Back to the milkman, a positive deluge, social media support and a scan in the offing.........

 It’s Saturday morning, Peter has gone off to work - it’s nice and quiet in the house and I’m back to writing my blog........ 

I say it’s nice and quiet - however - I am in our loft bedroom and the rain has not stopped as long as I’ve been awake to hear it (2 o’clock, 5 o’clock......... fill in the gaps). I’m wondering if we should be building an ark? I feel so sorry for people who have been affected by flooding - losing their homes and precious possessions to dirty flood water - not much worse than that (apart from fire perhaps? And we do have friends who lost their house in a huge fire, due to the demented elderly neighbour’s hoarding and incapacity, tragic). 

Be thankful for small mercies I say! 

I have ventured down to the kitchen and eagerly discovered today’s delivery! Well, two deliveries actually...... I have had the very first drop by the milkman! Don’t think I’ve seen a milkman since the nineteen nineties! Well - my milkman is apparently called Michal, and he is happy to deliver to me every week, so I have recklessly put myself down for two pints of semi-skimmed every Saturday.... I also added luxury fruit yoghurts, double cream, crumpets, lemonade and freshly squeezed orange juice to today’s order as well - got to make Michal’s trek up my garden path worth it! I decided to pursue the milk delivery idea after my old school friend Sue sent Peter home the other day with a proper glass bottle of excess milk from her kitchen (brand new and beautifully constructed by the Legend - the kitchen, that is, not the milk bottle.....) I looked at it and felt decidedly reminiscent. An internet scour found Milk and More, and I registered for available delivery slots as soon as possible. They e mailed me within a week to say that I was on the list....... back to glass bottles! Yay! 

These bottles remind me of the days in my primary school classroom, where we had a big burner in the corner of the classroom, and we all used to put our wet and snowy outdoor clothes and shoes and boots around it, (where they steamed gently until playtime....... and then we went out and got soaked again....) no wonderful snowsuits for us in the sixties - we had wool duffel coats, wool hats, woollen gloves, cotton or wool socks, and woolly handmade jumpers....... and we had a crate of milk bottles (the little 1/3 pint ones, which often had been pecked by birds (we still drank them), and when it was freezing, the solid frozen milk used to push the tops off the bottles!). Not so enchanting in the summertime though, when it was often warm and starting to go off! So strange to think how different classrooms are now. There were 40 children in my primary school class. Imagine........ 

I  also have nauseating memories of being the “milk monitor”, which mostly involved using the blackboard cloth to mop up spilt milk.......... or maybe I was the blackboard monitor?? - which ever role it was, it involved the handling of the stinking rag! 

By the time I’d gone to secondary school, the blackboards were cleaned with blackboard rubbers, no more stinking cloths.......... 

Back to the 2020s!

Much as I love my local co-op (and close friends and family know that I say that with heartfelt meaning), it’s a treat not to have to toil around the shop, masked up and avoiding others who aren’t, to get basics - and often to find that there isn’t much in the way of basics left on the shelves!

My second delivery of the day (which arrived at 04.08 this morning 😩 and was very wet due to the deluge) was my fortnightly Oddbox. I’m sure everyone knows about Oddbox now - a fruit and vegetable delivery. This is what they say on their website :- “we rescue delicious, fresh fruit and veg for being ‘too’ odd, ‘too’ big, ‘too’ small, having cosmetic defects, or even being ‘too’ many from the farms and deliver it to your doorstep”. One of my fortnightly challenges is deciding what to do with some of the vegetables (and occasionally the fruit), many of which I wouldn’t have considered buying in the first place. 

I have peeked in to this week’s box before coming back upstairs with my tea and crumpets (thank you Michal - but the Miel was courtesy of Lou, from France)........

....and the first thing I notice is that they have. given me beetroot again!  Am not a particular lover of the b’root - although I am aware that researchers have shouted about its merits, especially in terms of athletics. I find it just tastes too much of the earth....... and not in a good way. I shall be googling beetroot recipes again later today. Beetroot crisps were good last time, if all else fails, I shall make more of those. Oh - and I did make a very successful beetroot risotto last year too!

You will detect, from reading this far, that I am endeavouring to go out to the shops less...... It’s good having the shops on my doorstep, and I do appreciate the independents, but needs must I guess. I have also started doing online supermarket shopping. I favour Morrisons (well, I do like the idea of 10% off 😏) but they don’t seem to have any delivery slots available at all, so I have resorted to the Click and Collect , which also works really well. Although I do have to drive to Mitcham which is the only store doing this service, bizarrely!

When I can’t sleep in the wee small hours, I do my supermarket online shop.  Mind you - I thought I had booked to collect on Monday and not Saturday - but the online gods apparently do not lie. This error was verified by text and by e mail! I must concentrate harder at 2 am.

I have had my 8th Nivolumab infusion this week. All went very smoothly. I was quite fatigued yesterday, and am very itchy from time to time - also waking up with a really dry and parched mouth (takes me back to the halcyon days of the hangover) but apart from that, I’m very lucky, Side effects are really minimal. 

The lovely Chelsea Consultant, Dr Taylor, called me on Tuesday prior to my treatment. It always fills me with nervous trepidation if I see, or speak to, her - often bad news when it’s the big boss on the line! But no. She was just ‘catching up’ with me, and wanted to let me know that they are booking a PET scan for next week, so we can see how the treatment is working. I don’t relish going in the scanning machine, I keep my eyes tightly closed for the duration  - but it’ll be reassuring (I hope) to see how the immunotherapy is working.

I have been involved, since I started the therapy, with a facebook group entitled Immunotherapy Support Group (original, I know) - and I have mostly really relished hearing others stories (of success mostly) but I had become very aware that it was America biased. Lots of tales of insurance problems etc. Also, it becomes blindingly apparent that care varies enormously from place to place. With this in mind, I decided to set up a UK based support network. 

I was very anxious at 9 am on Thursday morning, when I began setting this Facebook Group up, because I was the one and only member. But, gratifyingly, by supper time, I had over 40 members! I’m also delighted that one of my friends (who is a cancer nurse at the Royal Marsden, Chelsea) has also joined, and has some great ideas about helping patients by having information files on the home page. Thanks Fiona. We only have to work out how to do it now! She quietly asked me if she thought it was appropriate to be in the group, so I asked the members what they thought. They all thought it was a brilliant idea....... 

So, apart from some lovely snowy weather last weekend - which we all loved -

....... I have had a quiet week - 

I’ve made three hats for friends who are going through their own personal cancer journeys, and a jumper that I was knitting has now turned into a dress/tunic! There is a reason for this - and I can’t show a picture, because it’s a surprise.......... 

I’ve also had a couple of great walks - one in Crystal Palace Park with one of my oldest friends (Shirley is always noticeable, due to the pink hair. I kid you not) where we spotted a plaque that we didn’t know about. Did you know that Bob Marley played his last London gig at the concert bowl here on 7th June 1980?

I also include some delightful pictures of snowdrops peeping through the mud.... and winter honeysuckle (which I did not know existed!!! Shame on me) 

Look out for it. It smells divine!

Lonicera fragrantissima

Sending love and strength to everyone..... hopefully, we’ll be seeing the tail end of this pandemic soon. Fingers tightly crossed.

I’m off now to Morrisons. 

Click and Collect R Go........

🥰