Where does the time go? Another 5 days have gone since my last blog. We are 3 weeks into March and this is only my third blog. I can't figure it out. I have been here reading and commenting, on and off. I find I am commenting on blogs that are days old so I don't even know if you see my comments.
It has been a lovely day here today. I didn't actually check the temperature but it was pleasantly warm and sunny. The birds were singing, the sky was blue and it finally feels as if spring might, just might, be here. The 2 remaining shrubs that weren't ripped out to make way for the new fence are finally going green. My Acer tree and Tulip tree do now have very tiny buds on them. I have one lone daffodil in the front garden. There are some other plants out there with pretty pink flowers but I don't know what they are. I'll take a photo and one of you can identify it for me.
I am hoping to find time to order some shrubs from Thompson and Morgan in the next few days. Just need to make time. I also want to get some of my pots planted up and some hanging baskets if I can get Simon to hang the brackets up. I shan't go too mad as we are officially in a drought area and we have a hose pipe ban in place so watering could be difficult and cause problems. I am hoping for a long hot summer. The last few years have just been bloody miserable summers so I REALLY want this one to be good. We will not get away for a holiday either so I must get sun here.
Simon is still at home although he is much better now. He had a recurrence of Vertigo which he hasn't had in years. I collected him from school on Friday and he came home and went to bed. As we came through the town of Bourne on Friday afternoon I asked him if we should stop off at the doctors but he said no he just wanted to go home. BIG MISTAKE!!!
He woke up on Saturday feeling much worse. We hunted through our medicine cupboard in the hope that we could find some tablets. We did. They were over 4 years out of date! It was clear that he needed to get a new prescription which over here means you need to see your doctor. We discovered that things work a bit differently out here in the sticks. There is no “out of hours” service at all. So you do not really want to be ill overnight or at the weekend.
You have to phone NHS direct and speak to a nurse who will speak to a doctor and phone you back to advise. Well Simon actually spoke to 4 different people and was finally told OK, you will have to go to the hospital at Stamford. Turn up at accident and emergency where they will be expecting you! Wonderful. Stamford is about 15 miles away.
Simon insisted on driving himself even though he was feeling really dodgy. I was not happy. He said that he feels less dizzy if he drives than if he is a passenger. He said if I drove he simply wouldn't go. It was a fun journey with me fretting all the way there and back. We saw a lovely doctor who said yes it would seem to be benign positional vertigo and gave him a prescription for the Stemitil tablets that he has had before.
What really annoys me is that the people he spoke to on the phone all agreed it was vertigo. They knew he has had it before and what drug he has had so why on earth can they not save us all the trouble and just send a prescription through to the local chemist to be collected? It seems such a waste of time and money.
For us it was a round trip of 30 miles, several hours of time and let's not forget the petrol. I know, I shouldn’t moan, and I am grateful that we are able to get treatment, but really it just seems so unnecessary. I guess they are concerned in case you drop dead and then they will get sued because you didn’t actually see a doctor for a proper diagnosis. The thing is this a bog standard drug. It is not strong and it isn't something you could sell on the open market so for goodness sake just give the prescription! Rant over.
Sunday was mothers day here. I received cards and presents from each of my children which was nice. Simon got me a bunch of flowers when we were in Tesco's too. Oh, I have to tell you, I saw the most revolting thing.........they had bunches of flowers in there for mothers day and the center of each flower was glittery. Seriously. They had glittered them. It was revolting. Who on earth would think that fresh flowers sprinkled with glitter is a good idea. You can't improve on nature and certainly not with glitter. Tesco you should be ashamed.
Coralie and Verity had been to Leicester for the weekend to visit Saskia and when they came back on Sunday she came with them. We had to go to Stamford to collect her from the train. Fortunately Simon was feeling quite a lot better. Stamford is a closer train station than Peterborough. It took us forever to get home as we got held up for over half an hour for a wide load! We were just coming into the village of Folkingham when a policeman on a motor bike, in the middle of the road, flagged us down. He told us there was a wide load coming and we would have to pull over and wait. He said it will be a while so switch off your engine. He was right it was a good long while.
We were lucky though as we were at the front of the eventual tail back and so we had ring side seats. It was a VERY wide load. It was a silo. We watched them trying to edge the lorry around a very tight bend in the middle of the village. As they finally crawled past us Simon spoke to the driver and he said he had been on the road already for 7 hours.
We saw it on the news that evening. Apparently it was a silo and was 20 meters long and weighed 30 tonnes. It was being moved from the port of Sutton Bridge to Corby. It was quite a sight. Click on this link and you can see it. The first part shows it coming around the bend in the road which took over half an hour!
We had a nice time with Saskia and Sam called in for a short while with Ellie and Jess too. We had a lovely roast dinner and then Saskia and I sat and made felt brooches. She wanted to make her own one, to her own design. It was fun and we were able to chat about all sorts while we worked. Simon took her back to the station about 9pm. It was a lovely day.
Since the weekend Simon has been at home. He is much better than he was but he is still finding that sudden movements or bending down are making him feel very dizzy and disorientated. It doesn't help that he forgets to take the tablets. I seem to be constantly nagging him about tablets. It does make me cross as I feel that he doesn't really help himself.
In between when he has felt OK he has worked on the wooden mantle shelf and I am pleased to say that it is just about finished. It just needs one more coat of the Danish oil so maybe tomorrow I might finally be able to rearrange our stuff. He thinks he will have tomorrow at home too. He is hoping that he may feel well enough to go back on Friday.
My week has kind of been all over the place. My routines just go to pot when Simon is around. I have done no sewing so far. I have planted the other 3 alpine plants in a funny little planter that the previous people left behind. I have also started off some seedlings in the utility room. Tomatoes, gourds, basil, coriander, lemon balm, poppies and convolvulus which are a sort of blue flower. I have no idea where I acquired the seeds from. I have also been busy putting all of my CD's onto my computer so that I can transfer them to my iCloud and access them on my iPad. I am not really in love with my iPad. I wish I had just got another mini lap top.
Tomorrow is the big day for my new varifocal glasses. I hope that I like them and that I can get on with them OK. They say that it takes a while to get used to them. I am also having sun glasses with the same varifocal prescription. It will be nice to be able to see more clearly that is for sure! I shall get Simon to take a photo of me in them and show it to you.
OK, that's me done for now. I am going to do a “show and tell” blog so you can see what I have been working on. It may get posted tonight or maybe tomorrow. Who knows it could be next week!
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