Peter’s Hospital Diary

Sunday was fairly quiet, partly because the weather wasn’t that good and partly because we wanted to take things easy before the drive up to Caen for the ferry. However we did go to Segour Le Chateau, a tiny medieval village not far from the house. It was very picturesque, although it had an air of neglect about it. The chateau itself was partly ruined, and I suppose as the village existed to service the chateau, when it fell into decline, the village did too. However once a week it has an open air farmers’ market, where you can buy stuff - then have it BBQ’d on the spot. We didn’t go - it was too wet on the first Monday we were there, and yesterday we left. Maybe next time!

The journey back was fairly uneventful. We seemed to go a long way round, diverting up to Orleans and about 40 miles West of Paris, but although it wasn’t the most direct route, it was about 20 to 30 minutes faster, being mostly motorway. However I’m not sure the time saved was worth it in terms of fuel and tolls, so next time we will use the most direct route!

We arrived at the ferry in good time, had a bite to eat and embarked for the longer trip home - we arrived at the front door at about 11pm last night. We had a lie in this morning, but I am popping into work this afternoon.

I said that Mark and Sue’s house is a work in progress - evidence is here - while we were with them, they half painted the back - it looks much better! More paint is being brought out by the next set of visitors who arrived yesterday! (Paint is expensive in France!)

So an excellent week - many thanks again to our hosts!

Onwards and Upwards!

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It was a rather overcast day yesterday, so we went down the road (about 20 miles) to see the Chateau at Hauteforte. It is a splendid building, parts dating from the 16th century, although modernised and renovated over the centuries, the most extensive being the demolition of much of the old keep and baily to form the basis of a ‘modern’ chateau. The most recent forced renovation was in 1968 when a fire destroyed part of the building which has since been rebuilt and restored. It is a very imposing building, dominating the countrysidee, although I thought the older bits were the most impressive. The gallery shows more photographs, including the interior of a magnificent cupula on one of the remaining older towers. Photography was forbidden in the main parts, but the gardens were also very impressive, in a French formal style.

After visiting the chateau, we came back to the house for lunch, with some frinds of Sue and Mark who were travelling through on there way to the South of France. After they left, Mark and I went to the “Brico-Depot” - French B&Q (and owned by the same group!) for a few bits and pieces! Last night we went out for dinner!

Today is overcast, but it looks like brightening up, so we may go to another nearby medieval village this afternoon.

I mentioned that I had had some more photos of Olivia! Here are two of them! The rocking horse was mine when I was a little boy!

We leave early tomorrow morning for the drive back up to Caen to get the ferry at 5pm. It has a been a terrific holiday - thank you Sue and Mark.

Onwards and upwards!

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It was indeed a scorcher today! Mark and Sue had some work they wanted to do on the house, so Felicity and I drove down to Sarlat, a medieval town about 90 minutes drive away. The pictures are in The Gallery but there are a couple shown here. This one is of the interior of the Cathedral in the town, with Felicity in the foreground!
The Perigord region is famed for its distilled fruit alcohols, and we were surprised to find the mobile still outside one of the shops in Sarlat. It used to travel round to the farms in the area - distilling the fermented fruit juices! Sounds like a good job to me! Sadly we didn’t get a chance to sample the products - strong alcohol still affects my throat, although I had little difficulty with a beer with the meal in one of the street restaurants!
We continued wandering round, with a bit of shopping (some sun glasses for me and a few other bits and pieces) before we headed back to the house and a welcome dip in the pool - up another degree today at 25C! That was followed by a BBQ in the warm evening! I’m delighted to report that my appetite is still good, and the improvement in my mouth condition seems to be holding up - although the sausages we had on the BBQ were a bit too spicy for me!
Vicki has also sent me some photos of Olivia and Max! Space precludes their inclusion here this time - (although they are in The Gallery) I will post them here when I get home. And talking of Olivia, she has just cut her first tooth!

O&U!

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Another hot day today, and we were up earlier than normal for a run to the boulangerie for some croissants and pain-au-chocolat (no bacon sarnies though) and then after breakfast we went off to the picturesque town of Brantome - known as the Venice of France. Well, it did have a rather pretty river (which surrounds the town) but hardly Venice. However it was very pretty and we spent four or five hours there, looking round and having lunch. The photographs, as always, are in The Gallery. However the picture at the top shows our group, looking out over the river (apart from Mark - who is photographing the photographer!)

We stayed for lunch in the town - I really enjoyed Moules et Frites - Mussels and chips - with a beer and some Frech bread. Delicious!! We contined with a wander around the town, taking in an ice cream, before heading back to the house where we spent the remainder of the afternoon round (and in) the pool! (Taking care, in my case, to avoid to much sun!)

So another good day - Onwards and Upwards!

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And today has indeed been hot and sunny!

Yesterday was another wet day, in the morning we went to the local town (St Yrieix) to complete a shopping trip we started on Monday (but had to abandon because the shop didn’t open until the afternoon) and then in the afternoon, Mark and I went to the Bricolage (DiY) shop in Pompadour - dodging the rain showers.

However the weather cleared overnight, and although it was misty this morning, that soon burnt off and we went back to Pompadour for the local market. There are some more pictures on the gallery. Pompadour is the home of the French National Stud, and the Chateaux is a grace-and-favour home for the National Stud President.

After the trip to Pompadour we returned back to the house and uncovered the pool and spent the afternoon sitting round with a Pimms or two and taking the occasional dip. The weather got warmer as the afternoon went on and the pool warmed up by a couple of degrees - by the end ofthe day it was up to 24C - a bit cool for my liking, but still pleasant!

One other diversion was a bit of grass cutting - this picture shows Mark on his tractor - I had a drive later (pictures in the gallery).

My appetite is getting better, and more importantly, my mouth seems less sensitive. I don’t know if it the French air, the food, the folic acid supplements, the company, the steroid mouth washes or a combination of all these - but it is a welcome development!

So, as always, Onwards and Upwards!

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Well, we have arrived in France after an interesting journey yesterday! We arrived at the ferry terminal in good time, but on the way we noticed that the cigarette lighter wasn’t working. Not normally a problem as we don’t smoke, but we were using the socket for the GPS, and we needed that in France.

Anyway, we arrived in France and went off to fill up with fuel (diesel at 70p/litre!!) and at the same time have a look at the socket problem - which I thought was probably a blown fuse! First problem was that the fusebox bore no resemblance to the one in the handbook. However we persevered and took out what we thought was the right fuse - and the radio stopped working! So we put the fuse back - and the radio asked for a code - which we eventually found and re-entered. The fuse hunt went on, and eventually we found the right fuse, which had blown and we changed. We went to move off - and found that none of the instruments worked! We stopped again, and I discovered that I had removed a fuse and replaced it in the wrong place. Once that was sorted out we went off for a long but fairly uneventful trip. The weather was quite good, and on the way we had the roof down on the car and we arrived at Sue and Marks at about 8:30 last night. We would have been there an hour or so earlier, but for the faffing about with the fuse - and a few unexpected detours!

We ate outside last night - pleasantly warm. but it poured down overnight and it was torrential this morning when we went into the local towns of Pesac and St Yrieix. So it was a supermarket run only.

However the house is lovely - the top [photograph is the back of the house with the (covered) pool in the foreground. The bottom photo is the front. There are some more details here on Mark’s website. Restoration is a mammoth job - lots more to do, but an amazing amount accomplished!

And it so good to be on a proper holiday!

Onwards and Upwards!

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And the title says it all! Monday and Tuesday were fairly normal, but on Wednesday evening, Roo had a party for 30 of her friends as they are all leaving school and going on to 6th form college. Luckily the rain held off, as they were in the garden. We did have a gazebo up and that would have provided some shelter had it rained… However it was a late night for them - and as they were nattering into the night, for us too! I was up early on Thursday for a meeting in Bristol, collected at 7:15. Luckily I wasn’t driving so I could (and did!) doze most of the way there. A good meeting and I was back fairly early in the afternoon.

Friday was my last day at work before we go on holiday. It was a quiet day, so we strolled across to a local snackery were one of my work colleagues treated me to a bacon and egg roll! Thank you Jayne!

Last night (Friday) was the Summer Ball at work. We took Vicki and Tom, Katie and Rachael and had a great time. We were lucky(ish) in that although we had torrential rain in the afternoon, the rain held off in the evening. It was cool, but we all had a good time and stayed pretty much to the end at 2am! I managed the food (apart from the spicy stuff - it was a cold buffet) although my tongue was a bit sore this morning. We did take some photographs and when I have sorted through them, I will put them on the gallery.

And tomorrow we are off to France! It was a late start this morning - kicked off by the postman delivering THE book! (That which I need not name!) Since then we have taken things quietly, getting clothes together etc. We have a little shopping to do, then it is off at 6 ish tomorrow morning to get the high speed ferry to Caen and drive down to the Dordogne. I am planning on taking the laptop with me so I will be updating the blog and maybe post the odd photo! This is the first time we have been away for a couple of years - so another step in getting my life back - I am really looking forward to it!

Finally, on the tech side, I have finished tweaking the computer and the file systems are now all on logical volumes (this means that I can resize them more easily when they are on line). The final stage took a bit of working out, but I learned a lot while working out how to do it!

So Onwards and Upwards!

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Not a lot to report since the visit to Guy’s, although it did take a day or so to recover from the brisk exercise walking round the shops in London! However we did get a visit from Vicki and Olivia yesterday afternoon - and as Olivia was looking particularly cute, I had to get the camera out! There are a few more from yesterday in the Gallery.

Felicity was babysitting at Olivia’s last night, so I took the opportunity to sneak out for a swift pint with fellow blogmaster, Mark, and friend Mike. Then off to Caroline and Gabor who live conveniently close to the pub for a chat and a snack! Many thanks Caroline - it was a good evening! While I was there, Caroline remarked about a petition concerning the proposals to dilute the physics GCSE syllabus. If you are concerned about this, the petition is at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/physicsedu/.

I’m afraid I haven’t got any up to date photos of the other star of the blog, Vicki’s dog, Max, but as soon as I have, I will post one (just for you, Richard!)

I see it is sunny again now - 2 hours ago we had a torrential downpour and a thunderstorm!

Onwards and Upwards!

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Well not strictly true because on my arrival at the haematology department I was met by the receptionist, Jenny, and then ushered in for the ritual blood letting that makes the highlight of the day! After that bit of routine stuff, I was then seen by Rachel, my tame dietician, who wasn’t as fierce as last time as I have put on a couple of pounds! She is also pleased generally with my diet (and the daily scandishake) and said that she thought I was looking healthier! The strength in my right hand was slightly down on last time, but the strength in my left was much greater - must be carrying a briefcase into work! (I carry it in my left hand, although I am right handed.)

After the chat with Rachel, it was in to see one of the medical team. A quick examination, no surprises and then I was finished for the morning, so it was off to the shops for a while.

I was back in good time for the oral clinic in the afternoon, and went in on time for an examination by Dr Shah. She was pretty thorough and remarked that my tongue seemed to have a bias to the right. She went off to get the consultant, Dr Shirlow, and a clutch of medical students, so my powers of oratory were required to present my case! Dr Shirlow had a good poke round, and again remarked about my tongue. The upshot was that as there was nothing sinister there, and my speech had become ’slurpy’ after the biopsy, the likely cause of the slurpiness is the lack of mobility in the right hand side of my tongue, and that is almost certainly caused by some nerve damage when the biopsy was done. In fact she did get an oral surgeon to have a look too, and he pretty much confirmed it. It is unlikely to get any better, but I will probably learn to compensate for it as time passes. As it is, my voice is clearer, with just a hint (to my ears) of a lisp on the ’s’ and ’sh’ sounds, and although it is a pity that the damage is likely to be permanent, it is a relief to know what the cause is, and that it isn’t anything to worry about.

I did have a few tests, two saliva collection tests (one involved dribbling into a test tube for 10 minutes, the other involved having a suction cap placed over on the the glands in the cheek, and a drain attached, while it was stimulated with citric acid!) And delight of delights, more blood taken to check on iron and vitamin levels! I also left with another large carrier bag of pills and potions.

I suppose I have no option but to see about getting the damaged tooth removed - I will look for a referral back to Guy’s for that and have it done there - doped up to the eyeballs with valium or whatever else they have on offer!

So it was a long day, and I didn’t get home until well after 7pm.

It was good to see fellow transplant Mark, who was looking much better than he was on the last two occasions I have seen him. He had a DLI 6 weeks ago, and the GvHd is just kicking in. He is on weekly check-ups, much to his annoyance as he is planning a longish holiday! I think he was planning some negotiation with the team! By the way, mark, the VoIP site I was talking about is www.sipgate.co.uk. Hope you got the check-up arrangements sorted to your satisfaction!

The tweaking of the blog server has continued, with a couple of longish (about an hour) downtimes, so if you haven’t been able to log on in the evenings that is the reason. The main bit is done, but the last section (migrating the root file system to a logical volume - to be technical) is proving more problematic - the system won’t reboot after I have done that. It isn’t THAT important from a practical aspect if I don’t achieve it - but from an intellectual point of view, I am keen to achieve it, both because it is a challenge, and secondly because I will learn something from the exercise! That means there might be one or two more periods of down-time while I carry on tinkering!

So onwards and upwards!

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It has been a busy week down here, a bit of self feeding and looking after Rachael on the days when she wasn’t out and obout or away. My parents came down for a visit on Friday and left yesterday afternoon, and Felicity came back last night from a busy week at the Henley Regatta. And finally Katie brought back the remainder of her things from Bournemouth - and is finding it difficult getting into her bedroom!

We have a couple of lodgers next door - in their pear tree which is just outside a bathroom window. They are a pair of collared dove chicks, and are only a couple of weeks old. At last we know what makes all the flapping at about 5:30 every morning!

Meanwhile on the health front my mouth seems to be a little better, although the prospect of food is still a pretty unappealing thought. However I have had a few bacon sarnies to keep the hunger pangs at bay, and the consensus of the family is that I might have put on a little weight. I must check on the scales, but I may be weighed when I go up to Guy’s this Thursday.

This week is a double appointment - the haematolgy clinic in the morning, follwed by the oral clinic in the early afternoon, so we will see what they say.

So very much onwards and upwards!

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