Yesterday he had the energy to walk round the garden and look at the progress in the Autumn clean up. A low branch of the sapium tree (Sapium sebiferum) is competing with the ponytail (Beaucarnea recurvata) and he had the energy to get the saw and remove the branch. In the process teaching me to use the reciprocating saw so that in the future I will be able to do the heavier pruning myself - am just not strong enough to hand saw big branches. So the electric option will be good. We took a few more branches of the sapium and then also did some of the crab apples, which are out of control and starting to adversely impact the vegetable garden. I now have a pile of branches to cut up for garbage day next week.
Lo our son, came to visit, always a pleasure. He and my man have worked together for many years and have an ease of comradeship. Lo has taken over the workshop and it is gradually being sorted and tidied. In the process all sorts of treasures that my magpie man has stored over a lifetime have been unearthed. The two share an artistic bent and spent a happy hour discussing options for the treasure. It is sad that though Macmai wants so much to be up and doing he just does not have the strength to follow through on the multitude of ideas buzzing round his mind. We shared a meal, beans for the boys, a family favourite for all except me, and balsamic and basil tomatoes on toast for me. It was the biggest amount of food my man has had in days. Though food and weight loss is a constant worry for me. He is just not managing the calories. Sadly it seems that he is becoming less tolerant of dairy and fat. I suppose that is indicative of progression of his liver disease. A double edged sword as dairy and fat are the cornerstone of dietitian recommendations to maintain or increase weight and the disease is taking away this option and with it some of the resilience to tolerate the chemo and fight the disease. But no more of this ...... let me rather dwell on the good and beautiful .
The mowing man came and now the hedge is trimmed ready for the winter annuals and bulbs to be planted in front and the the lawn is looking very dapper. Another two weeks and the garden should be back to about its best. The weather is so glorious at present, just a nip in the air at night but beautiful sunny days. The vegetable garden is starting to produce again. Lettuce for salad tonight and basil for the tomatoes. Mid summer is so hot here that everything shrivels, especially in the afternoon sun as the garden is west facing.
We sat together in the evening, my man tucked up in bed, dozing in and out of the morphine haze from his night time pain meds. His lymph node metastases were causing positional pain and broken sleep so more morphine at night is needed. Hopefully the chemo is helping this. I sit beside him in our bed and listen to his thoughts in his wakeful moments and to his breathing as he slips off. Very companionable. In earlier months he spent a lot of time in the arm chair in the lounge and I would sit at the improvised table with the jigsaw board and do battle with the 2000 pieces, but he has not sat there for weeks and the battle of the pieces has slowed down to five or so pieces a day. Now I knit and have a vest nearing completion, with just the arm hole and front borders to do. Circular knitting needles required for this - a new experience for me. So there I was painstakingly picking up 349 yes 349 stitches all the way round the front edge and starting to knit the first difficult row of those many stitches, when pop went the plastic tube and the stitches were lost. In my ignorance of circular needles and in the lack of selection in the shop I had not realised that circular needles have two variables; length of connector tubing as well as gauge. So now I have several options and tonight repeated the exercise as painstakingly as before but success this time with three of the thirteen very long rows done.
We have some very old friends from our earliest days in this country with shared memories of our children young and growing to adulthood, of shared weddings and now shared grandchildren. Special friends for people like us, who have lost a country and our shared childhoods and school and young adult friends. I have great envy of people who have a lifelong history in one place.
Today we visited Aitch and Dee for an elegant morning tea. Aitch is a collector with an amazing knowledge of china, silver glass and the customs that went with it all, an interest that both Macmai and I share. We can sit for hours discussing all the in and outs of it all and have great delight in sharing our finds. How the internet has changed the horizons of the antique collector. We also share an interest in plants and gardens and do a lot of plant and cutting sharing. Recently Aitch has acquired a passion for fuchsias and I am the happy recipient of many plants grown from cuttings. Though I might add my success with fuchsias in the past has been notable for plant death.
Macmai had a craving for drop scones today so I made some as our contribution to the tea, which we had in their Victorian lounge, full of some of Aitch's collections, silver tea pot, pretty tea-set and hand embroidered linen. Such an elegant setting and so enjoyable.
The drop scone (pikelet in our adopted country) recipe came from the mother of our landlady. We lived in a little cottage on a farm a decade or so ago. It is good to share tried and trusted recipes especially one that has served generations. So here it is:
Mrs MacDonald’s Pikelets
Ingredients:
·
2 eggs
·
60 ml sugar
·
1 desertspoon syrup
·
1 tablespoon melted butter
·
1 cup milk
·
2 cups SR flour
Method:
beat eggs and sugar well
add syrup and butter
add milk and flour alternately, with additional milk if necessary to make a pouring mixture
cook spoonfuls in a pan , flipping over when
air bubbles form
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