I think it is comfort food, and a small glass of something refined for this exciting instalment.
Friday was CT scan result day. Don’t we just love them!
Our Hero, after the perfect Goldilocks bowl of porridge, which is not too hot and not too cold, and is sweetened with honey and cream, takes himself off into the mists to do a little more on a mural he has been working on. There are bills to be paid, he tells The Meddlesome, as he equips himself with his wrap-around shades and other anti-photosensitising armour. The teetering stack of bills which lurk next to the Ancient and very hungry Aga cannot be ignored.
Whilst he is working, she takes The Hounds for their first jaunt of the day into the woods behind Cold Comfort Cottage. With much bouncing and baying, they scamper off on their usual route. The Meddlesome carefully shuts the open gate into the woods behind them – not because she is concerned about the control of the farmer’s animals – there are none around - but because The Hounds tend, on the return journey, to shoot out onto the track and look even more out of control than usual. She aims, usually unsuccessfully, for a dignified exit from the woods.
There is a brisk walk to the end of the path; sticks are thrown, and sticks are not retrieved. They begin to make their way back. But what is this Meddlesome sees careering towards them? It is herd of stampeding cattle. Barn-bound for weeks because of the snow, they have made a bid for freedom and broken through the fence. Dazed and frightened, they are crashing through the trees straight towards her and The Hounds. For once (because they are cowards really) The Hounds are at her side. They do not like the sight of this unstoppable dark force of nature that is lumbering blindly towards them. They stay very still and calm. The cattle, however, only briefly glance at them with dull, reddened eyes that have not seen daylight for weeks. They crash on and soon they have passed.
In the distance, Meddlesome can see the farmer gazing up the path at the rapidly receding herd.
Is he concerned for her health, for the health of The Hounds? Is he grateful that she had shut the gate? Is he hell.
When they get back to the gate, it is now tightly bound and knotted with a cat’s cradle of bailer twine which she has to undo so they can get out.
Bucolic drama over for the day, it is off with Our Hero to the local hospital where the peripatetic oncologist drops in from time to time to annoy his patients. How, they wonder, is he going to react when he sees them for the first time after their blatant desertion and the maverick surgeon’s quite explicit criticism of the ‘cheap as chips’ treatment which was on offer.
Would he be contrite? Embarrassed? Angry?
Well, we will never know because he is away sunning himself on yet another holiday.
It is a very young brisk, woman registrar in his place. (This will be the third registrar they have seen.)
And the scan? The ‘lymph node mass’ (can someone tell me does that mean one lymph node?) has grown but the nasty little guests in the liver seem to be stable. The young registrar talks about the possibility of radiotherapy for the lymph node. (Well – that was a surprise, given this has not even been mentioned as a possiblility before. Have we rattled some cages?) She also agrees to put the Our Hero’s case in front of a liver surgeon. There is no hope here, she implies, but at least someone will be looking.
In the meantime, it is on with the meddling. And it is on with the mistletoe, with the tinctures all the way from China and, with your help, all those good vibes. We may not have controlled the unstoppable force that is at work in Our Hero as effectively as the farmer managed to contain with bailer twine the herd, The Meddlesome and The Hounds, but we seem to have slowed it down.
