Saturday 13 – Sunday 14 July 2019
I woke up around 8:00 and went downstairs, feeling fairly good. I prepared breakfast for our guests and the rest of the family once everyone else started to emerge. After an hour or so on my feet, I was worn out and needed to go and lie down for a bit.
Later in the morning we all drove into town to have a wander around. We had a look at some shops and a small market that was on, then everyone was keen to eat. I was getting tired, so I walked home while the others went back to the car and headed to the café and ice cream parlour at the nearby Pyle Farm. I got home quite exhausted, but had enough energy to make something to eat before having a rest. The others got back after a couple of hours and our friends headed off to their next destination in Dorset. It was great to have had them visit.
Our eldest daughter had been invited to a sleepover on a farm which she used to visit frequently a year or two earlier. One of her friends came to collect her, leaving us with just one child for the night. We got her off to bed straight after dinner, which gave us the luxury of a free evening. We picked a film (after much deliberation) and stayed up to watch that, quite ready to sleep by the time it finished.
The next morning I was still quite tired, not really having been able to shake the fatigue off over the past few days, but at least I wasn’t feeling sick. The cough was still there and I was beginning to expect that to now be a permanent feature during the chemo.
Pia and I spent a little bit of time in the garden. We repotted a couple of plants and Pia put a few new seedlings in vegetable beds. I rearranged a few things in the greenhouse, trying to make the best use of the space for what we had in there.
Pia went out to collect our elder daughter (and her friends) from the sleepover. After lunch, the two of them went to Bath to do some shoe shopping and I stayed at home with our younger daughter. We played some board games and had a mess around with my little Roland TB-3 digital synthesiser. It’s a newer digitally modelled version of the classic TB-303 from the 1980s, which is famous for its unique squelchy bass lines popularised by the sounds of acid house and acid techno dance music. It’s quite good fun.
I went out and watered the garden before dinner. After dinner, and once the girls were in bed, Pia and I dealt with a few bits of admin before going to bed ourselves. I’d been feeling ok most of the weekend and managed pretty well, but the tiredness was pervasive. Although I was coping with getting things done and even spending time in the garden or walking around town, it was exhausting and I was still having to rest a lot. I suppose that’s not surprising though, being six weeks into my chemo schedule.