I did it!

Hi and a very belated happy season’s greetings to you all – and a wonderful new year to all of us.

I intended to post before Christmas, but the upshot of the surgery was that it was a much bigger deal than I had realised (though it went fairly well) and I’ve been coping with the effects ever since. Seem to have hit a turning point now, so fingers crossed I’ll be fit for chemo next week and two more lots after that. Then we can get on with other things.

When my lovely grandson (Francesco, 3) was about two years old, and he couldn’t quite do something himself (so needed help from an adult), once that thing was achieved, he’d declare loudly “I did it!” I keep thinking the same thing about the surgery, which of course I didn’t do – but it weirdly feels like something I helped to achieve, if only by wishing it to be over and done with. Those surgeons – they are like gods aren’t they? And in my case they were all Greek, so you can imagine Greek gods… And the support and nursing staff (who without exception in my experience during my hospital stay were immigrants from other lands) are the most amazing human beings for whom nothing is too much trouble. Thank you to all of them from the bottom of my heart.

I continue to be enchanted, entertained and amused by the challenges you set yourselves and it’s not too late if you want to join in. Recently, I have had a friend trying to notch up 50 Munros (look it up – Scottish mountains) in his 50th year and another working hard on her watercolour painting, as well as doing magic painting (water only needed!) with her learning disabled sister. Lovely people, these are the things that matter – do more of them! I’ve also been moved and comforted by all the communication with people I haven’t had time to be in touch with so much in recent years – let’s keep talking.

As for my challenges, they’ve had a bit of a downturn in the last couple of weeks, but I’ll be getting back to them now I’m on the mend. My six (so far) poems by heart have been invaluable during the moments when I was unable to move in bed or read – I can run them fast (like music) or slow (to savour the writing) and it helps me to either drop off to sleep or get off the merry-go-round of negative thoughts. I only missed two days of Duolingo (Italian) during the recent procedures, so that flipping owl can do one – I think that’s pretty good on the whole. My (half-Italian) granddaughter thought it was very funny that I can say ‘My American neighbour is nice and my son is tall’ – classic language learning nonsense, but I guess it’s a start.

Well, that’s enough news for now – I’ll try to post more regularly and get back to some linguistics too before long!

Lesleyx