Entry for 13 July 2007 (copy)

MISSING!!! -

ROUND YELLOW THING USUALLY FLOATS AROUND IN THE SKY!!!

ANSWERS TO THE NAME ''SUN''

IF U SEE HIM TELL HIM IT'S F*****G JULY!!!

Thank you to my new friend Angela for the above. You have probably guessed that today is yet another day with no sign of any summer weather. It is grey and quite chilly and we had rain earlier.

I went to Stevenage yesterday to see my Dad and visit my Mum. I had to go to the building society first to open a new account for my Mum and had the usual hassle that we are becoming used to. The Power of Attorney which we have, to act on my Mums behalf states that we may act jointly or severally; but the Leeds building society still always insist that we both have to sign. It drives me insane. We have enough to do without them making everything difficult.

Anyway, I had a nice lunch with my Dad and then we caught the bus to the hospital. I had gone up on the train yesterday as our car is playing up at the moment. I must mention while talking about trains, that if any of you out there in the UK ever travel on trains it is worth checking on the cheapest way of getting tickets to your destination.

Over the last year I have gone to Stevenage quite often on the train and providing that I travel after 9am the return ticket price from Peterborough to Stevenage is £25.40. A very nice ticket man told me recently that there was a cheaper way. You buy a return ticket from Peterborough to Hitchin (the stop before Stevenage) This is £12.50. Then you buy a second ticket, a return from Hitchin to Stevenage, price £ 2.50. Total £ 15. A saving of £10.40!! This is perfectly legal as long as the train is actually stopping in Hitchin and not just going straight through. I would never have known about this until he told me. So if you are travelling by train any time soon, I would check the options carefully. There are big savings to be made.

My Mum was quite good yesterday. The ward manager told us though that her case has been delayed and will not now go before the NHS board until August. This isn't really a problem as she will just remain where she is until then. I got quite upset when we left as she was suddenly quite "with it" or seemed to be and gave me a big hug and said how much she loved me and how she missed me and asked me to pray for her. My Mum has never been particularly religious so this was quite odd. I had to pull myself together very quickly for my Dads sake.

I also had some not very good news yesterday. My Dad has just been diagnosed with skin cancer. He saw his Doctor on Wednesday and has been referred straight to the hospital. His Doctor has said that he thinks it is quite advanced so they probably won't do a biopsy, but will have him in to remove it. This should be in the next couple of weeks. He will need to have a skin graft too. He is OK and more worried about the fact that he won't be able to visit my Mum for a few days.

The area that is cancerous is on his face and has been there for about 5 years. We all thought that it was just a kind of age spot. It has grown much bigger recently though and has developed a black spot in the middle. Worryingly he also has two more patches on his chest that look the same and have come up in the last year. He forgot to tell his Doctor about those! I don't know if they will need to be removed too. Hopefully he will be fine and it will only require a short hospital stay.

I got back to Peterborough about 6.30pm which was nice and early as I had manged to get an earlier train. We had a nice restful evening and I went out for a Chinese with a friend. Today, I have been doing my usual catch up on jobs. I have some more hoovering to do this afternoon and then I want to book a hotel for our Dublin visit.

Hopefully, this weekend we will get the garden fully completed. Simon has pressure washed the decking over the last few evenings and it is looking really good. We just need to finish the lawn now and plant some clematis to grow around the trellis arch that Simon made. Unfortunately the new grass is already being killed off as the dogs are "weeing" there in preference to the old grass and new paved area! Dalmatian "wee" is supposedly less acidic and doesn't kill grass, but clearly nobody has told mine that! If anyone knows of anything at all that we can do to preserve out lawn then I would like to know.

Right, best go now as I have Coralie coming shortly and I need to get that hoovering done first. Also Need a cup of coffee soon!!