Reflection.

Opening my blog and realising that it's been a full three years since I updated it.

I've been meaning to write for a while now, but the older I get, the more I procrastinate.

It's now exactly eight years since my first chemo session, the first of six.

Thankfully still in remission, but with lingering long term health effects and the constant, back of the mind ''what if it comes back'' niggle that will never go away.

I never had a eureuka moment on finishing treatment, the change my life for the better moment that so many survivors seem to have.

But it has definitely changed my outlook on life.

I'm spending more time in the garden, appreciating the small things in life, and have learned to pace myself, as fatigue is an ongoing issue.

I've also recently been diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism, after breaking my shoulder last year kickstarted a long overdue dexa scan and repeat blood tests.

These were my first blood tests since chemo in 2018, and highlighted high calcium levels.

Interestingly, breast cancer has been linked to hyperparathyroidism. And looking over my 2018 blood tests, I had high calcium levels before and during chemo, which weren't picked up by the oncologist.

So now I'm post urine tests - also showing high levels of calcium - and pre kidney scans.

I'm trying to put it to the back of my mind.

Along with the crumbled filling in a wisdom tooth that I'm also studiously ignoring.

Talking hair. Slow, slow, S L O W!

 Hair....oh my goodness, my hair!

Chemo, a chemically induced menopause, and my hair has never recovered.

August 2018, and I was finishing my last cycle of chemotherapy.

I was wiped out, emotional and my veins had just about given up , after six sessions of toxic intravenous chemicals being pumped in.

It took four attempts and three nurses to find a viable vein, and it was pretty traumatic.

But the plus side was that my hair had started to grow back , and I had a faint fuzzy white covering under my headscarf.

I couldn't stop touching it!

After the initial shock of the new hair being white, it grew steadily over the next few months, a mix of white and grey fuzz.

Gradually it developed a fuzzy kink to it and the grey became interspersed with brown, a coarse texture, but it was growing!

Fast forward a year, and, although quite thick, it was growing upwards and outwards, like Worzel Gummidge, but not doing very much lengthwise.

I also had a bit of a bald patch and a combover on my crown, which took another year to fill in.

While on tamoxifen my hair stayed quite thick, albeit coarse.

However, when I switched to exemestane it began to thin.

A combination of exemestane and a chemo induced menopause, and I'm mourning my pre cancer hair.

The texture has finally returned to normal and lost the coarseness and kink, but it's much thinner than it was, and growth is painfully slow.

At more than four years out of chemo, and exemestane still ongoing, I've given up on ever being able to rock a shiny bob again.

As a woman, our hair is so important.

A bad hair day can negatively affect emotions, and I have a lot of bad hair days!

When it fell out during chemo, the anxiety that it wouldn't grow back was real.

But I wasn't prepared for the change in texture, the thinning, the S L O W growth over the next few years.

Bald was definitely easier to deal with than the hair I have now.

Contemplating going uber short.

 Winter blues and the hope of Spring.

I have really struggled with winter this year.

I'm not sure if it gets harder to deal with the older I get, or it's a build up of many things, but January seemed to go on forever!

The low light levels, dark at 5pm, grey skies and drizzle, interspersed with hard frost and wind.

My mental health definitely suffered this winter.

I've been unmotivated, anxious and distinctly lacking in oomph.

Insomnia is my nemesis.

Insomnia that seemed to ramp in those dark nights, while nocturnal Lily-the-cat was wandering around outside, oblivious/deliberately ignoring me calling her, whilst I also wandered around outside, dressed in pyjamas and a big hat and setting off various light sensors as I searched for her in the village!

2022 was a tricky year for selling, and the cost of living was - and still is - spiralling.

My ongoing battle with exemestane isn't helping either.

What is it with this single solitary pill that causes such awful side effects?

Each one on its own is probably not too bad, but all thrown in together is hard to deal with.

Five years on from my breast cancer diagnosis and I'm probably skipping more than I'm taking now.

 I've found the lack of support from the oncologist post treatment quite shocking really.

Impossible to get an appointment with and my lovely but unhelpful breast care nurse on the other end of the phone, just reiterating that I need to take it for a decade!

Sometimes, I wonder if tamoxifen was the lesser of three evils.

At the crux of it all is being immediately thrown into a chemical menopause with chemo and the exemestane just ramping up the side effects with a vengeance.

Perhaps male oncologists just don't appreciate the severity of menopause symptoms?

BUT, here we are, nearing the end of February.

The days are longer, the daffodils are nearly out and my windowsills have become plant nurseries.

The insomnia is still rampant, the low level anxiety ever present, but my mood has lifted.

Lily the wanderer is staying inside more at night, and the windows are firmly closed.

Sometimes, it's the small things that can make all the difference.

I had a long overdue lightbulb moment that maybe I wasn't motivated workwise in winter because my north facing workroom barely caught the sun.

Impossible to move my large desktop computer, and there's no way around moving my sewing station, but having a new, shiny, present to me laptop in the sunny, south facing front room has made a huge difference this month!

I had originally replaced my old laptop with a desktop to do precisely what I'm not doing now - keeping work behind one door - but, for now, this is working for me.

Musing on hormone therapy, nearly four years in.

October 2018.

I remember the apprehension I felt, after meeting with my oncologist and picking up my first packet of Tamoxifen, from the hospital pharmacy.

Just one little pill a day, it should have been the easy part of treatment, after two surgeries, chemo, radiotherapy and booster rads.

Fast forward nearly three years and nine months - yes, I'm definitely counting - into a ten month plan - and discarding Tamoxifen and Letrozole in favour of Exemestane, it's not been easy.

Everyone reacts differently to these drugs, but for me, I've been plagued with hot flushes with all of them.

Some days my whole body aches, and the weight gain associated with these drugs has all accumulated around my middle.

I feel like Humpty Dumpty.

As a positive, the initial hair thinning I had has finally slowed down during the last year, and it no longer looks as if I have a combover on my crown.

Many times over the past three years I have contemplated quitting, and self prescribed myself week long breaks at various times, when the side effects get too much.

Definitely not something I'd recommend, but for me, it was the difference between quitting completely or carrying on.

Fatigue has been cumulative with the exemestane.

I've learned that if I have a relatively busy day I'll be wiped out the next. 

I used to beat myself up about being lazy, but now I just accept that I need to take things at a slower pace.

Being thrown into a chemical menopause with chemotherapy, aromatose inhibitors  seem to exaggerate the menopause symptoms that may have appeared naturally.

There was no gradual buildup of side effects, no option available of using HRT to control the symptoms,  just wham, bam - hello menopause.

I do feel that oncologists are quick to gloss over the side effects of aromatose inhibitors.

And while I can't fault the care I was given during active treatment,  there is a definite lack of aftercare - and understanding - of the impact of aromatose inhibitors on everyday life.

In February of this year I took part in a podcast with the wonderful Victoria Derbyshire and three lovely ladies, discussing the side effects of hormone therapy.

I will admit, I recorded the podcast with my feet in a bucket of cold water and a fan on standby for an impending hot flush!

And Then Came Breast Cancer.

And Then Came Breast Cancer is a series of podcasts by Victoria Derbyshire,  each focusing on a particular angle of breast cancer and its aftermath.

I love the format of these podcasts.

They're great to have on in the background, and so relatable.

A pill a day helps keep CANCER at bay...

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, and it's changed a lot since it got hijacked by a cancer diagnosis, two and a half years ago.

Cancer changed me.

A year down the line, I didn't think it had, but fast forward another eighteen months and it did.

It made me stronger.

It made me appreciate the things that really matter, but it also toughened me up.

I'm mentally tougher, emotionally tougher, but physically...physically, I'm struggling.

Whoever would have thought just one little pill would be such a tough treatment to swallow?

I've been through Tamoxifen - the hot flushes and weight gain were horrendous - Letrozole - well, I lasted just eight weeks on that one, due to the bone pain and insomnia - and now Exemestane.

For the first month I thought Exemestane was the wonder pill; side effects decreased considerably, and I felt like me again.

But the honeymoon period was short lived.

Gradually the stiffness, the joint pain, the insomnia crept up, along with the hot flushes, just for good measure.

Exemestane is steroid based, and considering I was bouncing off the walls with the chemo steroids I should probabbly have expected the insomnia and bursts of random energy, followed by a crash of fatigue.

Not sleeping has become the new normal.

An industrial sized, menopausal fan has become my favourite room accessory.

But the joint stiffness...ooffttt!!!

There have been times when I've been kneeling in the garden, and am suddenly unable to get up.

This usually happens when the garden is overlooked, I'm wearing a dress and the only way to stand is to huff and puff and swear a lot and gradually hoist myself onto all fours to lever myself up!

If I'm moving around, everything is fine, it's stopping moving that's the problem.

I've always been able to contort my limbs all over the place, and that hasn't changed, which makes it all the more frustrating when I suddenly seize up.

Sometimes, I feel twenty years older than I am.

Being flung into an overnight menopause after my second chemo didn't help.

I've toyed with skipping tablets, taking a week off, restarting daily with good intentions, only to skip one again.

It's tough.

My cancer scored 8/8 for oestrogen and was grade 3, lymph node positive.

Just two positive nodes, with one being a single solitary cell, but enough to make the risk of recurrence high enough to make stopping the sodding pills risky.

Going through chemo I was part of The May Ladies, a forum group set up in May 2018, of ladies going through chemo for breast cancer at the same time.

We kept in touch.

Last month one of these wonderful ladies died of secondary breast cancer.

It came back in her brain. 

Less than two years after completing chemo.

It shocked me to the core.

And that night I restarted the Exemestane tablets.

But I'm struggling.

Like a homing pigeon on a mission...

Two weeks ago I rediscovered London.
It was the first time I've been back since that fateful first mammogram, in January 2018.

Amazing weekend with my son...tennis, dumplings, Puma and Liberty!
As he's currently living in Germany I don't get to see him very often, so these times are special.

Ahhh, Liberty...
When it comes to Liberty, I'm like a homing pigeon on a mission!
An obsession that started in the 1980s, as a sixteen year old at Art School, and continued throughout the decades.

I love Liberty, and my bank card took a hammering in the fabric department.
So now my shelves are groaning under the weight of all the fabric, my head is full of ideas, but my body is distinctly lacking in oomph.

I blame winter.
Love winter layers, the feel of tactile wool, the glow of fairy lights, but I have a definite aversion to the cold, the Welsh drizzle and five o'clock darkness.

Completely unmotivated this week.
It's a combination of the bitter cold outside, the excitement of rediscovering London and starting letrozole.

London marked another cancer milestone for me.
(There have been many!)
This was the first time since chemo

therapy that I felt my hair was proper hair again.
That no one looking at me would think of it as chemo curls, just hair in need of a good cut!
Looking at my unruly curls growing out in all directions and my too long and wispy fringe, I started to remember chemo baldness fondly.

I haven't had a short hairstyle since I was five years old, but the positive thing that came out of losing my hair last year was that it opened up hair options that I'd never considered before.
So...short as short can be! 

Liberty sunflowers,  Liberty camera strap.

Marking cancer milestones.

Cancer.

I have to admit, nineteen months post diagnosis and eleven months post active treatment, it is still something I think about every day.

Not in a constant, brooding sort of way, but it is always there, at the back of my mind.
A nagging doubt.
And I'm not sure if it will ever go away.

There will always be that fear of recurrence;  
Every time I pop one of the dreaded tamoxifen pills, when I'm wide awake in the middle of the night and find myself tip tapping on Google...when I'm fighting lower back pain.
Always there.

But one of the positive things to come out of the past year and a half - and there were a few - was that it's helped me to focus my business more on something I am passionate about.
Cancer.

We may be in 2019, but cancer still seems to be something that is whispered about, not discussed openly and referred to in vague tones.
Yet nearly half of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetime.

There appears to be a distinct lack of cancer cards and gifts available on the high street.
A get well soon card just doesn't seem appropriate, so this year I've started designing my own, marking cancer milestones.

These are two from a range available at my Etsy Shop, 
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TheSherbetPatch

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/552318150/chemo-card-cancer-card-chemo-is-tough?ref=shop_home_active_19

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/290553063/cancer-card-chemo-card-bald-brave-and?ref=shop_home_active_18

Hot, hot, hotter. Flushing my way through the menopause.

Menopause.

Growing up I had no real concept of menopause.
If it was talked about at all it was in hushed tones and never in public.
And definitely not discussed with men.
By early adulthood, my view of menopause was that it was something all women went through; an end to periods and a few hot flushes.
No big deal.
How wrong I was!

A year ago I was flung in to an immediate menopause after my second chemo. 
Boom!
No more periods, immediate hot flushes.
And fatigue...oh my goodness, the fatigue!

Two months later I started on Tamoxifen, which just cemented this sudden menopause.
No gradual decline of oestrogen over time, this was instant!

Now, the hot flushes and fatigue were joined by intermittent back pain, weight gain, disturbed sleep, and aching joints.

There is a definite roundness around my middle.
It has expanded alarmingly.

I find myself oohing and aahing as I unfold myself in bed in the morning.
Or getting up from a chair.

And brain fog. 
Finding myself mid sentence, only to get distracted and forget what I was saying.
Concentration is not one of my strengths.

Menopause is not for the faint hearted.
Whatever I had expected, it isn't this.
My new must have/can't leave the house without item is a folding fan.
I go through one a month before it starts to fall apart from overuse.

Duvets....oooft!
It's a 4.5 tog duvet or nothing these days.
And an open window.

My whole wardrobe has had to have an overhaul.
As a former freezer I have a cupboard full of sweaters.
However, within minutes of wearing one I'm having to wrestle it over my head as the hot flush hits.
I now live in summer dresses all year round.

And the icing on the cake?
These symptoms could last a decade or more!

Survivor. Reflection and Moving on.

A year ago today I was nine days past my first chemo.
I was anxiously clinging onto my hair and the unrealistic hope that I may defy the odds and not lose it.
I lost it, and had it shaved off on 4th June.

Today, I am reflecting on a year that tested me both physically and mentally.
Eight and a half months of gruelling treatment; baldness, nausea, mouth ulcers, joint pain, bone ache and crashing fatigue.
The fatigue and back pain continue today,  joined by random hot flashes and a definite roundness around my middle that wasn't there before...thank you, Tamoxifen!
The fear of it returning is ever present, at the back of my mind.
BUT...I survived!

So often I read that a cancer diagnosis changes your life.
I wouldn't say it's radically changed mine, but what it has done is change my outlook on life and appreciate the important things.

Family, nature, the changing seasons...
Last year I wondered if I'd see the daffodils bloom again.
This year, I have immersed myself into the garden, my happy place, with my mini allotment, visiting hedgehogs and special cats.
It grounds me.

Emotionally, I'm back on an even keel, but no one emerges from chemo unscathed.
Both physically and mentally, you take a battering.
And it's the mental battering that takes longer to recover from.
Every niggle or pain becomes a ''what if''
Anxiety rears its head at unexpected moments, and a complete nights sleep is now just a distant memory.

But on the plus side, having my head shaved was liberating.
Despite it being one of my biggest fears I quite liked bald.
It grew on me, and I never wore a wig.
And you know what?  I may just keep it short!

Going through chemo and coming out the other side...it makes you stronger.
Tougher.
A survivor.

June 2018                                            September 2018

     

February 2019                    April 2019

FEC T. One down, five to go.

''What did you do on the bank holiday?''
''Oh, I spent it on the chemo ward.''
And this bank holiday?
Same again!

Chemo.
I had so many preconceptions, yet little idea of what it would actually entail.

My first reaction to the initial cancer diagnosis was sheer terror.
Am I going to die?
People die of cancer!

Followed swiftly by 
''If I don't have to have chemo I'll be okay, it can't be that bad if I don't have chemo.''
''I can't go bald, I can't cope with bald, everyone'll know I've got cancer, I'll look ill!''

I'm having chemo.
And my hair is starting to shed.

Strangely enough, I feel quite calm about the whole thing.
Having a plan in place, a timetable of treatment, is a huge help.
It's the not knowing, the endless waiting for results, that causes the most stress.
As soon as I learned that my sentinel lymph node had tested positive for cancer I knew that chemo was going to be offered.
And that was when an inner calmness just seemed to kick in.

Chemo is doable.
It's not easy, and I'm sure it'll get harder as time goes by, but with two good weeks out of every three, I can cope with that!
Gentle exercise and fresh air is key.
And sunny weather.
My veggie patch has never had so much attention!

Entering the chemo ward for the first treatment was emotional.
I felt I was signing the death warrant on my hair with the first red syringe.
I cried a few silent tears.

Two hours later I was leaving the ward, no more tears and armed with a bag of medication and the dreaded box of seven syringes, along with a shiny yellow sharps container.
The only instructions I had received for self injecting were 
''grab a piece of tummy fat with one hand and inject with the other'' 
I was apprehensive.

Google brought up some dubious sites, but I figured it out and the thought was worse than the reality.
And they worked...I had more energy than before chemo!

The mouth ulcers, now they were painful.
I wasn't expecting the mouth ulcers.
But Difflam mouthwash eventually worked its magic there.

And then there's the hugely emotive issue of the hair.
The oncologist had told me I'd be bald by my next session.

Day 11 and it started to shed.
Just the odd strand here and there, but a definite loosening.
Every morning I check my pillow, expecting to see large chunks of hair that have migrated from my head.
The hairbrush collects so much I'm surprised to still have a covering.
It's resiliant, and to the outside world my hair looks no different, but I can feel that it's thinner.

Today is day 19, and the shedding has picked up the pace at an alarming rate.
I'm having to wrap orders wearing a hairnet.
A headband in the wind.
And this morning I was picking stray hairs out of a tea cup.

I want to prove the oncologist wrong and still have a covering on Monday.
I'll be happy if my hair is still there on Monday.
But I think I'll be bald within a week.

Bald is going to be emotional.
While I still have hair it's a bit of an abstract concept.

The wig voucher is still sitting in an envelope, unused.
I'm not sure I want a wig.
I've seen some lovely wigs, but what I want is my own hair, and not an imitation.

I can't get my head around wigs, so will probably stick with an extensive selection of headwear, but never say never!
I'm sure by the end of chemo I'll be sick of scarves and ready to embrace a wig whilst my eagerly anticipated and frustratingly slow growing new hair is bedding in.


Two days until chemo number two.

My favourite hat by
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/homegrownhat

Still Me.

18th January 2018.

A date that will be forever etched in my mind.
The date of my first national screening mammogram.

I remember the morning vividly - crisp, cold and sunny.

I was wearing a red and white striped jumper, with my favourite bell bottom jeans.
My only concern?
That I must be officially old to have received that particular invitation through the post!

Fast forward three and a half months and I am sitting here, two surgeries later and twenty lymph nodes lighter, contemplating the start of chemotherapy in thirteen days time.
It's a scary step into the unknown.

My world has been spun on its axle and breast cancer has appeared out of nowhere.
Small and early, but grade 3.

Each set of results was an emotional body blow.
Words like lymph nodes and oestrogen and calcifications acquired a whole new significance.
FEC T has become shorthand for my weapon of choice to obliterate any rogue cells still lurking around.
Cancer has suddenly become very real but I won't let it define me.

Still me.

Clouds of grey.

Sewing by fairylight.

For the past five days my sewing machine has remained in an unused and hidden state.

Today I reclaimed it for a retro Paddington coffee cosy, but only after I'd braved the grey clouds to mooch in the veggie patch, abandoned for most of December.

I'll use the term veggie patch loosely, as in December it tends to resemble a mud bath.
Although this morning, due to the compost bin upending itself and splaying the contents across the mud it looked practically tropical!

I love my veggie patch.
The perfect antidote to hours on the sewing machine.

Greenfinch

Winding down for Christmas. The twitchiness of adapting to the post orders lull.

For the past month or so my life has revolved around the daily post office dash, interspersed with the odd fabric crisis and packaging alarm calls before the sun has risen.

On the plus side, those early alarm calls meant the daily serenade of bird song.
And for the cats it meant an extra breakfast and extended snoozing, while I wrestled with cellotape, cellophane and the temperamental printer.

And then it stopped.

Thursday was my cut off date for sending before Christmas; the orders whirlwind has ground to a much needed halt.

And today I'm twitchy.

The sewing machine is packed away, and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms.
Twitchy.
The garden's soggy, no distraction there.
By tomorrow evening I'll be fine, but for now...it's taking a lot of willpower to maintain a distance between me and the fabric!

On the plus side, the machine free table, newly beeswaxed and bedecked with gingham, is looking rather wonderful.
Yesterday it was used for my first ever sit down meal for six.
A pre Christmas family dinner, and the perfect opportunity to dust off an ever growing vintage glass collection.
Cut glass bonbon dishes, delicate shot glasses for mini desserts, vintage trifle bowls...everything I love.

Christmas is family time, more than ever this year as my son emigrated to Austria a few months ago, so family time is precious.

And I love any excuse to bake, to cook...to rock a new apron!
(This one is blue and white whales)


Merry Christmas!

Family.

Josh.

Measure, measure and measure again!

This week, at the grand old age of fifty, I made my very first pair of grown up-lined-and-complete-with-header-tape curtains.
Many things surprised me - that I'd never done it before, that header tape is cheaper now than it was 20 years ago - that my slapdash measuring wasn't accurate.

Ah yes - the measuring.
After a brief and approximate flurry of a tape measure, when it came to seam allowances I decided my eye would be fine.
Ha!  
Fine meant one curtain hanging a good inch longer than the other.
And a hurried repair job resulting in a double seam on one curtain.
Luckily I love the fabic enough to overlook this minor failing.
Afterall, it's flamingos, backed with pink and white polka dots.

I have my eye on more fabric, this time for the bedroom.
Having recently gone sofa free I now have the space I've craved to spread out with reams of fabric.

I've had a love hate relationship with the sofa.
Sometimes there's nothing better than being sprawled under a blanket on the sofa, chocolate in one hand, remote in the other.
But it was making me lazy.
And taking up valuable floor space.
Suddenly, I was resenting the sofa.
Glaring at it.
So, last week, as a victim of my recently acquired decluttering frenzy, it was unceremoniously ousted to the pavement, enroute to the local recyling centre.
And I haven't missed it at all.

https://www.craftsy.com/blog/2015/03/how-to-sew-lined-curtains/

For anyone interested in making their own curtains, I found the Craftsy blog post above very easy to follow.
And my tip...measure, measure and measure again!

F-F-F-fifty. Clearing out and starting afresh.

Fifty.

Well, two weeks in and my world didn't spin on its axle.
I didn't suddenly find my inbox innundated with Saga offers and Plan your own Funeral promotions.
I didn't suddenly wake up feeling morose.
But what it did give me was a sense of restlessness and craving for adventure.
Which is a bit tricky when I struggle to stay awake past 11pm and have a tolerance for alcohol that fails after a two glasses of wine!

When I think back to the alcohol consumed from communal blue jugs during my backpacking, kibbutz hopping days...
Or the partying till 3am and still up for work by 6...
Now, I have an out of date passport, an over stuffed coalshed and get excited by branch loppers!
And an urge to streamline my accumulated clutter and chuck out anything that isn't useful or beautiful.

It's amazing how much clutter we accumulate over the years, all that ''just in case'' stuff we keep for a time when it may be useful.
Layers upon layers of STUFF.
I'm still working my way through to the darkest depths of the coalshed, through the coal blackened cobwebs and dustballs hiding decades of accumulated clutter destined for the skip.
Inside, I've thrown out so much clutter that if I ignore the shop stock it's looking practically minimal :)

Strangely satisfying and definitely a knock on effect from reaching fifty.

Suki. Diary of a cat with hyperthyroidism.

So, a week in from the first diagnosis and I would say my pill giving technique needs some improvement.

A combination of me still learning and Suki being wise to all the tricks.

''Just mix it in with her food''  the vet said.

Ha!!! Suki just nibbles around it.

''Coat it with something sticky, like cream cheese, and the cat won't notice it''  said the forum post.

Well, notice it she did!

So for now we're perservering with the pill-down-the-throat technique.

And eight times out of ten I'm sure it goes down.

Although today, after Suki dutifully made all the swallowing actions, I later discovered it on the outside mat.

We're getting there, but she's upset with me today, and hiding under the raspberry canes.

And I feel suitably guilty.

''I'm sure there's a hedgehog here somewhere...''

Suki. Diary of a cat with newly diagnosed hyperthyroidism.

Suki.
Age 14 and two thirds.
Skitty, faithful and a mini diva, yesterday diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.

It's a big responsibility, knowing a pet is totally dependent on you for daily medication for life.
Daily administering of a pill, twice daily.
The first went down on attempt number 3.
The second I went for the gentler approach of hiding in food, but cats aren't stupid, and she ate around it!
I'm going to have to get creative/devious with the tablets.

This is a fortnight where Suki turned my hair grey with worry and putting off the inevitable visit to the vets.
There was the audible breathing, hours spent sleeping under the raspberry canes, cystitis, and finally a lump the size of a broadbean on her neck.
The lump worried me.
Terrified me, with thoughts of cancer.
And then the vet heard a swooshing sound whilst listening to her heart.
The words ''heart murmur'' were mentioned, and she was kept in for tests.
And I had to walk through a packed waiting room minus a cat.

The waiting was awful.
Not getting results over the phone sounded ominous.
But the heart results were clear, kidney disease was clear and hyperthyroidism suddenly didn't seem so bad a diagnosis.

And Suki's home.

Formica. Oozing retro nostagia.

The humble formica table.

As a child of the seventies I grew up with formica.
It was a staple in cafes, along with sugar lumps in glass bowls and plastic ketchup bottles.
It had pride of place in my grandparents back room, where I remember it laden with sliced eggs, bread and butter and battenburg every Sunday visit in my teenage.
I was fascinated by the plastic egg slicer with the lethal metal blades.
And my dad remembers playing submarines with the accompanying chairs, with their pop up plastic seat pads.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/jan/17/formica-turns-100


Now I have taken delivery of my own formica table, and it has pride of place in the kitchen.
It's been a long time since I've seen these tiles, which lurked behind a not-so-lovely coal burner and later a quirky 1940s cabinet.
And seem to be missing vast chunks of tile under the newly banished cobwebs and dust...another project!

Originating from the 1950s, with beech legs and matching chairs, it is wonderfully solid and retro.
I love the chunky Formica top, with its extendable leaves and powder blue finish.
I love the puffiness of the plastic seat bases, with their gently curved beech wood frames.
And it's carried me into a wave of nostalgia.

A vintage treasure from my favourite shop in Swansea, 
The British Red Cross, with their ever changing, quirky, eclectic mix of vintage furniture.

Roses are pink, Sugar Skulls red..

Well, as I don't seem to be in imminent danger of distraction by sunshine, Sugar Skulls it is then.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/532370145/a-tea-cosy-sugar-skulls-a-medium-sized?ref=shop_home_active_16

https://folksy.com/shops/thesherbetpatch

I do have a particular fondness for this fabric.
Both colourways pop, and it's a versatile fabric.
I've surprised myself with this new found penchant for skulls fabric!
This one will be a coffee cosy.



Surprising how quickly you get used to wall to wall sunshine.
In a week which saw temperatures rivalling Southern Europe rather than the usual welsh spring bathed in grey drizzle, this morning came as a bit of a shock.
And it's cold!

On the upside...and I'm grasping at straws here...it means less distraction from the lure of the garden, a good book and a recliner, but that's not much of an upside!

So...bad TV and a solid day of stock building it is then, with the backdrop of my favourite garden rose through the window.
I've never been particularly good with flowers, but this is a fifteen year old rose bush that just seems to look after itself.
And, unlike me, it thrives in the rain.

Unlike the hedgehogs, who certainly don't take kindly to getting drenched of a night time.

Big Boris, making his nightly visit through the garden fence.

Beautiful Tiggy, seemingly pregnant!

Little Alfred,  a juvenile hedgehog who first appeared in the Autumn.