Post 267: Byron, flu, chocolates and love.
What’s wrong with a chocolate to ease you through the day?
The Hotel Chocolate gifts that my wonderful Big Sis gets me regularly are amazing, and the whole process of getting millions of new design chocolates into the stores for Christmas is a TV show worth looking at — if you like that sort of thing.
I do (like chocs), and I inflicted this documentary on my Darling and our youngest and of course young Byron, our four-legged friend.
From the early hours of the day — well, 10:30am actually — when I had a text reminder to feed Mr (even more) Vicious, I had been keeping busy with preparations for our guests.
Poor Stormy was waiting for his breakfast as usual, and the chill when I opened the door was a blast I could have done without on my little hairless legs, but the job had to be done. So I braved the freezing temperatures of the conservatory and put a smile on our cat’s sweet little face.
Talking of hairless legs, I still wonder if my hair will ever grow back.
It’s five months since my last chemo infusion of Carboplatin, and my head hair is still falling out, thinning out and bothering me from the point of pure male selfishness. The legs too are bare, but my forearm hair is recovering — albeit that any hair I’ve got is finer and more delicate than it was before the chemo pills three and a half years ago.
So I had started the day being sworn at by the cat, but I certainly made up for it by tidying up the kitchen, which was still suffering from a far too relaxed attitude of mine about cleaning, with all the goodies from Christmas still covering the table, which was still set for six seats.
That was unnecessary, so I cleared the table and reduced it to four seating positions, and replaced the lilies and candles on the now tidy table, bare of the tablecloth, voile and runner we used on Christmas Day.
Beautiful then; tidy now.
I swept the floor after a yoghurt and birdseed breakfast had recharged my flagging body, which is so unused to any kind of work and exercise.
I realised I couldn’t do too much more, so I did what I could and gave up to sit and watch TV in the lounge and wait for the youngest.
Our youngest, Byron and, just a bit later, my Darling arrived and went their separate ways. My Darling said hi and then went to bed for a few zeds, while Byron investigated all the downstairs smells and hidey-holes.
Each side of the kitchen and conservatory patio door, there was a Mexican stand-off. The two four-legged animals met with only clear glass between them and there were teeth and sticky-outie fur shown but not much noise. The tall, spindly dog towered over the cat, who had done his best to look frightening, without much success.
We closed the blinds and hoped for the best, and to be fair, the both of them, although separated safely, were not that bothered with each other all afternoon.
That is, apart from that moment during dinner much later when the still-curious Byron poked his enormous long nose between the closed blinds in the kitchen, only to be accosted by the fighting cat on the other side of the glass, which led to a shocked and scarred dog retreating to his owner very hastily.
He wasn’t expecting that bless him.
It’s early days in the cat-dog relationship, and I think the score is one-all just now — a score draw on the coupon. There’s plenty of time, when it gets warmer, to find out how brave they both are face to face. But as the fantastically slim and tall dog is a sight hound with a kill instinct for small furry creatures, I’m sure we will need to be on top of our game to keep both free from plasters and mental anxiety — us too.
Big Sis was meant to come down today, but she stayed away with a nasty flu-cold, she had sat-out the last two days with soup and a hot water bottle. Poor Sis.
We settled down to the softer blue lounge chairs after eating some of the classic strawberry trifle provided for afters. I had the TV remote and, while I didn’t want to put a film on that would stop chatter, I put on the aforementioned documentary about how that chocolate manufacturer designed this year’s treats (last year’s actually — 2025).
This only reminded me of my Christmas pressie, which I now remembered I had but couldn’t see. A smiling Darling jumped up and said, “I’ll get it, I know where it is,” and shot off upstairs somewhere. In a few minutes she was down and the treats on the TV were now also in our hands.
Oh my! What a fabulous range of choices, all of which had fabulous names describing the fabulous treats. A large chocolate wreath adorned the central spot in the big box and looked untouchable. In fact, it stayed that way. The wreath is really a sharing experience that I’d have liked to have after Christmas dinner, but I think it might have caused a battle for the biggest bits with the crowd we had in for dinner.
Both the programme documentary and the Christmas present box of delights were worth the time and trouble, and the second programme, with Easter treats in sight, gave us all the thoughts that soon there’ll be their “ostrich eggs” in the shops — which are a pretty price but a pretty amazing smash-and-share egg of some lovely layers of all things nice. Maybe I’ll be lucky and the Easter bunny will bring a massively expensive and calorific seasonal gift soon, but first I need to break up that Christmas wreath. Yum-yum.
Poor Byron had got tired and slept through the evening till it was time to go. Altogether, a nice time was had by all.
I didn’t get up off my square arse while all the doggie bits and pieces were rounded up and returned to the frozen car, with frost holding back the drive l home for our youngest and tall B.
See you soon xx
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There was time during the day, while I sneaked a slice of homemade Christmas cake and eased it down with a hot cup of decaf tea, to ponder again the homework the counsellor gave me about “Love”. It’s bugging me that I can’t get to the bottom of the issue.
However, I did have enough time and quiet to realise that unless the “Love” is reciprocal, it is not, in my view, easy to pin down and describe as Love. But also, and very personally, I thought of another excuse as to why “Love” is so hard to give away or receive — and that’s because my own heart is full up and there’s no more room that I can find for other people, other than my Darling.
It may seem improbable, but the love I have always had for my Darling has filled me up and wrapped me totally in love.
Her kiss is still the soft, warm loveliness it always was — unless she’s got another cold sore, of course. Oops!
So I need a bit more thought in the next few days if I’m to be able to answer the homework question.
Sleep well, good night all.
