We had a short walk, and hot chocolates and a scone...we shared the last one in the cafe just up by the first road bridge over the River Doon.
It was a break from being in the house...a break in the weather before tomorrow's cold front brings high winds and rain.
It was much needed.
Yesterday we had our cycling club AGM then two hour's track time at Glasgow.
Being a national race team as opposed to a local one means that we don't all get together often enough..and three members were away in Lanzarote for some warmer weather riding!
In previous years we have had the AGM in Pitlochry and combined it with a couple of group rides...but with basically only two routes available from there, both being hilly plus often it has been too wet or too icy...so an indoor warm ride was preferable!
Some had to drive three or four hours to get there, and they stayed over in Glasgow for a couple of nights and booked on other track sessions to make it worth it.
It was like herding cats to get that photo! Pirate enjoyed himself greatly, even just riding around the bottom of the track and the apron (the flat bit inside the Côte d'azure )
I tried to put a video on here that I had taken...it didn't want to cooperate!
The hopeful news is that the MRI has been cancelled..they obviously saw enough to start the ball rolling for a colostomy and stoma before the end of February.. let's just hope he passes the pre-op tests on the 5th....
First batch made yesterday..
Ten pounds made with three pounds of Seville oranges.
I have three more pounds...I'm considering a batch of Cranberry and Orange...that was tasty last time...and maybe save some to go with a batch of Blood Oranges to help the setting. I haven't seen Blood Oranges in the shops yet...but they should be available soon.
They make a colourful and fragrant marmalade.
A healthy store cupboard...and enough for gifts as well.
Today was CT scan day ...Pirate found that they work 12 hours a day and scan 35 patients a day....in a little cabin outside the hospital in Irvine.
Results in 10 days they say...
We had lunch out at the GRO café/restaurant/bakery at the end of Irvine Harbour Road....good organic coffee, sourdough toast, smashed avo, two large fresh poached eggs and fresh tomatoes...good atmosphere and good food..and popular! Luckily we had arrived just after midday..as we left the wait for a table was 60-90 minutes!! You can leave your mobile phone number and they call when actable is free....or you book beforehand!!
We have eaten at the other branch, by the Whitletts Roundabout on the A77 by Ayr..but I prefer this building. The food is good in both.
The wind was too cold for a walk afterwards...
Now he can to look forward (?!) to the MRI next Thursday...at least that is at our local hospital, but it will still be the same noisy, lying in a rattletube experience.
Spring flowers
Iris Sibirica with surrounding Herb Robert on its way...and Snowdrops potted up when I divided some clumps last year.
Pirate hasn't been having a good day today.
At least he has finished fitting the new bottom bracket on the track bike and my clubmate collected it this evening. It took longer than it would have normally..but if you aren't feeling 100%, that's how it goes. I had the job of being the bike support while he worked....not my thing...I hate standing or sitting and doing nothing but holding something!!
So all the other plans were left. That's ok. Hopefully our doctor will get back to him as he called by the surgery and left a message.
I looked at Pirate's new phone...and one of his old phones, same make...
The old one is far more ergonomic...just needed a slightly bigger screen....
The new one does, however, have room for two SIM cards....now that would be good when travelling abroad....as Yer Actual (fellow blogger) commented. He has three phones...one a French one as that is needed for doing anything in France!!
Anyone getting spam customers on fleabay? Just when I was getting on ok....at least I didn't sell them anything...and fleabay spotted them at the same time as I did. Reported and blocked.
Here we go again....wash, rinse and repeat....washing machine weather without the drying cycle....
Now there are flood warnings (luckily not us at a little over 400 foot above sea level) as well as strong winds, and very restricted rail services.
It isn't as strong as the last storm, but it is still stay at home weather.
Pirate has retreated to bed again..the weather doesn't help how he is feeling one little bit. I just hope that they can offer treatment to alleviate how he feels...it is frustrating that he insisted on waiting until my 70th birthday, end of last June, and his daughter's 50th last October...and then Christmas....
But it is as it is now. We should know exactly where he is after the two scans, by the end of the first week of February.
I have contacted a company to get a new quote on sorting the flue on my kiln...I was waiting for the Oily One, son#1, but after making me a flue section a year ago he hasn't been able to do any more.
The last time I contacted the company was in 2017, but I can't find the emails anywhere...and life has certainly got in the way of kiln progress!!
I couldn't afford their quote then, but hopefully between fleabay sales and savings I may be able to now...
Today's job is to find the photos I need...nothing is going to get done outside in this weather!!
A little later at the back , before...
It closed in again.
The traffic advice on the radio this morning was... Don't!!
No rail until at least the afternoon with so many trees and lines down.
Gusts of 89mph in Lanarkshire on the M8 motorway and 124mph in the Cairngorms.
While Pirate spent the morning in bed until a late breakfast...and again after a shower until a very late lunch..
I attacked the living room to make it more livable. Apart from being clean, all the fleabay packing materials have been sent back to the study/spare bedroom.
Two large heavy carrier bags of books have to be sorted into sell/give away.
Two boxes of bike bits probably need labelling and pricing for a Cycle Jumble..some things sell better in person.
A garden potting up tray has bike cleaning materials...and a shallow cardboard fruit box holds genealogy material.
So what happens in the nice tidier living room? Pirate put an old towel down and changed the bottom bracket on my old track bike that my clubmate is now using!!!
The new one is titanium...and runs like silk!! It was also £220 trade price!!..but is an important step on the way to the World Masters Track Champs in Roubaix in October.
It is lovely seeing her success, especially against others much younger than her... yesterday a third place against two riders half her age at most!!
Now the job is done..with much huffing and puffing...he needs more exercise in the getting down and up department! Time for tea with all the tools cleared away.
The storm is blowing over...ready for the next one..Storm Jocelyn is on the way...but should be about 20mph slower....not a lot of consolation!!
A two day event, we just went for this afternoon..
And enjoyed watching the event.
We left before the end because of Storm Isha, the strongest so far this winter.
It has been raining most of today, and the wind is screaming around the house.
Time to do a short Duolingo lesson (700 days so far!) and off to bed.
Thanks to our District Nurse we got to have an evening out...she reserved tickets for us at the Mauchline Young Farmers Annual concert....she is also a farmer and one of her sons was one of the cast.
It was a cracking good evening..two halves, an hour each, with an interval ..when we had ice cream tubs of ice cream made in Mauchline!
A cast of fifteen "boys" and twenty four "girls"...plus the musicians and backstage staff..from mid teens to late thirties on stage, singing, dancing, acting.....a really professional standard production, with Troon town hall booked out for all three performances .
It was a lighter evening in the past few days...Pirate isn't a happy bunny and a bunny on pain, which makes him a very grumpy bunny.
Still, we have good news, CT scan and MRI booked, so we will know facts, good or bad...no more guessing...what we have been pressing for since last July....
I have been doing housework all day today...a bit of catch-up... decluttering was supposed to have been on the menu but didn't really happen.
Genealogy was supposed to be done as well.....but by 5.30 I had had enough!!
The other good news is that after a bad late start after bad dreams in the early hours Pirate went to collect his scrip by midday and walked the roundabout route including up Ladies Walks a steep path without stopping...and managed to raise a sweat..a very good sign.
The schemes began to be built in the 30s but the big push was in the 40s post war...building houses like ours with a twenty year lifespan..semi detached like ours but also maisonettes, so two up and two down in a block.
There are a few rows of half a dozen wee Butt and Ben's in a terrace,...front room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom... generally for retired singles or couples. Some privately built housing has been created since the 70s and 80s and nowadays the new schemes are privately built, so far by a local builder.
We are very fortunate to live right on the edge of the village as we are used to living outside villages. Our road is one of the older ones here, existing before any village was here.
That photo was taken with my tablet..the other one I took with the phone..
Near enough, but interesting.
So that's what I see from my living room sofa as I sit warming up the room and checking emails and blogs and waiting for Pirate to feel strong enough to start the day.
Not as cold as many others..but we won't be above freezing point all day.
There hasn't been a lot of snow here, mostly the icing sugar variety..and this afternoon fine cold rain. Not what we want before tonights freeze.
Pirate splashed out ....he is an old softie...
He is cutting about an inch off the stems every day..so now they have gone from a Doug Fitch jug to one of my puzzle jugs vintage 1997.
Yesterday we saw our doctor who looked at the MRI results from last May...only T3 then....so what we remember was confirmed at least. He had full spectrum blood tests...and got the results today over the phone just before the district nurse visited.
All normal, even PSA minimal as it was about six years ago..so the radiotherapy in June worked....pulling Charlie back from his prostate...
Only the iron levels a bit low, which is easy to sort.
So he is a healthy man with a wee problem 😄 well...not so wee...but just the one!
I have been researching a Campagnolo chainring that I am to sell for our Fife friend...I have narrowed it down to post 1978....when they put Brev instead of patent. Especially as it appears unridden, even if it might have been on a set of cranks briefly, getting the model correct could mean double the value..
Pirate got muddy feet looking after the spare bike in the pits..and shouted himself hoarse as we had a clubmate and a couple of other friends in the same race!
I escaped for an hour of me time..looking round the exhibition in the house..usually there are two as well as the history exhibitions about Falkirk and the Antonine Wall which is in the park in front of the house.
Then taking a few photos during the race.
Pirate is not angry about his diagnosis..a trifle pissed off, but he is determined to keep doing what he wants to.
He needs to allow me more Me time though, so that I can cope....
Consultant consulted this morning
They did Not tell us in April...or in July after the radiotherapy... exactly how serious it was then. We knew T4....but despite asking they didn't spell it out plainly, only in so many words....
There is a very small chance the Big Op will work....and possibly more radiotherapy..
He has already had a phone call to get a blood sample taken in our village medical practice. Looks like they are moving quickly...as they always have done with him.
Pirate is now working day by day, living in hope and fighting on hard, thinking Posseetively....he has to live up to his name
Shit happens,as they say
I am trying to make more ME time but it is difficult at times...too much else going on and filling up my headspace.
Anyhow, himself has a consultant appointment tomorrow...fingers crossed they will give the go ahead for The Big Op as we know he needs it NOW.
It has a fire and a stove..and a log book!
Great to see those who could make it..some by car, others carefully by bike..some roads had ice where water had been running over roads.
In the centre is Dr. Tom and his wife Mhairi. He used to be the radio doctor in Scotland on a morning programme and was also race doctor for many races that Pirate organised.
They live just over the burn that the hut backs onto.
They are learning Gaelic on Duolingo too, despite being originally from Gaelic speaking areas...but the schools system knocked it out of many people... sometimes literally..and they moved away as their parents followed work and in turn their work kept them away.
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