Mixed bag

Bit chiller here yesterday so decided soup for lunch would be just right. Lovely fresh broccoli heads, a little celery, onion, garlic, homemade chicken stock, seasoning, blitzed into a warming dish. hubby doesn't like the stalks when steaming broccoli so I  add them to the soup to bulk it out, as long as I chop it small it cooks at the same rate.

the colour didnt come out very well, it was a nice green!

A couple of weeks ago I was pottering in the garden and decided to make this,

a miniature garden, I want to make some toadstools to go with it, when I get round to it! and look for a few more tiny plants but it's a start.

Couldn't resist this one......

Colin, Tammy and Lucy - its hard to see where one starts and the others stop,  these are the original 3 and are quite content with each other, most of the time!! lol

Hubby has a new model, it was his birthday just before Christmas and so decided to  buy this with his gifted money

its a quadcopter, good job he has had practice with his other helicopers as this one is quite a challenge to fly.
I think there is a larger one he wishes to build too but that one will carry a camera. 

Yesterday Rebecca had a lovely surprise, she was contacted by a charity called Grant a wish saying she had been nominated to receive a wish of her choice. How wonderful - she was completely blown away and has no idea who nominated her but she is thinking hard about her wish and has something nice to look forward to which I'm sure will help in the healing process.  There are some really lovely people out there who do some wonderful things.

take care

Hmmmmm

Well I certainly didn't expect to be feeling like I've been slapped in the face with a wet kipper. Really thought I'd be bouncing around with relief ready to get on with 2014, but no, I feel like I've been dragged through the hedge backwards, totally drained, coldy cough hanging on till the end and no energy. Just goes to show what happens when you let go a little.

Anyway enough moaning, we have had a lovely warm couple of days which has seen us up in the naya all afternoon, lovely feeling the warmth of the sun and we were presented with the most spectacular sunset

A very relaxed Benji

Before Christmas I had asked if there was any wild boar being sold from the shooting, there wasn't and I didn't really think about it again.  However there was a knock at the door and our spanish friend asking if we wanted half a pig, grabbed at the opportunity and for a reasonable price.  The only draw back was that is what I got, 1/2 a boar.  Only thing for it was to sharpen the knives, grab the hacksaw and start.  Hubby disappeared toot sweet so I set about the task.  It took me about 2 hours to do but ended up with meat in various cuts, ribs, fillet, 4 leg joints loads cut ready for slow cooking and bones for a broth.  Suffice to say it was boar casserole for dinner and very nice it was too.  I have only ever dealt with birds before as we used to have geese, ducks, chickens and pheasants at the farm,  the larger animals were sent to the abattoir. Really nice to have something different as lamb is very expensive here and we rarely have beef.

have fun, take care.

Fantastic.....

...brilliant, wonderful news......after being given the stastistic of the lymphomas being 90% cancer, we have just received the results and Rebecca is

CANCER FREE.

.........the overwhelming relief was unbelievable and is taking some time to sink in.  We all feel we can slowly let our breath out and actually plan for the immediate future instead of our lives being on hold.
There is still one result to come back at the end of the month but they are confident this too will be negative, so there is still some worry, but the staples come out today and we can concentrate on helping Rebecca recover from the surgery and moving on.  Of course the damage caused from the last time is still very much an issue, and the psychological impact has been and is extreme, but onwards and upwards and not having to go through another round is the best thing ever.

Thank you to all of you for your lovely comments and support over this, it has helped tremendously and certainly made Rebecca smile to know so many people are routing for her from all over.

take care and enjoy every minute of your day xx

Home again

Thursday saw us at the hospital again waiting for the doctor to possibly discharge Rebecca.  I am so pleased and proud of her she is trying very hard to walk upright and potter off to the bathroom but then she rests in bed and zonks out.  They finally let her go mid afternoon and we took her back to her place where a bed has been put in the lounge to save the stairs.  Her little kittens were pleased to see her, they are so sweet.
I can't find a photo at the moment so will have to take one.

Friday I stopped en route to buy some nice goodies, strawberries, avocado, spinach, nice little treats.  A lovely green smoothie with pineapple, kiwi, pear and spinach was first up. Lunch was home made vegetable soup that we had made together last Sunday and frozen, then white fish for supper, out ready for when Antoni came home so he could have something easy to cook.  A lighter diet is recommended for about a week and she is quite happy to err on the side of vegetarian anyway.

Even though much of the time Rebecca was asleep it was the comfort of knowing I was there that made her feel relaxed and sleep is the bodies way of healing too, so I sat quietly doing a little cross stitch.

As Marilyn comment about looking after yourself as Antoni will be there over the weekend I shall return next week and use the weekend to chill out a bit and just potter about.

The fair was in the plaza in Benissa on Friday when we stopped and hubby took these photos as he thought how colourful everything looked.

He had the camera on some weird setting and it came out like this - different!

Got a few ideas for a little stitchery so I'm off the have a wander round the net to see what images I can find. Have a good weekend whatever you are doing, take care xx

Update

I would like to thank every one for their lovely comments, kind thoughts and support, an extended family of love and connection, it means so much when times are tough. I really should have done it last time instead of just disappearing coping on my own.

Monday was a very very long day, up at 5am hospital by 7am and Rebecca was down in the theatre area for 8am.  We were originally told the surgery would be about an hour, so give or take preps etc we made our assumptions on timings. I decided to crochet a wash cloth (as you do) to pass the time but as it got nearer to 10.30 this was abandoned and do you know I was reciting nursery rhymes, even Nellie the elephant, in my head to stop intruding thoughts.  At 11.10 a nurse came to tell us they had been all this time evaulating Rebecca because she still had a nasty cough from a chest infection before Christmas!!! what!! it took over 3 hours to let us know......but they were going ahead

Out came the crochet, put the rhymes to bed and we waited - 1.10p,m the surgeon came for us to give an update and confirmed he was satisfied he had collected all he needed and 'cleaned up' and we should go away for 2-3 hours whilst she was in recovery.  As it turned out it was 5.15 before Rebecca returned to her room, where we were waiting, at least it was her room with en suite which makes it so much nicer. She was able to fill in the blanks, she had asked them to inform us of the wait, knowing there would be litters of kittens in the waiting room otherwise, they had given her an epidural first believing to try a different method of surgery, but decided against this so gave her a general as well, no wonder they needed 4 hours to bring her round.

The profound relief to see her back was quite overwhelming, especially as it was so reminiscent of ICU,  since Monday I have been at the hospital doing the day duty, mostly a lot of sleeping everything off but today she is walking a little more upright and looking forward to having solid food tonight and probably home tomorrow, yeah!!!!!!! The 6-8cm incision is in fact more like 12cm.

I shall be with her at her home during the day looking after her and plan lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, smoothies and just good food freshly prepared to give her body a chance to repair.  I have been doing a lot of research and we plan to overhaul her food intake and whilst it may be tough giving up sugars, fats etc we feel the benefits will out weigh this.

Did a little cross stitch today during snoozes, oh and I've been playing hooky, but I shall leave that for another day.
take care xx

Bit late

Bit late to wish everyone a happy new year but never mind it's said now.

SIL's partner is the captain on one of the tall sailing ships and we heard he was sailing into Denia port on new year's eve.  We were invited to join him and be given a guided tour of the ship Tenacious.  It is 65m long and weighs in over 500 tonnes, they are fully equipped to take disabled people on their cruise which means they can be a full member of the crew, even hoists up the masts

Not something that would appeal to me, I get dizzy standing on a chair!  It was very informative seeing all the facilities on board, full freezers, a couple of galleys a large kitchen making everything from their own bread to special diets and feeding up to 30 people, water making facilities, full 240v electricity supply etc.  It was built in 2000 .

It was a warm sunny day, the sea was perfectly calm,

as you can see from this picture of the ferry approaching.
We spent a lovely couple of hours, catching up before leaving them all to plan their new year celebrations before they sailed off to Barcelona.  (It was noted that you could tell the locals by the fact we were wearing jumpers, whilst most of the crew were in shirt sleeves - must have thin blood)

We have had an extremely tense couple of weeks and Rebecca was sent home without the biopsy being done as they realised that it was not where they thought and surgery was required. Yesterday we had to see the aneasthatist then headed off in search of the surgeon to find out what was happening.  We pushed in without an appointment and he was very kind and gave us half an hour of his time explaining everything.
Horrid words like, lymphoma, tumour, further treatment regardless, and stats that made the hair on your neck stand up,were banded about. The operation is scheduled for Monday with 48 hour stay, and the longest wait for the results.
We are helping Rebecca put certain things into place to make her recovery easier, but the best thing we are doing is being very positive, taking baby steps, not thinking what if (very hard) and giving her all the love, light, energy and support we can. Life is a journey on a road that twists and turns, sometimes it's smooth and sometimes it's bumpy, at the moment it's got great boulders in the way, but little by little we will remove them and the best thing of all is we will do it together.

Treasure today and every day, take care xx