Here is a snowdrop painting with one of Jane’s lovely pots. We have carpets of snowdrops all over the place; i'm not sure why I was alarmed by a few a couple of blog posts ago.
I missed last week’s blog as we went to Harrogate for the funeral for M’s brother’s wife Helen. Very sad but Helen had left instructions for everyone to have a good time so that’s what happened. The service was full of tributes, nothing mawkish or overly sentimental (mawkish!). I think Helen would have approved.
I then had a day at Papworth going through the usual tests and investigations. My white cell count is slowly increasing but I’m still plagued by fluid retention ie elephant legs which I am not happy about. And too many diuretics will take me back to crispy kidneys. I was started on a new nebuliser as prophylaxis for pseudonomas, a bacteria that thrives in the lungs.
It was that or Azithromycin which when I took it before gave me Achilles tendonitis and loss of taste which plunged me into absolute misery. The Colomycin nebuliser is ok and doesn’t take too long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes but is a bit of an inconvenience even once a day.
I’m back again in a couple of weeks with yet another bronchoscopy booked, although I may not need it depending on my tests that day; spirometry and X-ray in particular. Fingers crossed I don’t need it as I am hoping to go to Bristol after that to visit my good friend Ann.
I missed all my art classes last week too but I’ve been painting more snowdrops and pots with various accessories:
My greatest achievement last week was setting up my website victoriakurrein.bigcartel.com . I’ve put a few paintings for sale on there, the issue now is how to get the right people to know about it. My Instagram followers are gradually increasing and I get some encouraging comments so in theory I should be able to sell more.
Yesterday I hit just the right side of sensory overload. M went to a session to lear about cyanotypes and his beautiful blues: make him my artist of the week:
Unfortunately photo editor chops off some of the picture so they're all slightly cropped; I'm going to use one in a painting too.
I had a proper medical pedicure so have new feet and got some nice new perfume called Radio Bombay with notes of ‘radiant wood, copper, cedar, sandalwood, radiant iris, boronia, balsam fir absolute, coconut musc and ambergris’ so I am wafting around today feeling sophisticated releasing ‘blooms of musk, cream, peach, ambrette, coco, and cedar distillates’.
We also had one of the nicest lunches ever. I decided to break my food rules and throw caution to the wind (storm Clara I think) so I went for Gorgonzola (banned) with pear, walnuts and chicory, and chalk stream trout with charred cauli, raisins and capers sitting on another banned aioli type of bed. A glass of Burgundy and a delicious New Zealand Chardonnay saw me through to my lemon cake with prune and creme fraiche. I won’t bore you with what everyone else (M and Pam and Lee) enjoyed. It was an excellent lunch for all though.
I don’t have anything exciting this week but can go to art. And of course Valentines Day on Friday when we’ll go to fish and chips in the village hall which apparently will be valentine themed. Talking of village halls we went to out local one first for the pop up pub and again last Friday to their first film night.
We watched Judy with Renee Zelwegger who was fantastic as Judy Garland. I thought it was done well ie they didn’t overegg the childhood ‘abuse’ I guess it would be called now, but did show how her dependency on drugs started and the effect of becoming the child star on her as a grown up.
£4.50 a ticket and bar open so a nice relaxed cinema experience a few hundred yards away. Next months is a thriller with Keira Knightly which I’d like to see. They seem to have chosen the films quite well to fit the audience. Popular but not too popular viewing.
A fairly major step was having the star lift removed (stored under the stairs should we become infirm in the future). I am now trying to find someone to fit an old Turkish Kelim runner.
Right this minute we have someone putting in Ralph's catflap. I have bought him a harness and lead (optimistically) so that just leaves a large carrier, scratching post , litter tray and other assorted paraphernalia to get. Only 19 days to go!