Late night ramblings

Hello

squeaky,

Between my ex husband (who hasn’t  bothered getting his own vehicle fixed) and my son, it’s a wonder I get to drive my own car. Still, both of them will chauffeur me around if I’m not well. There’s method in my madness. But I’d actually forgotten i’d Promised the car to son today! My memory is shockingly awful. At nearly 37, he’s a latecomer to driving..I suppose living in London for so long. 

I’m curious about your books. So nosey! I love biographies, just got one on Lee Miller, wartime photographer, model, friend of artists. Lots of books on Victorian photography. And recently a book on the Dalai Lama. All sorts of stuff. My background is in languages and literature but I don’t seem to be reading many novels these days. But books are so exciting to me! 

I have a cat, George, still quite young but a fat boy, constantly miaowing very loudly for food. If I get fed up with the pestering, I put him outside for a little while. Then he becomes very compliant and limp,  his great chubby self lying limp in my arms, as if to say ‘Sorry mum, I know the game’s up.’ I don’t know why this makes me laugh so much. Otherwise, my sons say he’s an idiot! 

Pepys xx

Pepys 

Good morning from Scotland where it’s a warm, sunny day. Congratulations Kiwi Wolf on being cancer free for a year. With PC that holds out great promise for the future.

Although I was a civil servant for most of my life I started studying part time with the OU and to cut a long story short I’m now researching for a PhD in History at Dundee. I am lucky to have two top class professors as my supervisors. So some of my books are academic. I’m studying industrialisation in Dunfermline.

Other books are usually novels. I have just read Cousins by Salley Vickers which I would recommend.

I first met you, Pepys, about four years ago on the breast cancer forum. You were (and are) an inspiration to others. I have been fortunate that my cancer has not returned but I’ve had other health issues recently and have been a bit down. Yesterday, this thread cheered me so much.

Thomas may very well become a fat boy. Whilst he was living in the cat shelter he always had a bowl of dry food as well as wet food and he thinks that happens here too! So he shouts at me if it doesn’t. Mimi is a fat girl. Florence is more measured in her eating.

I hope you all enjoy today whatever you are doing.

Squeaky

Hi Squeaky 

You were the first person to reply to me when I joined and I was very grateful for your response. I knew nothing of PC then and I was terrified and in shock I never imagined my mum would still be here now.  I will never forget how much a few kind words meant to me then so I try my hardest to pass that on. 

Hope you’ve enjoyed the sunshine today. I’m loving this weather even though I am working through it. Xx

Hi Kate

I’m so pleased that you have had so much time with your Mum. This disease is so variable. For Scotland, it was a lovely warm day yesterday with sun all day. Today it’s not so nice but we all need to make the most of every day.

Squeaky

Squeaky, fascinatird by your studies. I was NOT a good research student in my youth and regretted it.  Later i did a MA in technical translatio..but only after having 3 children and doing a lot of other things (not all of them hugely significant). Learning  g is always a lifeline though and has saved me through difficult times. I believe it still is.

yes Kate, Squesky also stands out for me as particularly kind and helpful from the start. 

im SO tired after a busy weekend preparing for my garden picnic. God knows where I dredged the energy up fro but I shopped, cooked a lot of great food, baked my own bread and it all turned out wonderfully.  it all made me feel quite’normal’ again! Well, some things don‘t things change...I limit my alcohol these days and don‘y do handstands at 3am but it’s important to have friends over and bevin charge of rhings!

The weather is so beautiful and makes me feel almost well!

pepys xx

Sorry for all the typos. Chemo  my sight and a nurse told me not to bother getting new resding glasses! I’m not sure how sensible this advice is given how much time I spend with my nose in a book or messaging. ..

Hi Pepys 

I’m a nightmare with typos on my phone. I blame predictive text. Half the time you just don’t notice and have said the opposite of what you want to. It’s got me in trouble many a time. Why not treat yourself to some new glasses. 

Your picnic sounds wonderful. I love cooking for others (I’m a chef) but since living alone I can never be bothered to cook for myself. To be honest I’m too lazy in the clearing up process. But any chance of getting friends round for a get together and I go into overdrive planning the menu. 

I’m impressed with the languages, how many do you speak? My brain doesn’t work that way. After all my years in Holland I only managed very poor Dutch yet I have a cousin who is fluent in 7 languages. When I moved to Holland she learned Dutch for fun and had it mastered in weeks! I never did like her very much. 

Sleep well xx

Haha Kate,

fir me there‘s akways an emotional element with languages...i never put my back intonlearning Dutch because the relationship with my Dutchman was failing. 

I kearned RussJan (along with French) at school. It was unusual in those days  and later, French and Russian at university. In 1989 started to learn German as was so excited by the fall of the Berlin Wall. My obsession with all things German meant I’d reached a very good level and was able to teach it a couple of years later. Also learned (and studied) Spanish. Which sounds impressive until I consider that each new obsession pushes an old one aside. I’m quite interested in language methodology etc and ‘fluent’ seems  to mean different things to different people...able to get by, proficient, can speak but not read, read but not speak and so on...

I’ve learned so many languages to varying degrees but I always hesitate to describe myself as fluent. 

My children don’t seem to share my love of languages but are much better at other things (usually technical) than me. And all three are food-obsessed. My eldest will even compete with some of my  dishe. He claims his mashed potato is better...

The cooking was such fun this weekend I’d almost forgotten how pleasurable it can be. I don’t cook much at all these days, certainly not much for mysel. Bit of a mistake given the problems with chemo and taste. I take steroids to pep up the appetite and they work well but the taste is something else. For a while I ate curry (the posh supermarket ones) every day just so as to be able to taste SOMETHING. The whole business frustrates me as I’m determined to keep a bit of weight on me (5’8” and 68kg). I still look for food that packs a punch...cheese that takes the roof off your mouth, pickles, anything that wakes up my tired tastebuds. How’s your mum in this respect?  God, isn’t she lucky to have a chef-daughter? 

in contrast with last night, I cannot sleep so it’s nice to be able to write to someone!

I also dislike the cleaning up after cooking but last night had some help from the chums. Even so, the full cleaning up process after feeding several friends takes some time. 

Yes, time for new reading glasses! 

Pepys xx

Wow Pepys I am seriously impressed, French, German and Spanish are hard enough but Russian. I had Dutch lessons for my first 2 years living there but got so stressed and couldn’t get my head around it and packed in my lessons. As soon as I did it was like flicking a light switch and suddenly I got it. My accent was appalling and my grammar wasn’t great but I could get by. I’ve been back for 8 years now and it’s mostly gone but I have a very close friend and when we speak on the phone we speak half and half and somehow get by. 

Food really has been a big problem for my mum from the start. The chemo didn’t effect her taste too much but the PC seems to. She also can only eat soft foods because her tumour whilst being quite small (just over 3cm at last scan) is growing into her duodenum and there’s not a lot of space there. She has 2 stents in and food is a big risk of blocking them. Since she’s started on steroids her appetite has improved so much and she asks me to cook for her again which she didn’t want for a long time other than soup. Garlic is her thing at the moment as long as there is no cream. I went a bit ott trying to fatten her up. 

Hope you’ve had a good day today and managed to get some rest. When does your next cycle start? I hope it’s not as tough as the first. Xx

Hi Kate,

the message I sent you earlier from the chemo unit didn’t get sent, drat! 

They wouldnt let me have my treatment today (maybe tomorrow?) because they suspect from blood and a trine test today that I’m diabetic. And it’s  ltrue I’ve had some funny symptoms recently.  A long  And abnormal sleepathon’, leaving me very disoriented in the last couple of days. Didn’t even eat, drink or take my medication.,..the ‘typos’ (blurred vision) , excessive sweating. And this morning I looked in the full-length mirror and was appalled by how skinny my legs looked. My lovely long and strong looking likes look like a couple of pipe cleaners. This happened to me in hospital but I was there for 5 weeks not exercising. Must take some action! Anyway I have to go back to hospital in the morning to see where we’re going from here. My son is insisting on going with me, which might be because I told him I’d managed to smack the car into a ladder in the car park. No harm done. My neighbour’s gardener helped me get the car moving...seems he has his eye on me and is always seeking an opportunity to assist. Never seen a man of his age move so fast when he saw what I’d done!

So envy you being a professional chef. I love cooking...and feeding people well is just the best feeling but I could never have done it professionally because it seems to me you need nerves of steel! . I‘ve just prepared 3 seed loaves just now because my son and daughter in law (and perhaps my grandchild-to-be ) love it!  And I can taste it, which is more than you can say for a lot of shop-bought stuff. 

Reading what you say about your mum, I realised the two stents I have in my bile duct (at least I THINK that’s where they ar) probably affect my eating too. I can relate to your mum’s need for garlic...anything that wakes up the taste buds is good by me. Sometimes I dream about food...i think it signified a loss of sorts, with all the taste and appetite changeS.

Time to punch back the dough! My sole exercise today!

pepys xx