Peter’s Hospital Diary

Seems my blogging has been a bit like waiting for a bus – nothing for ages, then several arrive at once!

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that spring had sprung, when we had an uncharacteristically warm bank holiday after some cold weather. It didn’t seem to last long, but the last week has been better, and I was in the garden when I heard a knocking noise. I looked up to see a blue tit flying in and out of the nesting box. It was unoccupied last year, so I was pleased to see a new ‘tenant’ this year!

While I was downloading the photographs from my camera, I found a few more I had taken this year – one here from January! The nesting box is on the left hand side of the garden, just past the gap in the fence trellis. There are some more photographs in the gallery.

So spring does seem to have arrived – even if a little late – so Onwards and Upwards! (And ‘Hello’ to Eileen in New Zealand! 🙂 )

Tags: New home

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Yesterday was the annual trip up to King’s College Hospital for my annual check-up. You may recall that all stem cell transplant activity moved from Guy’s to King’s about 18 months ago. I’m pleased to say that all seems well, although the King’s outpatient department seems rather more chaotic than Guy’s! There still seems to be a little residual GvHd (which is probably good!) and I may be slightly iron deficient, but as my blood results hadn’t been reported by the time I left, I can’t be certain yet, however I will be notified if I am anaemic or if there is anything else of concern.

I had a long chat with Dr Kazmi, not just about the illness, but about developments at King’s and Guy’s in general, and plans for a new cancer centre at Guy’s hospital. I also saw Orla, who used to run the day centre at Guy’s and has just moved to King’s, so she has a challenge to get it running as well as the unit at Guy’s! However it was lovely to catch up on news of the wonderful team that treated me – most still working in the London Hospitals area! So a good day out – although changes to the rail timetables meant that the journey out to Denmark Hill is even less straightforward than it was!

Also on the health front, I had my second cataract operation last week – this one on my left eye. The improvement is even better – with distance vision really good – better than that of the right eye. My check up for that is next Wednesday, at an early hour, so it will be another trip up to London to St Thomas’s.

And a bit more good news, my dissertation was accepted, so I should be graduating with my MSc in July!

Back here, the sun is shining, and I am slowly getting the garden back into shape, although the weather has been a bit chilly for the last week – but overall, definitely “Onwards and Upwards”! 🙂

Tags: Haematology, New life!

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And with that title, I can see how long it has been since I last wrote up the blog :(. It has been a very busy three months with lots happening, so here goes!

First the dissertation. I submitted the revised draft at the end of February. The initial indications are that I have covered the shortcomings in the original version, but I am still waiting to hear that I will be graduating this year with my MSc. It has been a long haul; not helped by the other D in my life.

So, the divorce. Now done and dusted with the final hearing also in February. However that is now over and I am now single. I’m not going to write more about that now – still too raw. However I have felt for a while that I needed a holiday after all the trauma and hurt of the last three years but more of that later! 🙂

On the plus side, I am settled in my new house, hard to beli4eve that I have been here for sixteen months!

Health-wise, all seems to be OK, apart from the slowly deteriorating eyesight. However in February I made the decision to have my cataracts treated, and the first operation to replace the lens in my right eye was carried out three days ago! I am amazed at how vibrant colours are in the treated eye! My eyesight has improved considerably (in that eye) although it seems to change slightly day by day, so I think it will take a little while to settle down to the final state. I have a check-up in ten days, but if all is well, I hope the left eye will be done soon. I will need reading glasses as the replacement lenses are fixed focal length, but distance vision should be fine – for the first time since I was seven!

The operation was straightforward and only took about 20 minutes to do. I was booked into the ‘Hotel’ at St Thomas’s as I was told I couldn’t go home immediately unless I was accompanied. In the event, that wasn’t true and I was home by early evening.

So – onto holidays!

As you might guess from the photograph, it involved diving! I restarted my diving hobby about three years, but a combination of things, including bad weather, meant that I haven’t done very much, and after a long gap, my skills had faded. I also realise that some of my confidence had gone as w3ell. There have also been changes in the diving rules in the Navy, which affect me as a former serviceman. However, two months ago we were discussing this in the club and it was proposed that we went as private individuals on a live-aboard boat diving in the Red Sea! So this is what we did, and seven of us booked a week on the MV Blue Horizon operated by Blue O Two .
AIt was an excellent week! We arrived in Hurghada on Friday and were met at the airport and taken straight to the boat. We spent the first night on board in the marina, sailing first thing on Saturday morning for the first dive to check equipment, buoyancy and so on. After that we did two more dives. A I was diving on oxygen enriched air (Nitrox) for the first time, as it is believed to be less tiring. On every day after that we were diving four times a day, getting up early (5:30 on one day) to do the first dive before breakfast, ending up with a night dive before dinner. The last diving day was the following Thursday when we did two dives. The afternoon was spent washing and dry kit while we transited back to the marina. We spent the last night on board, leaving the boat the following morning, spending the day at the Marriot Hotel before the transfer back to the airport for the flight home! There are more photos in the Gallery.

It was an excellent week! I paid extra fort the Nitrox, and a larger cylinder to get longer dive times, but everything else, food, soft drinks, trea and coffee, was all included. Best of all, with such an intense set of dives (about 8 hours under water) I was able to refine my diving skills and get my confidence back! Onwards and upwards (or should that be downwards in a diving context? 🙂 )

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Oh dear, not been very good at writing this up – distracted by the two Ds – Divorce and Dissertation, with Christmas and New Year in the mix.

The dissertation is almost complete, with the additional experiments complete and the updated results almost integrated into the final project report. The submission date is the end of February, but I hope to get it finished before then. The other D rumbles on, but I hope that will be settled by the end of February too. I won’t say too much at present, except to say that I shall be glad when it is sorted.

Christmas was good, I went up to stay with my parents, for just under a week, before returning home for New Year. New Year was quiet, no parties, but I cooked myself a meal, half a bottle of wine and then bed after seeing in the New Year. New Year’s day was lovely, I went for a long walk in the lanes and fields where I live.

My eyesight seems to be getting slightly worse, I have a check up at St Thomas’s in a week or so, and I must see about an appointment for a cataract operation. My next haematology check-up is in a couple of months time.

It is cold here today, snow forecast for tomorrow and Saturday. However I have replaced the heating thermostat with an ‘intelligent’ programmable device which maintains the house at different temperatures at different times of the day – preventing it from getting really cold.

So as always – Onwards and Upwards!

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Just realised nearly two months has gone by since I last posted – probably one of the longest gaps – 🙁

That harvest of beans was almost the last – I did discover some mature pods, so I have kept the beans to see of they will germinate next year. The bean poles are out, and safely stored away, as are some of the more tender plants. The leaves are off the trees and with the torrential rain we have had recntly, autumn is well and truly here!

I had another small snagette with the heating, but this was only a motor on a motorised valve, which took ten minutes to change – just as well as it has been quite cold as well as wet.

I have got back into my dissertation, having read the comments from the last submission, so the re-work is under way.

No news on my cataract appointment yet, that needs to be chased up, but other wise all is ticking along! O&U!

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Hot on the heels of the last post (bit like busses, nothing for ages, then two at once!) I thought I’d share the results of a small harvest. Although I was a bit late getting the runner beans in the ground, and they were delayed by bad weather in June, I did get a small crop off my half dozen plants, competing with slugs, snails and blackfly!

But I suppose I have picked about 3 lbs over the last month. Some have been sliced, blanched and frozen, other were picked, cooked and eaten within 20 minutes – delicious and makes it worthwhile.

The garden is starting to look a bit bedraggled and the weather has turned cooler. The winter duvet has been brought out of storage, and it will soon be time to cut back the plants in the tubs and put them into storage for the winter.

I will extend the area where I grew the beans, and make sure I get next year’s plants in earlier!

Onwards and upwards!

Tags: New home, New life!

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Whoops, I see over four weeks have passed since I last wrote up the blog.

It has been a busy four weeks though, apart from various legal issues, I have been out and about in the garden – where the beans started producing fruit, a little bit of diving and a little bit of client work (but sadly not enough!)

My parents came down for a visit for a few days in September, and youngest daughter went back to university, but it is that funny time of year when the summer is ending, and autumn is just round the corner – and judging by the heavy rainfall in the last three days, not very far round the corner. However the sun is shining (weakly) at the moment!

Of course, the cooler weather prompts faults to manifest themselves in heating systems, and my central heating boiler had a bit of a hissy fit recently. I think it is the main gas control valve solenoid. This is a ‘field replaceable part’ and replacing it does not involve breaking into the gas supply. However, the valve is quite old and the solenoid is not available. The valve is though, and after some searching I managed to find one. Since then, the existing valve has worked faultlessly!

Health wise, there is little to report. I am waiting for an appointment at the cataract clinic, but opther than that, I feel well.

I must say a quick ‘Hi’ to honorary Aunt Eileen in New Zealand – I will reply to your e mail!

Finally, the server that hosts the blog is in need of a software and hardware update, so I will be taking it down for a couple of days once I have backed everything up. I will try and put up a static page with updates on it when I do the work.

So onwards and upwards!

Tags: New home

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I have just realised it has been over six weeks since I wrote the blog (although I do wonder who is still reading it?)

So just after my bit of DIY, I headed north up the St Annes to stay with Martin and Stephanie, friends from University. We headed over to Headingley in Leeds to a Pizza restaurant we used to frequent as students, where we met up with our other two house-mates from those days (Jon and Elaine, and Tom and Carol) The photo shows the four of us outside Salvos.

In a burst of nostalgia, we headed off to our former home photographed here when we actually lived there! It hadn’t changed much, but we posed outside for another photo! Martin, Stephanie and I headed back to St Annes in the afternoon. Next day, after a walk along the Blackpool Promenade, Martin and I went sailing on the Ribble estuary before I headed back home, via my parents, after a very enjoyable weekend.

On the home front, I have been doing some baking! I started off with cake – this is a coffee and walnut cake I baked a few weeks ago. This skill also came in useful when I went to my sister’s for her Birthday. On this occasion I baked a chocolate cake, shown in this picture (together with her family!)

Moving on from cake, I have also been trying my hand at bread making. I do have a bread maker, which I use for making the dough, but I have found that turning out the dough, knocking it back and proving it outside the machine, before baking it a conventional oven, gives best results. as I hope the picture shows!

I have also been experimenting with flavoured savoury breads. So far olive (with Mozzarella and oregano) and sun-dried tomato (with Parmesan and basil) The tomato needs more practice, but they were made for when David and Frances (and their daughter) came to visit two weeks ago. The sun smiled on us and we ate outside in the garden. You may remember that I stayed with David and Frances for a week while I was homeless last December!

The sun has been welcome in the garden, where the runner beans have reached the top of their poles and are producing flowers. The pots have also looked good, and this photo shows the two hanging baskets. There are some more garden photographs in the gallery!.

On the health front, I had a visit to the eye clinic at St Thomas’s about a month ago. I still have dry eyes, but I have a new medication for night use which is certainly soothing, and I hope will eventually solve the problem. I am expecting a referral to the cataract clinic, as these are slowly getting worse. However the visit to London was an opportunity to see my youngest daughter, Rachael, who is doing a three month internship during her summer vacation. We had a very good evening at a restaurant in Borough Market!

I had also been planning to go diving, but the last two planned dives were cancelled because of bad weather, and the expedition to Devon has had to be cancelled for other reasons. That was very disappointing as I was looking forward to doing some camping (no accommodation) but I hope that we will get a couple of dives in the local area next week.

So a busy few weeks! There will be a few stressful moments in the next few weeks as the divorce rumbles on, but I need say no more about that at the moment.

But despite that, it is very much ‘Onwards and Upwards’! 🙂

Tags: Cooking, Diving, Divorce, New home, New life!

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Although one of the purchase decisions for my house was that there was little that needed doing to it, there are always one or two little things to be done. One of those was improving space in the tank, or airing cupboard. It is a large space, not well used, so it seemed a good idea to make better use of it.The first photo shows the cupboard as it was, with just the outline of a shelf I put in to size things up. I thought about moving the plumbing to the back and side of the tank, but after putting the frame in, it seemed a lot of work for little gain, so after a bit of sawing, I ended up with more useable airing space. Only a little job, but one that will make a difference!

Onwards and upwards!

Tags: New home, New life!

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Although it has been raining quite a lot since the photo was taken at the weekend! I took the plunge and ordered some garden furniture so I can take advantage of the patio! (If you look closely, you will see the obligatory glass of beer!) It also came in useful for a surprise visit from an old University course mate, Anne and her family. Although we have Skyped occasionally, this was the first time we had met up since just after leaving Leeds University, many moons ago! It was very pleasant sitting out in the garden, catching up!
My parents came down for a visit three weeks ago, over the jubilee weekend. We watched most of the celebrations on television, but there wasn’t much going on in the immediate neighbourhood. I had a quick trip to Switzerland which was very enjoyable, although the weather there wasn’t particularly good. One really good day though with a boat trip to Yvoire on the French side of Lac Leman (otherwise known as Lake Geneva). A very pretty and picturesque mediaeval village, as you can see from the photograph. The trip back was on a restored steam driven paddleboat, one of a fleet of eight that were built in the early part of the last century. This one was built in 1914. The picture shows part of the engine!

Unfortunately, I seem to have brought a summer
cold back with me, but I hope that will go soon.

The bad weather has also affected diving. I was supposed to be diving both last weekend, and two weeks before that, but on both occasions, strong winds in the Solent prevented us from launching the boat, so both were cancelled.

However, colds apart,

I am feeling well, as you can see from this photo, also taken at Yvoire!

So… Onwards and upwards! 🙂

Tags: Holiday, New home, New life!, Social

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