26th September

Josie and I are away this week on what we grandly call our road trip.
We went first to Ely. We both wanted to look at the cathedral and it was just as extraordinarily beautiful as I remembered it. We stayed at a nearby pub which was comfortable in a ramshackle way. We went to see my oldest friend. We met when we were three. We hadn’t met for many years.  Just had long phone calls.  Then on to my dear sister J near Newcastle. We whizzed up and down the A1M like real truckers. I am lethal with the sat nav. I only have to touch it and it goes haywire. I put in the wrong postcodes sometimes.  Josie had to confiscate it in the end.
On our way home today from ravishing Derbyshire.
Vicky


The play went well. I get a warm feeling when I think of it as it was well put together by our friend T.  Perhaps we will start a trend for families to put on plays about relatives lives. Why not?
I am sitting in a twin bed next to my mum in a hotel in Derbyshire. I have just drunk a complimentary decaf coffee and eaten a shortbread biscuit. We are watching Highland Midwives on the telly.  There's a pool outside fed by a natural spring I can swim in.  Hooray.  It's good to swim after being crumpled in the car, but I don't mind driving.  
Vicky’s childhood friend who we visited yesterday was resilient and stoical as children of the 1930s seem to be. I wonder what my generation will be like when we are old.  Much more scruffy I suspect. With no milk jugs or toast racks or coasters under our mugs.  I loved finding out minor details about my grandparents that only family friends would notice.
Josie

19th September

My last day in the hospital yesterday before my six-month career break.  My team gave me a good sendoff. I walked mindfully down the corridors saying hello and goodbye to everyone I know and even felt fond of the depressing lifts. Most of the wards are full of such poorly patients, with tubes in every orifice and barely enough nurses to keep them safe. The NHS staff are generally incredible I think, as an army for good. But that hospital is a hard place and sometimes I cannot stand another moment of the suffering. Our work gives us status though and fills our days and I wonder what will become of me.  My priorities are Vick, Tiger, cleaning, admin, reading, writing.  And as long as Vick feels well, trips to the library, choir, improv, nibbles n scribbles, friends and Qi Gong.  And lots of chatting.

Josie

 I am reading mostly thrillers and detective stories at the moment which I get from the Library:  I rediscovered some written by P.D. James which I hadn`t read before and also I was lucky to find a Donna Leon as yet unread. I love her books, always set in Venice with a wonderfully erudite policeman called Brunetti and descriptions of delicious Italian meals cooked by his wife Paola.

These golden September days are truly amazing - the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, what a good phrase, I wish I had thought of that one.  We now have a new animal in the family.  Granddaughter M now has a grey horse called Prince.  He is to be seen contentedly munching grass in a field in Plumpton so I waved to him as I was driven to the choir yesterday.

I am feeling quite perky today and did not slink back into bed after breakfast for a bit as I do sometimes.  All the loving thoughts and healing vibes are working so thanks for them.

Vicky

12 th September

I got lost in the labyrinthine ways of the Royal Sussex Hospital.  I had an appointment at 4 o'clock last Sunday afternoon for an MRI.  Different from the CT scan I had before apparently.  Josie dropped me off to park the car, then I wandered about looking for the right department in a Kafkaesque kind of way.  Everywhere was deserted.  I was rescued by Josie and taken to the right place in the end.  I was shunted into a white plastic sarcophagus and the radiographer clapped some earphones on me and said: "Want some music?"
I said primly "only classical.  I don't listen to pop."
"Not much of that I'm afraid" she sniffed
But then I lay for 40 minutes listening to a Mozart piano concerto and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, interspersed with loud screeches and thumps from the machine.
I don't know the results yet.
We are busy rehearsing the play which is being performed in a pub in Brighton on 22nd September.
I fear that no one will come but I am always like that.
I will be glad when it's over and I can start worrying about something else.
Vicky


I have just finished a book called The Last Tudor, about all the three Grey sisters.  Those Tudor women had a rotton time of it, but I can't help envying them not having to worry about climate change.  Elizabeth 1st sounded difficult but charismatic, and charisma goes a long way.  I'm going to read Clock Dance by Anne Tyler next, who is always good although nothing much happens.
I will enjoy being a driver for Vicky. I have always liked driving.  My sabbatical starts next Wednesday and I wonder how it will be.  I am a planner but cannot particularly plan at the moment.  I will have a Japanese boy and a Chilean girl as lodgers living here as well as Tiger in her last year of school, and I will still do acupuncture all day Monday so perhaps I will not be too idle.  I have got a Macmillan booklet called "Looking after a person with cancer."  I want to read it all properly and do everything they tell me.
Josie

5th September

The rehearsals for the play of Vicky's life are going well, and I think it will be entertaining.  All lives are interesting and I think it is a Good Thing To Do, even though Vick is worried it is an ego trip.  I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with work and just too many arrangements, but as my six-month career break draws nearer I am hoping there will somehow be space, and time with Vicky and some sense of quality of life for both of us.  However, no one knows how it will all pan out for any of us, so we will take it day by day.  
I love this golden light and chilly mornings.  I saw the new Tarantino film the other day and hated it generally.  The only good thing was the details about America in the 1970s as I liked the clothes and the font on the tins in the cupboard etc.  The plot seemed most dull to me, and the characters not well rounded.  I always love going to the cinema though, just for the velvet seat and the popcorn, and the adverts and trailers and big screen. It is so exciting.
Josie

Yesterday I had a lovely day meeting up with some of my old Winchester friends many of whom lived at the Meeting House fifteen or more years ago, including five children and a baby also dear Russian granny came too.    We all met at Petworth House, National Trust place halfway from Ditchling to Winchester and sat and talked in the gardens until the place closed at 5 o'clock.

I am giving up my car next week so it is good to have a few last drives around the Sussex countryside.

But I have no regrets about deciding to be carless.  

What a shocking state we are in at the moment with MP`s leaving the Tory party after a lifetime and Ken Clark describing the Prime Minister as  `that knockabout character` I can`t think how it is all going to end.   They should all try sitting in some Quaker silence for a bit together to clear their minds

Healthwise, I was relieved to discover that one of the common symptoms of having cancer is fatigue.  I had thought that my habit of lying around on the sofa was pure laziness.

Vicky