Floratherapy

As Jen said, nature gave us the best welcome home. Here's a little selection. Little being the operative word. I seem to take more shots of flowers these days than I do of Oakley:









It's amazing really, when this was the scene just the week before we went away:







Oakley? His welcome was just as warm. Full of the joys of spring this week:



And trudging through the snow the week before we went away:



Apologies for the picture overload. Just think yourselves lucky - I've spared you the one of Quentin's shark bite.

Talking of whom (whose blog is this?), he's doing well. We walked up to the High Street (about 3 mins' walk) to watch the pancake race this morning. It was the furthest Quent has been and he could feel it. One lady he knew asked why he wasn't racing. Quent looked a bit bemused, but I presume she didn't know he'd been in hospital.

Spring in our step

Quent was discharged on Sunday and we arrived home last night, after a couple of days' R&R with Lorna and Phil (Quent' sister and brother-in-law). They lay on lovely meals, good company, plenty of rest, cousins for Oakley and a heated indoor swimming pool. Very nice.

Quent continues to recover well. His "shark bite" is more 6-7" than 3-4", but it's healing nicely and is now dressing-free. He also has a greenstick fracture of the ribs (they weren't as bendy as they hoped!) which the surgeon said would "add to the discomfort". Quent is asleep more than he is awake, but he's as cheerful as ever when conscious and enjoys reading and resting with Oakley, in front of the fire.

Spring is not so much in our step as in our path - we arrived home to a carpet of crocuses and a magnificent display of snowdrops. There was an owl hooting in the night and the robin was feeding at the table this morning. It's great to be home.

Exercises

Thanks for all your comments. I will pass them on.

Quentin's drain is now out and he has taken a walk up the corridor with the physiotherapist. He has exercises to do to start getting mobility back around his chest, arms and lungs. Of course he gets me to do them too, ever confident he will beat me, even after major surgery.

He still has local anaesthetic going into him, permanently. They will take that out tomorrow and I guess it will be a whole lot more painful without it. But I am equally sure Quent will be determined to try some stairs - the next step, if you'll excuse the pun.

We are still hoping to get out on Sunday and we have a film lined up for this afternoon, when Quentin wakes up. Otherwise, life is very calm and the time flies in spite of doing nothing most of the time.

I have given up on the hotel /Costa coffee wifi facilities (I can't get them to work and my help desk is in hospital). Instead, I am now a proud member of Cheadle library, which does just as well.

(I'm) Singing in the pain

Quentin's operation went well, yesterday. The tumour was deep in the lung, but they managed to remove it all and off it went to the research unit at Christie's.

Quent seemed on good form at first and managed toast, tea and marmelade very soon after coming out of surgery. But by teatime, his heart rate dropped, as did his SATS (the nurses were impressed by my in-depth knowledge of SATS control!) They did an X-ray and it showed a collapsed lung, due to an air leak along the wound. He already had a drain in to take away the blood, and they have now added another drain for the air, which will stay in for a couple of days while the leak heals.

Interestingly, the air leak would not apparently have caused the drop in heart rate. (But in a way, it's good it dropped because it prompted them to do the X-ray, which revealed the pneumothorax). For the medical amongst you, they've given him atropin. I can't remember why, but it's written in my notes. ;o)

In short, this is a complication, but not an unexpected one and Quentin is still chirpy. When I left him, he was singing - because the nurses had told him that was the best thing to do. Best for him, maybe. I hope the nurses' uniform includes earplugs.

Officially the coldest house in the country

A couple of weeks ago (23rd January 2009), Radio 7 broadcast a programme in its Strange Weather days (Forever Freezing) series, about the frost hollow of Rickmansworth.

Apparently, Rickmansworth boasts the largest single day temperature change on record - the temperature swung from 34 °F to 85 °F on 29th August 1936 and such a change has never been recorded since. Due to the valleys, the railway cuttings and all sorts of other things, Rickmansworth has lower night-time temperatures than anywhere else in England and Wales. This makes it the coldest place in the country - and about as cold as the Aberdeenshire plateau. I can't imagine there's any house in the town colder than ours, so I conclude that we officially live in the coldest house in England. No surprises there, then.

The upside (if you like hot weather!) is that Rickmansworth is also "the most continental spot in the UK". It boasts cold nights and hot days in summer, with temperatures regularly over 35° C in April, May and June.

The programme excitedly debated the day when it hit 42°C, the"constant frost" and the associated problems for gardeners. One woman said wrily that estate agents don't mention it when you move here - and it occured to me that Quentin didn't either. He was probably too busy explaining how close we now were to my mother-in-law and his Scout group. ;o)

Ah well. The valleys may make it freezing cold, but they also provide fantastic slopes for sledging - which we thoroughly enjoyed on Monday morning.