At Last!

 After two and a half months the weather has finally broken and we have had rain.  Not for long, but anything is better than nothing. "Aquitaine" it is not!

A small storm is rumbling around. It can't make up its mind whether to move up into Dordogne or along the Lot.  Rain ran before it, enough to give us, briefly, the rich, peaty smell of damp earth through the open kitchen door.

For weeks we have fretted that this will be the new norm - temperatures in the thirties, guests who do little except lie by the pool, even the ones who in previous years planned their days out.  We hide in the house, grateful for its thick stone walls and high ceilings and close everything down - curtains and shutters - as the unforgiving sun moves round.  

The garden is already autumnal - trees rapidly shedding their brown brittle leaves. The fallen figs are dried out on the ground and the lawns have become bare earth covered in dying weeds. What grass there is has not grown in weeks and is the colour of straw.

I cruelly leave the borders unwatered, asking the roses, geraniums, oleander and hibiscus to cope as best they can.  What survives will become the preferred new plantings for future years.

The guests help to keep the pots alive round the cottage - throwing on washing-up water and buckets from their showers.  I water the tomatoes, but not enough, or too erratically, and the large coeur de boeuf develop blossom end rot.

Until these last few days we have left the pool uncovered to try to keep its temperature below that of warm soup.

For ten days now, the forecasts have been promising the rain, but each day we've watched the small drawings of  grey clouds disappear from the charts. We gave up believing it would happen.  

So, finally, we send up a prayer of thanks to the rain gods and (apologising to those who are on still on holiday) hope that over the coming days we will have more - much more. 

What to Tell?

 An email pops into my inbox from someone who used to holiday here as a child in the seventies.  Her offer of photos from that time sets me off on a nostalgic trip through my blogs from the early days when we restored and renovated the cottage and the house.

Those blogs hold my memories. Things about our life here that I have forgotten and I am grateful for the reminders. And that brings me back to right now and how I have left these recent weeks unrecorded - but what to tell and how?

Early in the year a colonoscopy confirmed what I had suspected - I had colon cancer.  That set me off on a journey of discovery as to how best to deal with it.  The cancer itself has never held fears for me. It is merely part of myself, my cells, reacting to some stimulus: food? stress? anger? environment? who knows?  

My greater concern has been my treatment and what that might entail. As a friend said: "I went into hospital a well man and came out sick".

Not least, my journey led me to discover just how many of my friends and acquaintances have been through the same experience, some many years ago.  It's not one of the cancers we talk about - mild embarrassment about that part of our bodies maybe - yet it's one of the most treatable, if caught early and so merits being discussed.

I'm hoping mine has been caught early.  A scan, pre-op, showed nothing suspicious anywhere else.

So a discussion with my surgeon reassures. He will be doing keyhole surgery, using a robot (said with a touch of pride). The cancer and a portion of my colon will be removed (there is spare) and the remainder will be reattached.  And thus it proved to be.

The hardest part was awaking in the intensive care unit, to too much noise, wires everywhere so I could barely move and constant flashing lights. The four days and nights were interminable, made bearable by the kindest of staff (except when I wanted to stay in bed and burst into tears - "no she must get up, to get things moving again" - they were right of course).  

Two of the nurses asked how old I was - 78 - and I immediately turned into my mother (who used to ask people to guess her age in her 80s) as I lapped up the flattery - "no you can't be"  "how young you look" And (of course) I immediately felt better.

They finally took pity on me and sent me to general nursing where I found tranquillity, a good night's sleep, and a private bathroom where I managed to shower myself and feel half human again. And then I got cramp in my left calf.  And yes, as I feared, a deep vein thrombosis, and the prospect of being kept in. But it's small and I'm back on full dose blood thinners and wearing an elegant (not) compression stocking. So I came home.

But that is only half the story.  We should have said no and waited 'til the autumn, for Tod's sake, given all he was coping with. 

In the weeks before my op, Rona began to limp on her left leg. We took her to the excellent vet who did Bertie's cruciate ligament.  X-rays showed she has a puppy disease - elbow dysplasia - he kept her in, operated on both elbows there and then, removing damaged bone and we were given instructions she needed "repos strict" for 10 weeks. Short walks in the garden, on the lead, to do her business and then back indoors, restricted to one room (the kitchen).  

This, imposed on a teenage Airedale whose greatest joy is haring across our field playing hide and seek and standing on her hind legs to investigate what we are preparing for supper on the kitchen worktop. All this while I'm in hospital and Tod is wanting to visit, an hour's drive away.  His life not helped by Rona's reluctance to do anything whilst on the lead.

I came home to find the modus vivendi was an open kitchen door and Rona able to come and go at will in the garden (no lead) and she is now limping on her right leg.  I try and impose the strict regime on them both, but too late.

And I have sympathy with Rona's belief she is better. I too feel the same. But tiny keyhole scars are misleading as to the healing that needs to take place inside.

Both of us are going back to see our respective surgeons in a couple of weeks.  I hope they are not too cross with us.

And in the meantime, our latest gite guests have arrived, who think Rona is adorable.