Day -4 : aka Christmas Eve
I've spent the last few days feeling great, having finally washed the chemo out of my system. My catheter is no longer uncomfortable unless I'm in the front passenger seat of the car and the driver brakes a bit hard. I've been spending some time catching up on things I won't be able / allowed to do for a while. It's hard to think that the half hour I just spent in the garden is my last bit of gardening for 6 months - that one is going to be hard to take, not that I'm a Percy Thrower (remember him?) but I can never resist planting one of these or hacking off a chunk of that.
This morning, Susan and I put some previous gifts to good use - she'd bought me two pie pots which had managed to get stuck in the back of a cupboard. I'm paranoid about making pastry as none of the recipes we have seem to match reality - "cut the butter into the flour until it is the consistency of dry breadcrumbs": it never is. Susan let me on the secret which is to bung the whole lot in a food processor and give it a blast until it looks like spackle in need of water. Something tells me my mum didn't do that, largely because I don't think our kitchen in Coryton had any power points in it. For filling, we used a jar of mincemeat brought back from England by a favourite student three years ago so it should be properly aged by now.
Some time today I am going to need to think about packing for my trip to Wake Forest - it hardly has the same appeal as packing for a month in Fiji. Not to mention timing phone calls to the girls in NZ - have they got their kids trained to stay in bed until sunrise on Christmas Day yet?
Even better, we finally have Skype working between members of our household (Susan's computer isn't happy with sound and picture at the same time on a 3 way call but otherwise fine) and we all had a delightful long yack with Nonx and the boys a few minutes ago.
Also made the discovery about an hour ago that EMI had released, in 2006, a boxed set of the late Jake Thackray's CDs entitled, rather tastelessly, Jake in a Box. Credit card in hand, I rushed to Amazon.com to buy myself a Chrissie prezzo only to discover that the asking price is $385. No wonder people grab this stuff of the internet.
This morning, Susan and I put some previous gifts to good use - she'd bought me two pie pots which had managed to get stuck in the back of a cupboard. I'm paranoid about making pastry as none of the recipes we have seem to match reality - "cut the butter into the flour until it is the consistency of dry breadcrumbs": it never is. Susan let me on the secret which is to bung the whole lot in a food processor and give it a blast until it looks like spackle in need of water. Something tells me my mum didn't do that, largely because I don't think our kitchen in Coryton had any power points in it. For filling, we used a jar of mincemeat brought back from England by a favourite student three years ago so it should be properly aged by now.
Some time today I am going to need to think about packing for my trip to Wake Forest - it hardly has the same appeal as packing for a month in Fiji. Not to mention timing phone calls to the girls in NZ - have they got their kids trained to stay in bed until sunrise on Christmas Day yet?
Even better, we finally have Skype working between members of our household (Susan's computer isn't happy with sound and picture at the same time on a 3 way call but otherwise fine) and we all had a delightful long yack with Nonx and the boys a few minutes ago.
Also made the discovery about an hour ago that EMI had released, in 2006, a boxed set of the late Jake Thackray's CDs entitled, rather tastelessly, Jake in a Box. Credit card in hand, I rushed to Amazon.com to buy myself a Chrissie prezzo only to discover that the asking price is $385. No wonder people grab this stuff of the internet.
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