitated, but I feel almost normal so I am just taking things as they come.  I know I have to have more chemo whatever happens, so it looks as if it will be another summer feeling the cold and hiding from the sun!

Home again

We had a very good journey home on Sunday.  It's certainly easier travelling by road in January provided it doesn't snow.  It took just ov er 51/2 hours including two stops.  (I suppose I shouldn't admit that, as I am sure it signifies an unacceptable average speed!)  Joe cried after we left - which was gratifying. Realisation suddenly hit him. James couldn't understand why, if we had gone 'home', we weren't there!

Dave didn't have any work booked in for Monday, so we measured rooms, furniture, curtains and bought some green paint.  We are going to get our annexe bedroom ready first, replacing the magnolia with a pale olivey green which should go well with our curtains.  Then we'll decide if we need to paint the doors; there are four including the bathroom and two wardrobes, so rather a lot of white gloss.  I feel a wall art session coming on.  I thought we might have wallpaper on the wall behind the bed, but when I started looking at them on the internet I realised that the repetition of pattern makes me feel quite panicky and claustrophobic.  Also the patterns I was looking at were £40 - £70 a roll!  When did that happen?  There are some gorgeous stencils around, so I might splash out on that, but it would have to be an adaptable one, so we finish up with a one-off mural.  I think I'll wait until the walls are painted and the curtains hung.

We need to extend our upstairs shower for Dom.  Standing in a 30" tray with a solid pivot door, poor Dom can't lift his elbows to wash his hair!  The shower tray exactly fits the space where the bathroom floor goes over the stair well, so we have to build an extra piece of wall in the bathroom to extend out level with the window, and install a rectangular tray.  Jewson's do one which should just fit, so we should be able to get that done before April.

I am well.  We had a couple of panicky days in Devon when I had some pain and had to get things moving again.  (It's the change in the water, as they say).  Apart from that, things are normal, and I feel a bit of a fraud to tell the truth.  I haven't had the appointment for my scan yet, but expect it will be in a couple of weeks, which is two months after the last one.  Then I guess reality will set in again.

Exeter

We have been in Exeter for 6 days, having a lovely time with the family and thoroughly enjoying the boys.  The weather has not been kind to us - cold and wet - but the house is warm and we have generated a fair bit of heat most evenings playing various games on the Wii, which we brought with us.  Even little Joe had a go, scoring a strike on his first attempt at bowls but after that not quite sure how he had done it.  I know the feeling!

At the weekend Mary-Ann and I took Joe to Exeter to shop for school clothes, and we now have everything to hand except a school bag and a sports bag, both of which we think may be available from school.  I have labelled most of his clothes and two pairs of shoes, but am having to take the grey socks a couple of pairs at a time.  How did Mum and Nan manage to label all my socks?  If you stretch the rib while you are sewing the label is bumpy when contracted, and if you don't the stitches or rib is in danger of splitting.

Now I can broadcast what is happening to the Knee family within the next few months: they are moving to Norfolk!  They have decided to come and live with us and share our lives while I am still around and able to enjoy them.  They will rent out their house and try to get career breaks from their jobs.  Dom already has, but Mary-Ann's is more complicated.  There have already been redundancies in her department, albeit voluntary, and so the timing needs to be right to avoid someone losing that and having to re-think the rest of their lives.  She actually thinks that further cuts are unavoidable, so it is unlikely that Devon will want to hold her job open for her when other people are being forced out.  She says there is no possibility of a job like hers in Norfolk, as most counties are actually having to close down this service, but hopes to get supply work initially.  That will come hard.  I am not all that happy about it, no pension and uncertain income, but they are both convinced that this is the right thing for them at the moment.  Poor little Joe will have yet another change of school, and there is no certainty that we will get him in to Toftwood as apparently all the applications have to go directly to County Hall.  Dom is going to see how he takes to boiler servicing.  He is not that happy in his desk job, and this is the chance for him to learn a skill that is particularly suitable to rural life.  Hardly any of the villages round us are on mains gas, so oil is the favoured option.  He enjoys exams, so will do well with OFTEC once Dave has had a few months with him.

Well, we'll see how it all goes.  Basically they are going to have our upstairs, for sleeping and a lounge as a family bolt-hole, and we will use the annexe for the same.  The garden, kitchen, dining room, conservatory, utility and living room wil be shared areas just as we have done when they have been here on holiday.  Guests will no longer have sole use of the annexe, but at least it will be used to its full potential.  Mary-Ann and Dom have a futon with a memory-foam topper which we are sleeping on quite comfortably at present, and will use this in their upstairs lounge for family visitors, while the caravan should also be available provided there is room for it when the plot is sold. 

Hopefully this will happen before Easter.  I've got about 3 weeks once we get home to get things organised, before they start to do things either surgical or chemical to me.  Daunting but exciting, and infinitely better than thinking about cancer all the time.  They are being incredibly generous and brave, and I just hope I can stay around long enough for it to have been worth their while.  Dom's family are being very supportive too, having had Dom back in Devon for just four years.  They are very family-minded, which means both that they will miss Dom and Mary-ann and the children terribly but will also understand.