Hi and welcome to the forum which I hope you will find supportive.  My story is more that of my late husband as I joined when he was diagnosed and the support of the forum for nearly three years during his illness helped me considerably.  Since he passed away in January 2015  the virtual friends I made here continue to chat and show me kindness just by listening to me rabbit on!!

You are more than welcome to post on my thread but it may also be worth starting a thread of your own and perhaps mentioning the kind of cancer you have in the title.  This way others who may relate to your own personal journey can respond and I am sure there are many who will definitely understand the sleepless nights along with all the emotions you go through as you undergo treatment and wish you all the best with your treatment plan and hope you have family and friends who can also be there for a support network. Jules

Hi Brian,

Well the drizzle has set in here but I managed to get to the garden centre in the dry this morning so 2 mile walk achieved; I cheated and caught the bus half way back though!  Just stocked up on bird food there and grabbed a coffee in the little cafe (managed to stay away from all the other goodies this time round ha ha).

I am pleased that MrsB was delighted with her surprise CD. My parents used to like Roy Orbison (back in the day of vinyl).  I think the last CD I bought was a hit from the musicals and these days just tend to have the radio on rather than the CD player which sits on one of my shelves.  Every so often I do load it up (it takes 5 cds)  whilst doing the housework.

Am planning to take part in the RSPB Birdwatch count this weekend but no other plans at the moment. Will see what tomorrow's weather brings as it is supposed to be the better day.

Sounds as though you are doing well with your 'lights' set up and bet you enjoyed being able to get into your garage.  It's one of those things that as fast as you clear up one lot of mess made, then you are working to create more ha ha but you always have such lovely goodies to show for it and I am sure Mrs B knows you far too well to worry about it!

Like you I am hoping to shed a few more unwanted pounds in the coming weeks............it would be great if you could buy willpower off the shelves as easily as you can get everything else.  Still my mindset is a little healthier just now so hoping for the best and once the weather improves hope my legs will carry me for a few more miles (hip still giving me a few problems but nothing a couple of painkillers cannot control from time to time).

I am sure if you get the chance you will be picking up that catalogue for Mrs B and she can spend a few hours here and there planning her spending!!  I no longer bother with the paper format as have got into the habit of 'googling' when I am planning a purchase.  I hope soon to be having more work done indoors which may well lead to a shopping trip or two.

Hope you have and peaceful weekend and enjoy those chestnuts if you manage to find the frozen ones. Regards to you both and the family. Take care. Jules

Hi Jules, 

Just a quick post. 

I did manage to pick up my frozen chestnuts. In fact I boufht two packs and tried to tell Mrs B it was a buy one get one free deal but she saw throught it She know me too well h ha

Take care, Brian.

You haven't got the hang of this, Brian.  You should be going for the "Buy TWO get one free"! or "They only sold them in packs of four; its a special offer".

Well Brian, Mrs B knows you very well and you cannot pull the wool over her eyes ha ha. So you have squirrelled away your new supply of chestnuts but doubt they will be in frozen hibernation for long.  Enjoy!

My special offer today was two for the price of one on mealworms but I wont be adding these to my diet:D

Have a good day.  Jules

Hi Jules.

I buy lots of mealworms for my mates up the drive and mix them with peanuts the robins love them as do the tree rats and crows I have fed wild birds up the drive for many years cannot feed anything in my garden her next door has three cats..regards to you all lol, George

Hi George

Feeding our wild friends is a lovely pasttime and as I do not have a pet find it very relaxing to watch the birds and the odd squirrel in my own garden.  Here are a couple I managed to 'snap' in the past few days.

Hope you and the family and doing ok my friend.  Jules

Hi George, hope all is well with you and yours, not forgetting Ria!  

Take care, Hazel xx

Nice pics Jules, especially the cheeky squirrel with the little button nose!

Thanks, Hazel xx

Hi Jules,

Hope your visit to your mother went okay today this morning. Plus hope  your visit toyour gymn wasnt to strenouse.I am waiting for someone to come and put a new handle on our toilet cistern as the old one broke in Mrs B's hand. I have also had someone look at my garage roof as it has been leaking rather badly again. I have bought Mrs B a third Roy Orbison C D  and its a tree C D  set. We dont know hardly any of the songs  but it didnt cost much. I will let you know what Mrs B thinks of when she has played them. 

At least its dry here at the moment. Thanks for sharing the great photos.

I am visiting our local gardens tommorow moring to finalize the arrangements for our to carft fairs.The first one is not until the May Bank Holiay but want to sort things out as the timesoon flies by these days. I did enjoy my chestnuts the other night. Little bit of oil in the tray and roasted them 

Have had the glass eyes I ordered from China arrive so will use them on my Owl salt and Pepper pots Am looking forward to getting out in my workshop once again as soon as it gets a bit warmer.

Sending kind thoughts to you and your family, Brian.

Hi Brian

Hope the loo handle gets fixed quick.  I currently have a push button variety and it can be a nuisance when it gets stuck.  Luckily my son showed me how to remedy it so did not have to resort to a 'bucket to flush' the last time.  Mrs B does not know her own strength ha ha.  She is going to be in her element with all the new music you are finding for her.  Hope also that your garage leak can be sorted once and for all as you will soon have to work under a brolly if not.  Most annoying for you I'm sure.

Thanks for asking about Mum.  Not a good visit and very difficult for all concerned bless her. Still she was aware that I was there towards the end of my stay and I a so grateful to the staff as always so gentle with her needs.

Visited the gym afterwards and always a good stress reliever.  It is only a 30min circuit and the machines adjustable to personal requirements so always manageable.  Good news too in that I managed just over a 1lb loss this week so heading the in the right direction (again)!!

Beautiful sunny but frosty start today and a sign of Spring in the garden so really enjoyed my 2 mile walk to visit Mum.

Hope you have a peaceful day.  Jules

Hi Brian

Hope the loo handle gets fixed quick.  I currently have a push button variety and it can be a nuisance when it gets stuck.  Luckily my son showed me how to remedy it so did not have to resort to a 'bucket to flush' the last time.  Mrs B does not know her own strength ha ha.  She is going to be in her element with all the new music you are finding for her.  Hope also that your garage leak can be sorted once and for all as you will soon have to work under a brolly if not.  Most annoying for you I'm sure.

Thanks for asking about Mum.  Not a good visit and very difficult for all concerned bless her. Still she was aware that I was there towards the end of my stay and I a so grateful to the staff as always so gentle with her needs.

Visited the gym afterwards and always a good stress reliever.  It is only a 30min circuit and the machines adjustable to personal requirements so always manageable.  Good news too in that I managed just over a 1lb loss this week so heading the in the right direction (again)!!

Beautiful sunny but frosty start today and a sign of Spring in the garden so really enjoyed my 2 mile walk to visit Mum.

Hope you have a peaceful day.  Jules

Good morning Jules. 

They came and mended the loo handle or at least they thought they did. The next day it was playing up so I complained and we finally got another person come to look at it. He told us the other guy hadnt assembled it right and now it is working better than ever. This sort of thing annoys me for I have always been told, a job worth doing is worth doing well. The old company my son worked for always wanted him to do a bodged job but to his credit he always refusedand wants to sleep well at night.  even though they had a go at him about it. He always told them he has a concience . He is doing very well at his new job and had now broken their sales record for seven months in a row. So proud of him. If a customer has a problem in fitting a door or window, he will visit them on site and show them how to get it right . 

We had a good meeting about our May weekend craft fair. It was nice to meet the young lady who is helping organise it. I know we could have done some of it over the phone but much prefer to meet face to face. They now want to talk to me about the formation of our club as they want to use this to help advertise the event. More publicity for our club. I have five small trays that I made years ago and which hold about 250 different world timbers all about 3/8" sq by 5 " long and I will take this with uswhen we do our show, I have all the timbers listed numerically on a couple of A4 sheets of paper which I have laminated and will also take the pocket mictroscope my sone gave me so people can look at the end grain of some timber samples I will prepare. There are only 5% of world timbers that are what they call ring porus so it just shows how you can identify timvers by this method

At least you should be able to do your usual Sunday walk as its fine here at least. Dont like this talk of snow here tonight though. Will probably hibernate if we do get some ha ha. It must be hard to see your mum like she is and not be able to talk to her much. I know when my mother was getting to the end, She wasnt able to talk. I just used to hold her hand and I wondered at times if she was aware I was there but sometimes I would say something to her and she would sqeeze my hand as if she understood. So I do think she was aware somehow.

Anyway take care and am sending kind thoughts to you and your family, Brian.

Hki Brian,

Have just returned from my morning out.  Lovely sunshine to start the day but has now clouded over and the wind is chilly.   Still three layers kept me warm enough in the couple of hours I was walking.  Dropped in at the farmers' market and bought some cheese from the local(ish) farm and then visited to baker's stall and bought a giant cheese straw for my lunch (very naughty)as my treat this week.  I have stopped buying loaves of bread and it's just too tempting to use for 'comfort' ha ha.

The plans for the craft fair and all the preparations to get it well advertised are going well and like you, I do prefer the face to face option where possible.  The passion for your Wood Club is evident when you chat about it and hope you get lots of good feedback to take the Club forward as it's good to get new members interested.

With the help of my son I have climbed another emotional hurdle as we went to the tile showroom yesterday and I have chosen/bought the tiles required for when the bathroom has its makeover.  I had not realised just how jittery I had become (rather than excited!!) but the emotions really took a beating (I supposed I had not expected this to be the case and was somewhat knocked backwards again). 

Really pleased to read that your son is so happy and doing well in his current position.  Job satisfaction and knowing it is well done reaps it's own rewards.  How is his foot holding up these days?

Sending peaceful thoughts to you, Mrs B and the family.  Fingers crossed the snow passes us all by!

Jules

Good afternoon Jules.

Hope you have wrapped up warm for your walk as allthough it looks nice outside, Its quite a cold wind here.today. Wouldnt blame youif you bought some naught food today to keep you warm ha ha

My sons foot is still giving him problems and from what he had been told it probably wont get any better than it is now. The cold does make it worse though so like you he is looking forward to warmer weather.

I am looking forward to giving my 1 3/4 hour talk on Tuesday afternoon. It will be in two patrs; one about our woodclub and the other part good news about tree planting etc.The lady that asked me to give the talk was one of the people present when I did the same talks last November. She phoned me up saying how much she had enjoyed it and wanted me to give the same talk to her group. 

I have also this morning written an artical for our newsletter about a master carver we had in our club but who sadly passed away some years ago. It came to me last night that he had passed on his passion and love of woodcarving to so many people which is why we have so many good carver in this area. Several of them have now taken up the reigns and are now teaching carving just like he used to do. Not only is a lot of his work on display in churches and catherderals in the south here but he has also left behind a living legacy in the form of the people who share his passion and love of woodcarving and who in their own right are top quality carvers. What better legacy could one leave behind than that?

I have also done quite a lot more writting of my new stories and am enjoying writting them. I come up with the bare bones of the story first and then just like a jigsaw have to put the different parts together. Most of the ideas come to me at night when I am in bed and I have to go into the back bedroom and write the rough idea down, as if I leave it till the morning I have often forgotten it due to my rusty old brain box. Trouble is I get cold doing this and often cant get back to sleep afterwards ha ha.

Managed to clean our downstairs windows (outside only) this morning as due to the recent weather, there was so much dirt on them we had difficulty seeing out of them. Come back inside and took a while to warm up again. The wind was blooming cold

I hope you have a relaxing afternoon sitting by the fire and keeping warm. Sending kind thoughts to you and your family, Brian.

. . 

Hi Brian

Good weekend thank you.  Had daughter and family down on Saturday and enjoyed a lunch out (their idea but sure it's no reflection on my cooking ha  ha).  Lovely catching up with all their news and I am going up to spend Mother's Day with them in March.My son in law has a new job and so far so good and he is now just ten minutes drive from home (instead of over an hour!!) so much better for them all.  Strange how things turn out as he now works on the same industrial estate where hubby was based!!

Yesterday my walk was lovely. A couple of layers protected againt the chill but was able to sit in the walled garden at my destination with a coffee before enjoying the walk through the woods/fields. Lovely to see the snowdrops doing so well and have definitely spread again since last year.  This morning is once again sunny but with a heavy frost. Will finish up indoors and then head out to make the most of it though only as far as shops.  I need to get a light for near the front door (current one has been broken for years and just ignored it!!) and I have electrician coming tomorrow to check my first floor and plan changes for bathroom lighting.

Mum's care home is on quarantine shut down to visitors due to sickness bug (Mum not affected at the moment) so need to ring before heading there tomorrow just in case  I cannot go.

Must be hard for  your son to know not much more can be done as far as his foot is concerned but on the plus side (if there is one) being happier at his new workplace will be a great help.

You are certainly keeping busy with your writing and presentations. I hope everyone enjoys your talk tomorrow afternoon as I know it will be full of interesting facts and also give you a chance to be informative about the woodclub.  Your newsletter piece about a much gifted master carver sounds wonderful too and how loevely that so many now benefit from his work and teachings.

I was indeed comfy by the fire yesterday afternoon (watching the rugby too) and continuing to recycle 'old paperwork' ready for collection tomorrow.  You really do not realise what you have kept hold off billwise over the years ha ha and am finding it quite therapeutic (as well as historically funny at times!!).Have also found lots of lovely old pictures and my daughter and I enjoyed looking through them at the weekend.  She has now taken some for her own collection and no doubt my son will do the same eventually.  Fashion and hairstyles meant much laughter especially when showing them to my eldest grandson!!  He thought all baby pictures were of him whereas some were of his Mum and Uncle.  Good times.

Right time to clear up, re-fill the bird feeders (again) and make the most of the sunshine.

Have a pleasant week and best regard to you all.  Jules

Good morning Jules,

Glad you had a good weekend.

Sorry to hear about your mothers home and hope its all soon cleared. Good you are going to family for mothers day; they do look after you. Hope you dont get too cold when you take your walk to the shops. 

Your photos are getting better and better are and your shots are as good as a proffesional photographer would take. I really mean that Jules. Hope you are able to get the light you want for your front door; there are so many to choose from as I found when choosing the lights for my altered display stand.

I had a phone call from my sister who lives about an hour away and she has asked me to give a slide show/talk /presentaion to her gardening club based in Chichester in June. I will now definately have to buy a projector to show the slide show about The Beauty and Variety of Trees I have put together. They have a screen so wont have to bother with that. It lasts about an hour which is just the time she wants. So will look forward to this. Have sorted out the turnings I will take to tommorrows talk as I have been informed they want to see what I produce.

Mt son went to see the film about Churchill on Saturday and said it was really good. I have had a request from my youngest grandson to go and watch a DVD with him which we bought him for Christmas. Havent seen him for a while as the family had the flue so we kept well away. So if all goes well, will go there Wednesdat afternoon

Keep warm sending kind thoughts to you and your family, Brian.

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately not able to visit Mum still; just as they were about to lift the 'quarantine' another resident went down with the bug so awaiting the all clear again.  They are very good at staying in touch thankfully.

I did get my new outdoor light upon recommendation from the electrician who has just replaced his own. Now hopefully it will go up this coming week when they plan to return to do the proposed new lighting in the bathroom/upper landing. The decorator should also be popping in to make the ceilings good once the work is completed so fingers crossed work on track (they need to complete before the bathroom work begins in early March).

Hope you were able to see your Grandson on Wednesday and if so that you all enjoyed watching his DVD.  I have not seen 'Churchill' but if it comes into the 'senior' cinema showings I will definitely try and see it then.  I check the listings most weeks and can go on a Tuesday afternoon if I fancy the film being put on (it is only £3 with tea/coffee and biscuit beforehand included).

Lovely weather today so popped into local town centre who were putting on a little event for Chinese New Year.  Was nice to  be able to wear a lighter jacket and leave the umbrella and gloves at home.

Hope you and Mrs B have a pleasant weekend. Take care.  Jules

Good morning Jules, 

Just to say Ian Woody asked to be remebered to you and all his friends on here as he is still having problems with his computor. 

I did see my grandsons DVD and he kept taking the mickey out of me all afternoon, bless him. I have now ordered  my projector  and am looking forward to setting it all up. This should enable me to give a much wider range of talks/slide shows in time.

I have also started yet another story and am on page 11 already. Must make a note to finnish some of the others off though ha ha.

Sorry to hear you still cant get to visit your mother. Glad you have got your light now; the one I fitted with its own built in sensor by our back gate make such a differnce. So glad I bought it. Bet you are looking forward to getting your new lighting fitted. 

I had to get someone in to clear our small drain thats just outside our back gate as it has been blocked for ages. It only took him about five minutes to clear it and its now working as it should thankfully.

Bet you will enjoy your usual Sunday walk. The weather here is warming up slowly.

Take care and am sending kind thoughts to you and your family, Brian. 

Hi Jules and Brian, hope you both are doing well. Jules hope your mum is doing well, hope Mrs B is doing well Brian. Hope both of you had a good Christmas and new year. We all went round to my daughters and had dinner and watched some tv, so was quite quiet. I was in hospital for a short period of time just before Christmas, had  chest pain and short of breath when shopping, had to sit down, I didn’t want to drive home so my son came and picked me up. He thought it was best I went to A&E to be on the safe side. Ran some tests and turns out I have Angina, seems I had it for a while just didn’t realise. Doctor advised I try put on some weight seems I’m losing weight without realising, so trying to eat more meat and fish, but  Good thing it was caught then or it could of lead to something much worse. Apparently angina is common at my age so I was put on statins and was given a spray. I’m Fine now but just pottering about in the garden most days, taking it slow. 

Decided last month to get a new sofa, so I bought a corner suite in grey fabric which looks very nice and comfortable. So I’m thinking of getting new floors done throughout the bottom floor maybe a Greyish colour. I’m going to go shopping later on and stock up for the week ahead. Might get my hair done on Tuesday and Meeting up with my Granddaughter in town, she’s showing me her flat she moved into. Her mother is having withdrawals symptoms lol seeing her leave the nest, but it was time she is 22 she needs her independence. 

Enjoy the rest of your day and Take care, Diane x 

Hi Diane,

Nice to hear from you. Sorry to hear about your angina, something my grandfather and a good friend suffered with. Just like to pass on a tip his doctor gave my friend. He said if you are doing a job and feel unwell with it, stop what your doing straight away even if you only have a litt more to do to finish. He was working underneath his car and had just one more bolt to fitt so he carried on. He had to taken to hospital and had two weeks in bed because he ignored the doctors advice. After that he strictly followed his advice.

Take care Diane, hugs bieng sent from a damp and dismal Sussex, Brian

Hi Brian,

How sweet of Woody to think of us all and do pass back my good wishes when you are next in touch.  I have had a bit of a glitch with getting on cancerchat in the last 24hrs but the Mods have once again sorted it out at present (thanks Mods) so am keeping everything crossed. As I am a very basic computer user when faced with a problem I get very 'lost' ha ha.

So pleased you were able to spend some quality time with your grandson and know you secretly enjoy all his banter and, of course, we all know where he gets his sense of humour from!!

It will make your talks 'come alive' to have your own projector.  Hope it comes soon and you can enjoy experimenting.  Takes me back to my teens when my own Dad had a projector to show all his transparencies at the camera club (and then again at home).

You're right will be good to have porch lighting again so I won't be fumbling to find the keyhole in the dark. All being well the guys should be back in later this week,  Mind you, somewhat  typically, they have just installed new street lighting in down our road and one of them shines straight across at my place!!

Will find out in the morning if I can visit Mum but know there is no change just now as being kept up to date.

My Sunday walk was a bit different this weekend as I went into London to enjoy the celebrations in Trafalgar Square for Chinese New Year and then walked through Chinatown and surrounding area. This also kept me away from all the naughty food goodies at our local Farmers'Market.  Had a 'poor' week and need to get back on track if I am to be trimmer for my Spring break.

I met a friend for a cuppa and catch up this morning and then did a spot of shopping before coming back. A pretty damp and dismal day here.

Take care and regards to you, Mrs B and the family.  Jules