Well, That Made A Change.

You know those surprise weekend breaks that people have been rushing off for for the last couple of years? To Munchen or Bratislava ? Well, I had a variation this week ....  

Food-wise it couldn't be recommended, eight cheese rolls being rather too much of a good thing and I don't know about you, but I prefer to take my toothbrush and a nightie away with me , but everyone was terribly friendly and the coffee was very good. It was a couple of rather busy days, not recommended if you wanted a rest, but it did make a change.

Last Saturday I felt a little peculiar and I still felt strange on Sunday, so when Youngest Daughter phoned on Sunday evening I couldn't really talk to her. Then Friend 'phoned and I didn't do much better but had luckily already decided to talk to the doctor on Monday or Tuesday. It's all right. Next time I'll just call an ambulance straightaway  and put everyone's mind at rest. I'd had a TIA.
I now sound fine, have had every test known to man and seem to be condemned to taking another form of Statins but I've been told that I might not react so badly to these, they're milder.

Since it seemed that I wasn't going to get home till I did, I'm swallowing them and keeping my fingers crossed. These are quite gentle which might be easier for both me and my great-greatgrandmother to put up with … apparently even vaguely Keralan people can only tolerate them so well.

I definitely don't want to be difficult. (The young specialist looked about twenty but I feel she and her gang looked as though they'd be bossy and I was determined to get out before series 3 of The Good Place was going to begin.) Besides, I'd read all the magazines and I'd eaten two lots of salmon and broccolli… I felt I'd wrung the whole experience dry.

I Had No Idea ...

Until last weekend I had no idea that my life was missing something so fundamental. Other people had cats or canaries, Guinea pigs or ant farms. A mouse in the skirting board. Dandelions on the lawn or mushrooms in the cellar… But Gloria and I soldiered on without any of these things.

 And then I went down to Amsterdam on Saturday to have lunch and a wander round with YD. We went to Hortus, the Botanic Gardens, and mooned over endless beautiful ferns and palm trees of all shapes and sizes. We're not gardeners; between us we have five plants, one of which is the balding, albino Basil in my kitchen. But we loitered by the purple Velvet plants and the little signs inviting us to stroke them, and we crushed mint and verbena leaves. We stabbed ourselves with an armoury of needle sharp cactii and admired our reflections in lily pad filled ponds. We were enchanted by the Butterfly house and peered through the windows of the Caterpillar House ( No Entry, presumably in case one inadvertently treads on a few). And just as we were beginning to feel hungry and reckoned we'd seen our moneysworth of greenery, I saw what  my balcony's been missing , an Elephant's Foot Palm, otherwise known as a Ponytail Palm.

 I know that Gloria would love one as would the pansy that grew after I'd planted some paprika seeds and the pink daisy-things that seem to be growing  horizontally next door …

I think I'm getting the hang of gardening …….