Thursday 27th April - best laid plains...

Today was going to be all about cracking on with the of cross stitching. The end is in sight!

However, events intervened. 

I have spent more hours today wearing an FFP2 mask than I have in ages, even including previous hospital appointments for me and my father. Today I  have been accompanying my father to the GP, shopping for his suppers, and restocking his fridge, as he is now at the stage where shopping is too much walking, too tiring.

I enjoyed the shopping - this is the first time I have been in a big Waitrose, rather than a convenience store, since March 2020. Just looking at what's on offer is a real treat, with Himself doing all the reaching up for soup, down for cereal, trekking back for spring onions to help me.

We came home loaded with the contents of one of the cupboards at my father’s flat; packets of bran cereal, some Rich Tea Biscuits  -'I keep them in case I have visitors' (expiry date August 2016) and, big bonus, an enormous wedge of parmesan cheese - I'll replace it with some ready grated which is much easier for him to manage.

I spotted two carefully selected apples had been added to the trolley....

Sadly it's my compost heap which is going to be the main benefactor as the biscuits weren't the only antiques, and I'm not in need of HighFibre food.

Wearing the mask at the doctor's, round the supermarket and in the flat has given my rib cage such a workout! My chest is aching with the effort, bit a good night's sleep will solve it. Very few people are wearing them anymore, I noticed, but sadly it is still necessary for me, and therefore my husband, as catching covid or a chest infection would be seriously bad news. I'm looking forward with hope for when things might change in the future, and more closely for warmer weather which really helps.

Tomorrow will now have to be Even More Cross Stitching! 

Wednesday 26th April - Notebooks, cross stitch, daffodils

In other words, a random set of topics...

Notebooks

I think I've got it sort of sorted;

On the left, my current Commonplace Book which doubles as the new Sketch-a-day journal, and under it (with the little monogram) my paper diary/note book.

On the right, previous Commonplace books and sketch journal.

In the middle, a couple of old journals which are now torn into pieces and in the recycling. That sounds a bit drastic! That's because the writings in these are me expressing whatever upset me, annoyed me, stuff that I really wouldn't want anyone else to read. So, to avoid consequences, these journals are destroyed unseen by other eyes.

Finally, there is another diary upstairs where I write about the events of the day. Like a good friend dropping by yesterday with a bunch of daffodils;

Sunshine.

Or the mouse/rat (I had another go at drawing it)

Cross stitch

Another 160 stitches (crosses) completed. That leaves about 270 to go...

Tuesday 25th April - The long wait is over

Posting to this blog, and keeping up with projects and admin has been erratic for the last couple of months.

There's a reason for this;

Here are some of the daily drawings that I held back;

Thursday 19th January - top right, an appointment with a wonderful gastroenterology consultant (Himself was also there, but I ran our of space to include him in the drawing);

Back in December 2022 I had a routine CT scan of my lungs. At the follow-up appointment with the Lung clinic consultant in January, I learned that my lungs were more or less unchanged, but the scan had shown something in the pancreas area. She said she had asked for me to be referred to the local hospital gastroenterology department for further investigation. This appointment came through pretty quickly, and resulted in an MRI scan just a few days later; bottom left drawing!  

It was a long scan - about 30 minutes, maybe more; hard to tell with your eyes firmly shut! But then I had to wait - and wait - and wait to hear the results. I had been assured by the specialists - lung and gastroenterologist - that the most likely thing was that the unidentified objects would be harmless cysts. I had been in contact with the medical secretary because they wanted to get hold of the original CT scan, so I knew that my case had been reviewed within a week, but then she said the follow-up appointment would be 8-10 weeks... Oh. My. Word. 

I tried to stay calm by thinking that they would get in touch sooner if rapid action was required - I had been referred as a 'fast-track referral'. Even so, 8-10 weeks.

Meanwhile my father (who will be 94 in a couple of months) was ill in March for three or four weeks, so there was worry and appointments and so on for him as well...

Well, he has recovered and is back to his usual self, playing bridge every week, going to the quiz night, and hopefully even joining the weekly chair-exercise sessions which are beginning again!

And yesterday;

We had my follow-up appointment; yes, they ARE just cysts, and nothing else needs to be done about them (let sleeping cysts lie?). Another hugely helpful, knowledgeable, kind consultant - surgeon this time - took the time to explain everything very clearly.

I'm very relieved, and it is only now that the effort of staying calm, coping with the daily round of life plus dealing with what I think of as 'unexpected items in bagging area' is making itself felt. 

Normal service might be resumed soon...

Cross Country Collaboration

There have been many days over the past few weeks when I have been completely unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. But today was a marathon cross-stitch day. I have worked out that I will need to do 1,910 stitches for April's picture. Today, after an hour or so this morning, and again in the afternoon, I have completed 1,380 stitches! You don't know how good this makes me feel! So that means just 530 to go. I might even get it into the post box on Sunday!

  

   

Sunday 23rd April - Night Time Liturgy

This Night-Time Prayer comes from New Zealand. 

You can read the lovely story behind the prayer here.

Lord,

it is night.

The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,
new possibilities.

In your name we pray.

Amen. 

Saturday 22nd April - I saw a...mouse?

Well, maybe... yesterday I was charmed and alarmed to see a fairly large mouse running along the wall of the raised flowerbed near the house. It sat on the wall for a few moments before disappearing down the gap between the back of the bed and the fence.

So I spent this morning watching and following a couple of video tutorials on drawing mice, in my 'rough book'. The artists in the tutorials used pencils - I used my fountain pen. I am pretty pleased with the results.

Today, our gardener says she saw a small RAT scuttling along the fence down to the bottom of the garden.

Oh.

Friday 21st April - I have had some sherry. Expect typos

 The last three days have been heavy on admin, and heavy on zooms; only two extra zooms on top the of scheduled 6 piano zooms and one church house group zoom, but it seems that the effect of increasing numbers of zoom sessions is more than one might think. Still, it's the end of the week, and no more zooms until Sunday (church livestream, not really a zoom, followed by two 'chatty' zooms)

I've written up all the piano lessons apart from the two today. I like to leave a day before I write up the lesson - is that laziness at the end of the day? Or a chance to reflect on the lesson? Or maybe both?

I've written up and emailed the notes from the house group zoom, and printed a set to post/deliver to our non-internet member.

And - this is the biggie - I have started gathering together the facts and figures to construct a tax return... the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as far as I can manage.

 It's not been all playing the piano keyboard and tapping the computer keyboard. 

I've been watching youtubes on drawing trees;

I finished my sketch-a-day journal on 1st April, and rather than buy yet another notebook, I decided to use my Commonplace Book for the daily sketches. I've had a series of Commonplace Books on the go for a number of years, to note down poems, quotations, etc etc and this particular book has pages which are able to cope with pen and ink, and watercolour (as long as it isn't too wet). 

Just before Easter I bought the companion book to 'Bored Of Lunch - Slow Cooker recipe book', which is 'Bored of Lunch - Air Fryer recipe book'

I had a go at the low-calorie sausage rolls, made with tortilla wraps instead of pastry. They were pretty good - we shared half for supper, and will have the other half for supper tomorrow. The picture shows half the batch. 

I didn't quite understand the instructions so this is what I did; I used half a dozen decent quality sausages (not the low-calorie ones specified), one egg, three large tortilla wraps.

Skin the sausages, and mix the meat with extra herbs if you like. Divide into three lumps.

Beat the egg to use partly as glue, and partly as egg wash (I wonder if milk would be as good?)

Take a tortilla, lay flat and trim off a little of four edges to square it up a bit. Squidge the meat into a long thin sausage and lay near one edge, roll up the wrap and sausage using a generous application of egg-wash to make sure the thing sticks and stays rolled up. Repeat for other two tortillas. 

Cut each roll into bite sizes - I got about 16-18 pieces - glaze with egg wash and cook for 11 mins at 200C. Not bad. I cooked them on silicone air-fryer liner which you can see in the picture - it sits in the basket and saves on washing up.

Some kitting today - the mitre-square blanket. I am slowly re-doing the cuffs of the socks in order to do a stretchier cast off, and that needs brain. 

No cross stitch - I am short on brain power today, and now that I've drunk that glass of sherry the brain power is going fast.