Mon 23th June
Taking advantage of our new NT membership we decided to come home via Corfe Castle or maybe Avebury. The decision was made for us when I realised I’d left my camera at the hotel reception when I settled the bill and we had to drive back to pick it up. Luckily we were only about 20 mins into the journey when I discovered it’s loss but it still delayed us long enough to make Corfe castle a step too far so we did Avebury which is the more direct route home.
While we were there we bought a new waterproofed picnic blanket and also a tripod folding stool (like a sort of shooting stick) for me to be able to have a sit down when out shopping or walking.
Sun 22nd June
Our last full day away and happily the forecast was again much worse than the actual weather. As Phil had been doing so much driving and still had the trip home on Monday and then the drive to Marsden on Tuesday we decided to stay a bit closer to the hotel today.
We went to a castle for a wander around (free as we are English Heritage members), there was a nearby Manor House which was National Trust and lots of other local Nat Trust properties so I suggested we find out how much it would cost to become NT members. We prefer the English Heritage but are running out of new castles to visit we often just was a quick look at a place and the cost of entry to NT properties makes that an expensive proposition. Anyway we did sign up so we’ll give them a year and see how it works out.
In the evening we went to a super restaurant called the Olive Tree which was lovely.
Sat 21 June
Phil checked on the net and we found the best beach for fossil hunting, the weather was still forecast to be very bad on Sunday so we decid3ed to try the beach again while it was only light rain. It might have been light but it managed to get us thoroughly wet together with the spray coming off the water. We didn’t find anything on the beach but after a warming cup of tea I found some nice examples in the fossil shop (grin).
Once we’d dried off a little the weather took a turn for the better so we went on to a deserted village further along the coast that Phil wanted to see, it was very interesting if a little sad.
Fri 20th June
We were quite keen to do a bit of fossil hunting so we drove down to the south coast and tried to find a good beach for fossil hunting. The weather wasn’t great but much better than the forecast. Phil found a fragment of fossilised shell but we didn’t have too much luck so we headed north to Bath where we had dinner in one of our favourite eating places (the Walrus and the Carpenter) our very favourite restaurant in Bath used to be the Wife of Bath but that changed hands last year and we still miss it dreadfully.
Thurs 19th June
We stayed in a Premier Inn at Bridgewater just a few steps away for the conference so we were able to sleep in a bit on Thursday, Phil keynote speech seemed to go well and we left shortly after so we had a good part of the day to sightsee. As Thursday was the only day that was forecast to be nice we decided to trot over to Glastonbury to see the Chalice Well and mooch around the shops. We drank lots of water from the Chalice Well and sat in the beautiful peaceful gardens for a while and then bought some bits in the shops; I got a lovely rose quart crystal which sits in my palm like it was designed for me.
Afterwards we drove back to the hotel we had chosen near Bridgewater; it was a lodge hotel which we’ve not used before but it was nice having our own space in a little lodge rather than a conventional hotel.
Wed 18th June
Phil was giving a talk in Cambridge in the morning and then speaking at a conference down at Bridgewater on Thursday so we decided that as I had a bit of a chemo break we’d take advantage and have a long weekend away. While Phil went off to his morning talk I got everything ready to pack so when he got home we just had to have lunch and then throw some stuff into the suitcase to get off.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Tuesday 17th June
We were BADDDDDDD today!!! We went out and bought a WII console and then spent ages trying out the boxing, golf etc. It’s fantastically fun and addictive and hopefully will give us some fun exercise when the weather is too bad for walks.
I’ll let you know how we get on with it as we have time to see if it’s something we really use.
Monday 16th June
Lovely day so we went to Wat Tyler park and wandered around for a couple of hours (with frequent rests I admit). Part of the reason for our wanderings was that we have friends coming down from Scotland in July and we’ve promised to show them the strange little wooden figures they have in Wat Tyler Park so we thought it might be a good idea to make sure we could find them again.
Last year when things were low my friend Gaynor bought me two rose trees one had just bloomed and the roses are beautiful; the rose is called ‘Simply the Best’. I took some pics and I’m going to try to load one so fingers crossed (Phil loaded the last couple for me but I want to try to do it for myself this time).
Sunday 15th June
We went to a county type fair at South Wield, there were craft tents as advertised but only very small ones and not much to see. We did walk around and look at the vintage cars and Phil has some brill photos of them that will end up on his Flickr account I’m sure.
Before we went out I bid on some fantastic looking hanks of designer yarn, they were very low starting price and I confidently expected to be outbid on most if not all but I thought “what the hell” and bid on 6 of them. Oops! I won all 6 auctions, luckily they were very reasonably priced, absolutely gorgeous and I’ll save on combined postage. All my family can expect scarves for Christmas this year.
Saturday 14th June
Obviously it’s really Father’s day on Sunday but Dad goes to his Day centre on Sundays so we went down to see him Saturday instead. Richie and Caroline were there too so it was a bit of a family occasion. We always get Dad cards but don’t usually bother with Fathers day presents (he’s hard enough to buy for at Christmas and birthdays) but this year I knitted him a scarf in the great chunky chenille that he’d admired when I showed him the jumper I made with it. (I discovered that chenille makes a lousy jumper cos it doesn’t have any stretch in the fibre but it does make a lovely warm scarf)
Friday 13th June
Weather looked threatening and the forecast was for rain so we decided to have a bit of a wander in Chelmsford instead of walking at the reservoir, of course as soon as we had gone far enough in the direction of Chelmsford to make it a pain to turn back the weather took a dramatic turn for the better and the sun came out!
Anyway we had a great time mooching around the shops and discovered a wonderful strawberry vinegar in the ‘Oil and Vinegar’ shop.
Thursday 12th June
Phil was out training so I ironed a couple of shirts for him so he wouldn’t have to do it when he got home. I was going to iron all the ones that were clean but then my tummy intervened so I only managed 3 shirts but at least that should see him through the next couple of weeks. When he got home we went out to the woods for a bit of an evening walk which was lovely, there is honeysuckle along the easy path and every so often you get this beautiful scent drifting down.
We were BADDDDDDD today!!! We went out and bought a WII console and then spent ages trying out the boxing, golf etc. It’s fantastically fun and addictive and hopefully will give us some fun exercise when the weather is too bad for walks.
I’ll let you know how we get on with it as we have time to see if it’s something we really use.
Monday 16th June
Lovely day so we went to Wat Tyler park and wandered around for a couple of hours (with frequent rests I admit). Part of the reason for our wanderings was that we have friends coming down from Scotland in July and we’ve promised to show them the strange little wooden figures they have in Wat Tyler Park so we thought it might be a good idea to make sure we could find them again.
Last year when things were low my friend Gaynor bought me two rose trees one had just bloomed and the roses are beautiful; the rose is called ‘Simply the Best’. I took some pics and I’m going to try to load one so fingers crossed (Phil loaded the last couple for me but I want to try to do it for myself this time).
Sunday 15th June
We went to a county type fair at South Wield, there were craft tents as advertised but only very small ones and not much to see. We did walk around and look at the vintage cars and Phil has some brill photos of them that will end up on his Flickr account I’m sure.
Before we went out I bid on some fantastic looking hanks of designer yarn, they were very low starting price and I confidently expected to be outbid on most if not all but I thought “what the hell” and bid on 6 of them. Oops! I won all 6 auctions, luckily they were very reasonably priced, absolutely gorgeous and I’ll save on combined postage. All my family can expect scarves for Christmas this year.
Saturday 14th June
Obviously it’s really Father’s day on Sunday but Dad goes to his Day centre on Sundays so we went down to see him Saturday instead. Richie and Caroline were there too so it was a bit of a family occasion. We always get Dad cards but don’t usually bother with Fathers day presents (he’s hard enough to buy for at Christmas and birthdays) but this year I knitted him a scarf in the great chunky chenille that he’d admired when I showed him the jumper I made with it. (I discovered that chenille makes a lousy jumper cos it doesn’t have any stretch in the fibre but it does make a lovely warm scarf)
Friday 13th June
Weather looked threatening and the forecast was for rain so we decided to have a bit of a wander in Chelmsford instead of walking at the reservoir, of course as soon as we had gone far enough in the direction of Chelmsford to make it a pain to turn back the weather took a dramatic turn for the better and the sun came out!
Anyway we had a great time mooching around the shops and discovered a wonderful strawberry vinegar in the ‘Oil and Vinegar’ shop.
Thursday 12th June
Phil was out training so I ironed a couple of shirts for him so he wouldn’t have to do it when he got home. I was going to iron all the ones that were clean but then my tummy intervened so I only managed 3 shirts but at least that should see him through the next couple of weeks. When he got home we went out to the woods for a bit of an evening walk which was lovely, there is honeysuckle along the easy path and every so often you get this beautiful scent drifting down.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday 11th June 2008
Wednesday 11th June
Still suffering with the runs but we had promised to go over and see Dad so we did that and watched a film with him. He’s still got the cat for a little while in case we want to go away for a day or two when I’m feeling a bit better.
Tuesday 10th June
Not much but a bit of shopping again, the diarrhoea is still bad and that’s wearing me down a bit. Still my fingers are good enough to let me knit which is at least something.
Monday 9th June
Still feeling fairly grotty so didn’t do much but a bit of shopping and watched telly. Phil drove to St Albans to get the car window fixed but we agreed that I wasn’t really well enough to go too. Jill sulks in a most childish manner!
Sunday 8th June
Feeling pretty grotty which is expected cos this is usually my worse day. The good news was that it didn’t seem quite as bad as usual and we did a bit of shopping and a short walk in the woods. Apart from that I just lazed around while Phil did some gardening. I hate that I can’t help with things and that I have to sit around and just watch him doing stuff, specially when I know he’s tried and frazzled.
I realised that I just was going to be able to adjust to sleeping in the wrong side of the bed so we’ve changed back, we may need to do it while I’m connected to the pump but we’ll see how it goes next cycle.
Saturday 7th June
Out for a quick shop then my friend Sam came to visit, we haven’t see her for a few weeks so it was really good to see her. Then there was a very happy surprise! The phone rang and some very close friends who moved to New Zealand were calling they were back here for a visit and decided to surprise us and they came over about ½ an hour later. It was fantastic to see Mark and Julia and we just picked up as though we’d seen then a couple of weeks ago instead of more than a year. It was quite touched and flattered that they came to see us because they had a very busy schedule trying to fit in visits to their families and stuff.
I am quite torn about Mark and Julia, while most of me wants them to be happy and make a success of the move to New Zealand (they are!) there is a selfish bit which wanted them to hate is so they would come back to the UK.
Anyway they are loving it over there so I’ll just have to keep my baser half in check.
Friday 6th June
Tired due to the problems sleeping, we are trying sleeping on the ‘wrong’ sides of the bed now that my PICC has changed arms.
I felt bad cos we were supposed to be going over to visit Dad but I felt much too grotty and Phil had a raging headache too (I think it was the long day in Thursday and also that he was worrying about me all day which he was teaching). We did manage a 20 min walk on the easy path of our wood in the cooler evening though so that helped.
Thursday 5th June
They had to put the new PICC in my right arm at the elbow crook which is a pain but it went in fairly easily. It was a shame because apparently the only person who can use the special machine for putting the PICC line higher up your arm was away on that day.
As the tingling and numbness in my fingers and feet has been getting worse they dropped the dose of one of my drugs by 20% (Oxiplatin) and also gave my some B6 vitamins (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride) to add to my growing drug list J
It was a rather late day and as usual I slept very badly due to the steroids and also I think a reaction the B6 tablet which I took very late just before going to bed
Wednesday 4th June
Hospital on Thursday and Phil is training in London so we went over and stayed whih our friends Gaye and Paul, I’d been keen to out at least once during my chemo break so we treated then to dinner in and excellent Italian place near their house.
I was a bit worried bout having the new PICC put in so I didn’t sleep very well and Phil was therefore worried about me so he had a stressful as well as a very long day on Thursday.
Tuesday 3th June
Weather pretty grotty so we did that indulgent thing and went to the cinema in the afternoon. We saw the new Indiana Jones movie and it was good fun, exactly what you expect from an Indie movie; we reckoned it was a couple of car chase sequences too long and they could easily have cut the FBI stuff at the start which didn’t seem to go anywhere but that’s probably being a bit picky for what was a fun film.
Monday 2nd June
We wanted to do a little more castle visiting so we drove to Kent and went to see Upnor Castle. It was very good except for the horrible screaming kids who seemed determined to ruin the place for anybody else. To be fair (not sure why I feel obliged to be fair though) it was the adults fault because the kids were far to young to appreciate the castle and the adults seemed quite happy to let the all run about and scream for the whole visit with no concern for anybody else. I noticed that they went to sit a fair way away from where the kids were playing!
As we lest we were chatting to the two people at the shop and when I mentioned the screaming little animals (I was kinda pissed that they had spoilt our visit) the lady in the shop laughed and said to the bloke “so it isn’t only us!” she then said that they could hear then the whole length of the high street.
We had intended to go on to see Rochester Castle but when we got there is was raining, there was nowhere near to park, it looked huge and we were both feling a bit tired so we just drove home.
Sun 1st June
We were a bit tired after our Saturday expedition so we slept in quite late then pottered about in the house. We went off to buy a hanging basket stand which tasks 4 baskets and went we get around to it we’ll plant it up with baby tomato plants.
The stand went together much better than I expected; weeeellllll… to be fair it went together after we drove back to the shop to get all the fittings they hadn’t given us first time around.
Still suffering with the runs but we had promised to go over and see Dad so we did that and watched a film with him. He’s still got the cat for a little while in case we want to go away for a day or two when I’m feeling a bit better.
Tuesday 10th June
Not much but a bit of shopping again, the diarrhoea is still bad and that’s wearing me down a bit. Still my fingers are good enough to let me knit which is at least something.
Monday 9th June
Still feeling fairly grotty so didn’t do much but a bit of shopping and watched telly. Phil drove to St Albans to get the car window fixed but we agreed that I wasn’t really well enough to go too. Jill sulks in a most childish manner!
Sunday 8th June
Feeling pretty grotty which is expected cos this is usually my worse day. The good news was that it didn’t seem quite as bad as usual and we did a bit of shopping and a short walk in the woods. Apart from that I just lazed around while Phil did some gardening. I hate that I can’t help with things and that I have to sit around and just watch him doing stuff, specially when I know he’s tried and frazzled.
I realised that I just was going to be able to adjust to sleeping in the wrong side of the bed so we’ve changed back, we may need to do it while I’m connected to the pump but we’ll see how it goes next cycle.
Saturday 7th June
Out for a quick shop then my friend Sam came to visit, we haven’t see her for a few weeks so it was really good to see her. Then there was a very happy surprise! The phone rang and some very close friends who moved to New Zealand were calling they were back here for a visit and decided to surprise us and they came over about ½ an hour later. It was fantastic to see Mark and Julia and we just picked up as though we’d seen then a couple of weeks ago instead of more than a year. It was quite touched and flattered that they came to see us because they had a very busy schedule trying to fit in visits to their families and stuff.
I am quite torn about Mark and Julia, while most of me wants them to be happy and make a success of the move to New Zealand (they are!) there is a selfish bit which wanted them to hate is so they would come back to the UK.
Anyway they are loving it over there so I’ll just have to keep my baser half in check.
Friday 6th June
Tired due to the problems sleeping, we are trying sleeping on the ‘wrong’ sides of the bed now that my PICC has changed arms.
I felt bad cos we were supposed to be going over to visit Dad but I felt much too grotty and Phil had a raging headache too (I think it was the long day in Thursday and also that he was worrying about me all day which he was teaching). We did manage a 20 min walk on the easy path of our wood in the cooler evening though so that helped.
Thursday 5th June
They had to put the new PICC in my right arm at the elbow crook which is a pain but it went in fairly easily. It was a shame because apparently the only person who can use the special machine for putting the PICC line higher up your arm was away on that day.
As the tingling and numbness in my fingers and feet has been getting worse they dropped the dose of one of my drugs by 20% (Oxiplatin) and also gave my some B6 vitamins (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride) to add to my growing drug list J
It was a rather late day and as usual I slept very badly due to the steroids and also I think a reaction the B6 tablet which I took very late just before going to bed
Wednesday 4th June
Hospital on Thursday and Phil is training in London so we went over and stayed whih our friends Gaye and Paul, I’d been keen to out at least once during my chemo break so we treated then to dinner in and excellent Italian place near their house.
I was a bit worried bout having the new PICC put in so I didn’t sleep very well and Phil was therefore worried about me so he had a stressful as well as a very long day on Thursday.
Tuesday 3th June
Weather pretty grotty so we did that indulgent thing and went to the cinema in the afternoon. We saw the new Indiana Jones movie and it was good fun, exactly what you expect from an Indie movie; we reckoned it was a couple of car chase sequences too long and they could easily have cut the FBI stuff at the start which didn’t seem to go anywhere but that’s probably being a bit picky for what was a fun film.
Monday 2nd June
We wanted to do a little more castle visiting so we drove to Kent and went to see Upnor Castle. It was very good except for the horrible screaming kids who seemed determined to ruin the place for anybody else. To be fair (not sure why I feel obliged to be fair though) it was the adults fault because the kids were far to young to appreciate the castle and the adults seemed quite happy to let the all run about and scream for the whole visit with no concern for anybody else. I noticed that they went to sit a fair way away from where the kids were playing!
As we lest we were chatting to the two people at the shop and when I mentioned the screaming little animals (I was kinda pissed that they had spoilt our visit) the lady in the shop laughed and said to the bloke “so it isn’t only us!” she then said that they could hear then the whole length of the high street.
We had intended to go on to see Rochester Castle but when we got there is was raining, there was nowhere near to park, it looked huge and we were both feling a bit tired so we just drove home.
Sun 1st June
We were a bit tired after our Saturday expedition so we slept in quite late then pottered about in the house. We went off to buy a hanging basket stand which tasks 4 baskets and went we get around to it we’ll plant it up with baby tomato plants.
The stand went together much better than I expected; weeeellllll… to be fair it went together after we drove back to the shop to get all the fittings they hadn’t given us first time around.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Saturday 31st May 2008
Sat 31st May
We drove up to Suffolk and visited Framlingham Castle, as it turned out we had been there before but it’s such a wonderful castle it was well worth a second visit. One of the advantages of being English Heritage members is that you can just pop into places without feeling that you have to stay long enough to get your moneys worth. The previous visit had been on a very rainy day so seeing the castle in the beautiful sunlight was lovely.
We had a nice picnic lunch of bread and cheese with super vine tomatoes all of which we bought locally then we took a look at an abandoned industrial site nearby. It was so tempting because there was a loose door which we could have got through if we’d been just a little bit thinner and braver but Phil got some good pictures anyway.
We had packed the car in case we decided to stay away overnight but by 4ish I was feeling tired so we came home instead and watched the fantastic Dr Who episode which made for a splendid end to the day.
We drove up to Suffolk and visited Framlingham Castle, as it turned out we had been there before but it’s such a wonderful castle it was well worth a second visit. One of the advantages of being English Heritage members is that you can just pop into places without feeling that you have to stay long enough to get your moneys worth. The previous visit had been on a very rainy day so seeing the castle in the beautiful sunlight was lovely.
We had a nice picnic lunch of bread and cheese with super vine tomatoes all of which we bought locally then we took a look at an abandoned industrial site nearby. It was so tempting because there was a loose door which we could have got through if we’d been just a little bit thinner and braver but Phil got some good pictures anyway.
We had packed the car in case we decided to stay away overnight but by 4ish I was feeling tired so we came home instead and watched the fantastic Dr Who episode which made for a splendid end to the day.
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