The Return from the North

We have been up North, assisting my sister Nute who is recovering from brain surgery.  We did not help her very much by arriving with terrible colds.  When we set off we were both fine, but by the time we arrived Col had a cold. then I got it, then Nute got it.  Poor old Col got it worst of all and has been coughing non-stop.  It has also got very cold up here which did not help him. We have got too used to the warm South and our warm second floor flat I think. Maybe it is time we moved back up North and get re-acclimatised?

Nute is recovering well, after a couple of worrying glitches. And Col has been a tower of strength - albeit a coughing sneezing tower - as always.  Whereas I feel a bit like that broken reed that Jehovah likened Egypt to when the Israelites were relying on the Pharaoh, instead of on Jehovah.

Isaiah 36:6: Look! You trust in the support of this crushed reed, Egypt, which if a man should lean on it would enter into his palm and pierce it. That is the way Pharʹaoh king of Egypt is to all those who trust in him.

So I feel a bit like that broken or crushed reed, in the sense that I wonder if people can rely on me. If I had had an flare-up while I was there, I would not have been able to do anything, and the poor cold-ridden Captain would have had two invalids on his hands.

I have tried to keep the meals coming. Which has meant making a lot of veggie soups, and making sure there is a lot of fruit to hand.   And it has also reminded me that stir fry chicken and veggies is a tasty and simple meal. I hadn't made it for ages.

We had visits from family and friends and gifts of home made soup, wonderful choccie biccies, cards and offers of help.  Captain B has taken Nute out on some supervised and SHORT walks, and Keith has offered to take over with those.  The difficulty will be stopping her doing too much too quickly.  The body has amazing powers of healing and recovery if we give it a chance to do its work.

She is not like me. She is a gym bunny, dog walker (when they had a dog), and a walker, full stop.  Mind you, I was a great  walker before the family arthritis gene stopped me in my tracks.  And she is not a smoker (not that I am either).  The surgeon said to her that, given her age, they would not have operated were she not so fit.

But three hours brain surgery is a big thing - the general anaesthetic alone is like a sledge-hammer to the brain (apparently) - and then they were actually inside her head doing various procedures. So it is no wonder she is tired.

Anyway, we are all very grateful to those two surgeons.

The photo that heads the blog is of Nute and her husband Ken - in younger days.

We arrived back down on the South Coast Thursday afternoon, after a much easier journey than our drive up North, thank goodness.  The first load of washing is done and we have shopped for the weekend. I hope to do as little as possible for a couple of days.

I have a saga to tell of The Bluebottle Bomb, the Badgers, the Fox, and the Invisible Cat.  But that will have to wait for my next blog I think