Choices

As well as dog training, Sheena is going to
have to go back to her nursing days!

My chemo was due to start on 11 Jan, but with the new very contagious version of Covid, and the prevalence of it at our hospital, I asked if we could delay. It wasn't an easy choice, and I couldn't speak to my colorectal nurse as she was off, but in the end we decided on a delay.

Since then the chemo day unit has moved out of the hospital into the local Nuffield, as they did during the first lockdown. This keeps the chemo patients as far away from any risk of infection as possible - and the cancer ward has been given over to Covid patients. They are now postponing cancer surgery, I've heard, so I have been very lucky with my treatment so far.

My chemo schedule is now planned and I will be going to the Nuffield. I will have my PICC line inserted on 29th January, and my first chemotherapy treatment on 8th Feb. There will be line care, blood tests and all sorts in the meantime, with chemo infusions roughly every two weeks, via a pump that is removed two days later. Sheena is going to learn how to use the PICC line to take blood for me and to do the maintenance - lucky Sheena!

There are a shed load of side effects possible, but the most common are neuropathy (pain/tingling in extremities, something Sheena still suffers from more than a year on from her last treatment) and extreme sensitivity to cold, especially in the air. Those will be copeable with. I have to take a warm scarf and lunch to my first chemo session as it will be around 3 1/2 hours.

There is the possibility that I will get a Covid Vaccine as I will fall into the clinically vulnerable cohort - Sheena has already had hers as her immune system (even now) will still put her in this category. But for now it's keep calm and carry on. I will update after my first treatment. I may even post pictures of my PICC line.

Useful links:

• Signs and symptoms of cancer
• Ipswich Hospital Wellbeing Appeal

Less serious posts:

• I'm not a burglar
• City of Cats

Going on holiday

So Sheena and I have been in lockdown for several weeks.
We decided to take a break...


 After our first attempt to get away, we had to try again.



Watch this space for future updates, including 'Postcards from the caravan'.

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Chipmink Madness (one of my songs) - Youtube
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Videographer: Sheena Stebbing

Suffolk Lullaby

Oh my, I haven't written my blog since October last year. How remiss of me! Who cares? I do. Why do I care? Because I love writing and I am letting other things distract me. Oh yeah, I'm busy with work and fun, but I'm lazy too.

So this little blog is about something really simple, about the wonderful place I live - near Dunwich, a small village on the East Coast of the UK.

At night I can hear the roar of the sea, and the soughing of the wind in the trees. I call it the 'wind giants' - I imagine them striding through the pines, shaking the trees as they march through, thoughtless for all else but progress from land to sea. I go for long walks with the dogs when it's dark - and I hear the calls of tawny owls, and the frantic flapping of disturbed pheasant and pigeon as the big dog goes chasing them hell for leather.

We hear the bark of the deer - muntjack and red, and the sharp call of the fox, who we often see using our road as his own convenient highway.

When it's damp, the woods release their scent; a fresh wood mould, and the tang of fungi. There is a sharpness when the ferns open, uncurling their fronds and turning the brown undergrowth into a deep carpet of green.

When we sit in our lounge, looking out of the window, we see the squirrels try and defy our latest 'squirrel proof' feeder, and watch the woodpeckers, long tailed tits, marsh, blue and coal tits, swaying as they enjoy the sunflower seeds and peanuts. And sometimes, swooping with deadly speed, we see the sparrowhawk and mourn the loss of one of the smaller birds.

Some Sundays we go to Southwold and walk across the marshes - in summer weather the grass in lush and green, and in the winter we need wellingtons and a careful sense of balance as we negotiate foot-deep swatches. Geese, ducks, lapwing - all circle and land, startled by our presence and the over-enthusiasm of the pack of dogs we and our friends have brought with us to enjoy the exercise.

At home we light the wood burner, and it smokes like a grumpy dragon before sending it's warmth through the room, and through the house. We watch the flames dancing - hypnotised by their colours, their patterns, and the mysteries they suggest. The wood is pine, oak, sycamore - wood that we have cut, that we have split and stacked. Each log is a small testament to our hard work, and we see it go up in flames, delighting and warming us.

Late at night, lying in bed, the wind giants precursor the rain, and the drumming of drops on the window, on the roof, on the grass outside - is a soothing Suffolk lullaby.


Photos: (C) Carolyn Sheppard

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In the club

I’ve not blogged in a while – but I’ve been busy!  Earlier in the summer – on one of the hottest days – my friend Sheena and I hired a car transporter and solved three problems in one day.  Problem one – my daughter’s mini had been assaulted by a badger and had come off worse. Problem two, she had another old car she needed moved as they were moving house and needed the car ‘gone’. Problem three, Sheena had killed her old Ford and it had sat outside her house slowly deteriorating under the trees. 

Have transporter will travel!

The cost of getting the cars moved by a recovery company was horrendous, so we hired a transporter and did the car shifting ourselves.  I’d never driven a transporter (and still haven’t, Sheena got to drive), or operated a winch, or – and this is tricky – driven/guided a car onto a transporter up two narrow ramps before.  This was the day!

Trip one was taking the mini to a garage about 12 miles away to see if it was rescuable (it wasn’t).   Trip two was taking the old car (a Ka, which we could save with a bit of TLC) to Sheena’s – a 75 mile journey.  Trip three was taking her Ford from home to a peaceful resting place for possible rehabilitation or to where, like Miss Haversham, it could wither away gently and deteriorate with a bitter, sly grace.

Chizel in the cab

The transporter club

One thing we noticed when driving all the miles in our transporter, requisite car on the back, was the waves, flashes and smiles we got from other transporter drivers. For one day, we were in the ‘car recovery driver’ club!  What was even better was the sudden change of expression from camaraderie to shock as the fellow transporter realized our truck was occupied by two women (and a small dog).  We didn’t see a single other female transport driver, though we know you are out there!

Waggytails club

Axle in the garden

My story leads on from the dog in the cabin (Chizel) to a whole team of dogs.  I don’t have a dog, haven’t had one since I was a child, but I do love dogs, and luckily they seem to like me.   This year I have become involved with a dog agility club and have been helping out at the agility displays during the summer – mostly being an equipment shifter, but once having the luck to run a dog (or rather let the dog run me), and once as a commentator.  I have taken Sheena’s large and handsome Caucasian Shepherd cross (Axle) and his pal (Chizel) out for walks, and all of a sudden I’m in the ‘dog club’.  Other people with dogs will stop and talk to me.  People without dogs will stop and talk to the dogs. 

The ultimate club!

We’ve been working with my daughter’s dog too, helping improve behavior because… the last and rather corny link to the title of this blog is my delight at the onset of grannyhood. My daughter is, to put it colloquially, in the club.   I am sure I will have a whole new range of things to blog about next year!

Dog days

Life has a way of turning up unexpected challenges, and delights. I haven't owned a dog since I was a child, but I am now in the position of having two dogs (and more!) in my life on a regular basis.

I loved my dog, Petra (pictured here with a slightly younger me), and she would accompany our family on holidays all over the country.  We used to drive to Devon, and I remember stopping at a pub called the Pig and Whistle (I have no idea where it was, but somewhere between London and Devon, and there was no motorway in those days).  This pub was just over a bridge by a river - and the bridge was about 20 foot above the field and water below.  I was in the field, and my brother on the top with the dog. Petra jumped!  I can still remember it now - a flying dog. Amazingly she didn't hurt herself.  Another time after we'd left the pub, my brother said 'Can we have the dog in the back please?' (in a big old Humber Super Snipe there was room front or back for her).  'She is in the back'.  Oh dear.... we turned around and drove back to the pub to find her sitting patiently by the bridge, just waiting for us.  She'd jumped in one open door, then straight out another!

Petra had a best buddy, my cousin's dog Dusty. She was a black mongrel (where have all the mongrels gone?) and was probably a distant relative of a Labrador somewhere along the way.  Her claim to fame was thinking that seaweed was grass and sinking in surprise into a salty lagoon. No harm there either, thankfully.  Petra used to go to the pet shop in Whetstone High Road on her own - travelling there from our house by going up the road, across on the zebra crossing, and then back down to the pet shop where she would get a doggy treat. In those days you let your dogs out on the street, and dog poos dried in the sun in the gutter to a chalky white.

Getting comfy

Now my life is very doggy-ful again. And I am loving it. My daugther has a very cute Bichon Frize (see Two Walks), and I am sometimes left in charge.  She's a real cutie.  And I spend lots of time with Axle (see him in Gift of Snow) and Chizel (see below), my two new best friends.  A couple of weekends ago I assisted at two dog shows. My job was to help move the equipment for an agility display team. I wasn't that slick and had to be prompted more than once, but had great fun watching the pooches perform with their proud owners. And the show dogs watched too, or more often commentated very vocally.

Chizel and I
(Photo by Hannah)

The dogs (and a couple of cats) belong to the owner of the dog training and agility club, and I am now used to being sat upon, going for long walks, finding dog hairs in places where dog hairs shouldn't be, and generally enjoying their companionship.  The coming weekend is a bank holiday, and predicted to be hot. I shall be going to a dog event again, and helping with the display team equipment again.  Later in June I am going to be promoted to (temporary) commentator, talking the watching audience through the antics of the dogs, talking about their histories and what kind of dogs they are.  I am looking forward to that - and hopefully I won't make a mess of it.  Dog days ahead.





Links

• Waggytails Dog Training
• Sotterley Country Fair
• Why mongrels are a dying breed

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