Yesterdays, Today & Tomorrow

Phil’s Halloween hangover lasted for 2 whole days; I tried to coax him into coming to the gym with me on Monday morning but he was having none of it.  He was trying to download photos from the party from his iPhone4 onto his laptop so I could upload to my blog but he was having some problems.  At quarter to ten I’d had enough and went to the gym alone.  Phil is completed obsessed by his new Apple iPhone and sometimes it annoys me.  He is deaf at the best of times but with white ear plugs permanently stuffed into his hairy ears what chance do I stand of being listened to?  None so mostly I give up!

At least Phil managed to get himself showered and changed into clean clothes on Monday which was a big improvement on Sunday.   Having opted out of the gym he stayed at home messing around on his laptop and phone all day only venturing out with me late afternoon for a 20 minute cardio walk around the canal via the shop, and even then I had to drag him out.   Unfortunately for Phil Monday nights are big ‘soap’ nights so he spent most of the evening reclined in front of the sofa watching podcasts on his laptop.

Sue phoned me on Monday night in response to an email I’d sent on Sunday; to be honest I was worried because, after all no news is not good news, but actually, when she rang she said, her and Alan were both okay.  Now of course they are both not okay but at least no major dramas this last week and they are both still able to be at home.  Sue said that Alan is not doing too badly on the Sutent; it makes him tired but that is understandable because it’s one powerful drug.  I just hope its doing the stuff it should be doing. BTW Sweet Suzie, thanks for phoning to see how Phil got on with his prostrate problem, that was really thoughtful of you.

I am a worrier and I do worry about everyone; I do wonder for my sanity sometimes and on Monday I sent an email to Frank & Joan, a lovely couple than write a blog site that I follow.   I’ve been following their blog for around 8 years now, I was initially interested in Frank’s take on Northern Cyprus from the time that we bought our villa in TRNC, a project that we lost money on and one that ended in tears.  Frank & Joan had a villa built in northern Cyprus and lived there for quite a few years but recently they’ve moved to France and are currently looking to buy a new house.  Anyway, their blog is tagged on our blog site if anyone wishes to dip in.  But I diverse, as always, and I’ve been concerned because Frank hasn’t posted for over 3 weeks. This is most unusual and before I knew it, I found myself sending an email to him, Frank, whom I’ve never met, to ask if everything was okay?   Mad I know and I really wish I was a ‘cup half full’ type of girlie instead of a ‘half empty cup’, life would be much happier.  However, I had an email back today from Frank to say that they are both fine, they should have their internet connection back on in a couple of weeks and then everything will be revealed.  I can’t wait for Frank to publish!

Phil woke up really early on Tuesday morning and did his best efforts to stir me in to the land of the living. Now, I’m naturally an early morning kind person and in the middle of my dreams I wasn’t ready to be awakened, it really felt too dark and too early.  In the end Phil got his own way, he put on his bedside light so he could read his book and only then did I eventually came round but I freaked out because the alarm clock read 8.20 am. I asked Phil if he’d changed the alarm when the clocks went back and he said he was certain he had.  Anyway I jumped out of bed because I thought Harriet was late for work but after waking her up she put on GMTV on the telly and the clock said 7.20am.   Turned out Phil hadn't changed the alarm clock after all!  I worry that he has the onset of senile dementia, his memory these days, seems to be fading along with his hearing!  At least he did accompany me to the gym on Tuesday but again, he freaked me out when he said in the Jacuzzi that he was surprised that it was Tuesday, “is it really” he said, “I thought it was Monday”!  I don’t know what he was drinking at Sandy’s house on Saturday night but it must have been real strong if he lost a whole day!

Phil had an appointment with Louise, his diabetes nurse to discuss his prostrate test.  Louise had conferred with Dr Carter and they decided to retest him to see if his prostrate levels are high the second time round.   Let’s hope there not, because if they are, then Phil needs to go to the doctor and he will need to perform a biopsy; Phil tells me this involves something up the bum and doesn’t sound very pleasant.  Lol!  He gets very embarrassed and squeamish of things like this but as I told him, it’s gotta be done.  I think women are far braver; once you have a couple of smear tests or a coil fitted and have given birth a few times your dignity flies out the window.  We ladies are definitely the stronger species!

After lunch I jumped in the car and took my car to the Fast Fit station at the Kingston centre.   I needed 2 new tyres and the Fast Fit really are good.  I left the keys with the nice man on reception and walked across to the shops at the back of Tesco’s because I wanted to see if I could reacquaint myself with Denise.  Denise has done my waxing for many years and shortly after we left for Oz, Denise left her beauty room at Dragons or LA Fitness at Willen as it is now and went into partnership with a lady that has a nail salon.  It was a short walk and I found the nail-cum-beauty salon just across from the Library really easy to find.  Denise was really pleased to see me; we caught up with some gossip and I came away with an appointment for 1pm today.  Denise is really the best waxer in town.  Since I returned from Australia I’ve been doing my own DIY waxing at home and it's all been a bit 'hit and miss' so it will be really nice to have a professional job for a change.  I have been trying to hang on until next week but I’m so hairy, folks are staring at the gym and its even scaring Phil! 

After I picked up KA complete with 2 new tyres I drove to Dwell to buy 2 new units for either side of the big sofa.   It wasn’t an impulse purchase, I’d been into the shop on 3 separate occasions to see if they were the ones for me and after several hours surfing the internet to see if I could buy something similar at a cheaper price (and I couldn’t) I’d made up my mind that the Dwell table units really were ‘the one’.   Okay they weren’t cheap and Phil thinks that I’ve been extravagant with this purchase, but I disagree.  Perhaps a little self indulgent but not extravagant because we need to provide Harriet with furniture when she moves out at the end of December and also we’ve got 2 flats to furnish next May so they will not go to waste.   I went to the warehouse at Kingston to pick them up after the gym yesterday and am really pleased with them.  They are gorgeous but although they are unboxed and in situ they still need a little modification.   I need to find feet to raise them from the floor; Phil doesn’t agree but my current passion is raised furniture and I will need to search carefully for the right feet that will complete my figure 2 shaped high white gloss units.  The bog standard £8.99 feet that I normally buy from IKEA simply are not suitable.  My last job, is to trunk the cables hanging down from the plasma and paint it the same colour as the chimney breast and then the lounge will be finished. The designer in me would like to change the beige curtains for something more funky and modern but they are certainly not offensive and Phil will freak out at the expense, so I guess, for now, they are staying.  I’d also did think about repainting the coffee colour on the chimney breast to lime green but the very thought of removing the 50 inch plasma off the wall, not to mention the padlocked bracket, made my back ache just thinking about it, so once again, the toffee colour chimney breast stays as it is.

Phil got all his old boxes of photographs down from the attic while I was buying my new units and when I came home from Dwell he had them strewn all over the lounge.  We’ve been meaning to go through his old photographs for about 10 years and have never found the time.  I didn’t much care for the mess but it was interesting to look at the thousands of pictures.  Phil has photos of Harriet as a baby and it was nostalgic and also a bit weird because we were good friends whilst being married to different people.  It makes me happy to be where we are now and both still have contact with the same friends some 25 years later.  Okay we may have lost a few along the way, but not many and the new friends, some of them have become very good friends, have made up for that.  Even Harriet, who normally lives in her bedroom, came down and enjoyed going through the photo boxes and listening to Phil recall old times.  I was surprised when looking at photos of me and actually between the age of 20 and 30 I wasn't too bad looking and certainly not as ugly as I remembered.  Sure, I had heavy make up and some seriously scary hair do’s but you know what, l I wasn't too bad.  Anyway good days, happy days and a few sad times but we've survived.   As they say, a picture can tell a thousand words……………

Unfortunately we got stuck into the wine with photos on Tuesday night and yesterday morning Phil was feeling rather the worse for wear.   There was no way he was going to get to the gym, so once again, I went by myself.  From the sound so it, Phil pretty much spent the whole day scanning in photographs.  Both scanners are playing up so I am not certain he managed to scan.   He did however, manage to sort out some photographs of Ian & Jane and also created a couple of framed pictures for them which I took with me when I met Jane for lunch yesterday.  We met at The Wavendon Arms and had a great time; we don’t meet up very often so when do, we have so much to talk about.  We had wine, shared bread and a starter of pasta for main and very nice it was too.  Although I have to say I find the service to be very slow indeed.  Jane paid (thanks Janie), she loved the old photo’s.  Jane & Ian are hoping to fly out to Australia for a few weeks at the end of January 2011 and want to drive the Great Ocean Road .   Me and Phil did this and I’ve promised to email with details of some of the places that we stayed at.  We’ve promised to meet up along with husbands when we get back from India and before Christmas so I shall look forward to that.

When I got back from The Wavendon Arms, I dragged Phil out for the canal circuit walk.  My hamstring is still giving me some jip and I’ve taken to doing this walk on an afternoon.  As usual, Phil was reluctant, but the brisk walk does him good; not less, it gets him off the sofa and also this time, he didn’t have the ear plugs stuffed in his lobes so it gave us chance to talk. 

Steve B got home from London in spite of the tube strike which he said was hyped up by the media and had just enough time for a quick beer with Phil before they walked along to the pub. Jan dropped him off and came in for a quick cup of tea. Poor Jan wasn’t looking  too great (sorry Jan) or feeling too well and I fear she is just about to take poorly with a cold. It was strange because I started feeling a bit weird about 5 o’clock and I think, me too, am going to come down with something.  I seriously hope not but I’ve been sneezing for the last couple of days, and well, I just don’t feel myself.  It’s no big deal though, this time next week I shall be walking the sunny shores of Goa in temperatures of 30 degrees and beyond so it just won’t matter. I can’t wait, can you tell?....................