Slow-progress report

It's coming up for six weeks since I had my Big Op, a month since I came home from the hospital. Maybe I expected progress to be quicker than it is, but the plastics in my rear still make walking difficult, and so far I've limited myself to a radius which includes South Kensington to the east, Fulham Palace to the south-west (pictured above by J, self with bag containing my medical cushion, which goes everywhere with me, at the Tudor arch into/out of the fabulous walled garden).

While I hope not to be self-pitying, I can say with some objectivity it had been a bit tough for some weeks since J returned to Dublin after his month-long vigil. I was despairing one day, but found myself immensely bucked up the following morning by lovely plastics person Abigail at Charing Cross Hospital, who told me to my amazement that the surgery on my behind was 'healing beautifully'. And then I saw so many of my favourite people who've helped me - Sushma the stoma nurse (second from left in this pic, which I'm happy to repeat), Lena who did my plastics dressing while I was in hospital (third from right), 

the wonderful Mary and Louise in the Maggie's Centre which I hadn't visited for ages. I wish I'd had my camera with me because the view from where I sat while they spent time talking to me revealed the grape-rich vine and a silk tree in flower (Louise identified it for me). The below picture from one of my first excursions after radiotherapy sessions in February, so stark by comparison, will suffice (more on all that in an earlier blog entry). 

This time some of the regular visitors were there too, fresh from a yoga class, including Morris (Maurice?) who remembered my 'radio voice', and when a venerable ancient bent down to pick up the things I'd left on the floor and I told him he shouldn't be waiting on me, he turned out to be a Thursday volunteer, Tony, I think, has been helping out since the Richard Rogers-designed building first opened in the early 2000s. We talked about musical performances there, and he told me he'd donated to the fund for the restoration of the chapel organ at Christ's Hospital School, where he was a pupil during the Second World War.

Then through Margravine Cemetery, where the Marbled Whites, Gatekeepers and Meadow Browns have ceded to later species such as this Speckled Wood

and the even more common Small White, still beautiful to look at with veins showing on bramble leaves.

to lunch with Cally at our bright new local cafe, PopIn, and on to St Mary's Paddington (quite a shock to hit the mean streets and a hospital which, compared to Charing X is a bit of a mess) to see surgeon Maria. The wonderful Macmillan nurse who made it possible to me to go to Pärnu, Ann, was also there. So good to get the all clear - hopefully a definitive one this time - from two more people who have meant so much to me.

Not so sure my poor 92-year-old mum has been getting the same level of attention in her two hospitalisations following two falls at home (below is her having baked her first cake for some time not long ago, when I visited her in July). 

It was bad timing: her first fall came just before my op, when I was still in Estonia. The second happened in spite of the fact that she had people coming in four times a day at home in addition to her regular carers. I'm sure she was tended to in Epsom Hospital where necessary, but I got no calls from any of the wards she was in until last week, when I finally spoke to a lovely doctor, Flavia, who reassured me that the antibiotics had cleared up a chest infection. Physically she's in OK health, though needs help walking (if she'd not tried to do it by herself at home neither fall would have happened). 

She was sent to a convalescent wing the day after it opened, so that was all a bit at sixes and sevens. Alas, North East Epsom Cottage Hospital, where she had such a good time making friends on the ward two summers ago, closed its restful country quarters and moved to within the main hospital grounds. Her mood when I phoned her varied - sometimes I really wondered if she'd gone to a very dark place within, as it were.

Yet a stressy week or so trying to find her a respite care home for three weeks after discharge seems to have paid off: she's now in Greenacres, The Horseshoe, Banstead, so her friends can come and visit. I spoke to her last night and she was her old self - quipping and laughing. It's been an eye-opener how greedy the private care homes can be. Signature Banstead, the posh place, quoted me £1400 per week including nursing care. That had gone up to £2000 and the stay had to be for at least a month. Beaumont Care in Epsom, recommended by a wonderful district matron, seemed to be in the hands of a pushy person I couldn't quite understand over the phone, who had gone taking a phone assessment with a nurse before I'd asked. Too expensive, anyway - also £2000 - and when she said 'but we can do a deal', it felt like I was dealing with a second-hand care salesperson.

Meanwhile home life has been on a reasonably even keel. No way can I get to Banstead yet, but I've managed four live Proms (walk to West Ken, short tube journey, standing, to South Ken, then to the Albert Hall).

Knackering to various degrees, and not all great, but the first - when J was still here, and took the above pic - had the National Youth Orchestra predictably shining in Hindemith and Strauss's Four Last Songs, with the stunning Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha. 

They played well in Copland 3 but I just don't 'get' the work. The encores were - also predictably - superlative, especially Errolyn Wallen's arrangement of "Got the Whole World in His Hands", irresistible. Watch the whole thing here. Thursday night's Prom was the best I've been to as a whole - brilliant programming as usual from Vladimir Jurowski, bringing his Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra to the Proms. Sitting for long periods is out, so J and I listened to Glyndebourne's Poulenc on the radio, and I reviewed it as a broadcast experience. One more to go, just before braving this year's Norfolk Churches Walk. It can't be anything like the big loop of last year, so from our base at Kate and Fairless's lovely house, we're going to assail 40 plus churches in Norwich. I'll do as many as I can. The alternative was driving between far-flung remote churches, and I don't think I could manage sitting and getting in and out. Thinking I might depart from fundraising for the Norfolk Churches Trust this year - J can do that - and donating to Maggie's.

Visits and meetings have kept me going. Another film night here on Tuesday, the choice made as before from my stock of classic movie DVDs - this time Adam's Rib with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as married lawyers Pinkie and Pinky - was accompanied by cooking from Cally and Maxine. Edwina is coming to cook again tonight. Her lilies and cucumber from Kent garden did so well.

I like it that I can read so much, between reviews and preparations + execution of my Parsifal Zoom classes. Molly Keane is due a big eulogy soon - so much deeper and richer than I realised; I was also beguiled by Neil Gaiman's vivid retelling of Norse mythology, surely designed to read aloud - it will be useful for Rheingold, but interest was stimulated by the fascinating Norwegian drama Ragnarok, so good at balancing the contemporary mundane with the mythical. Just reached the end of that, and caught up with the very moving final instalments of Derry Girls. What next?