St.Albans visits, and Tania's return

Saturday, and we drove off to St.Albans to get shopping, and meet Robert at Sazios for lunch.
Robert had bought me some of the lovely business cards he had made for me, now all I need is the business. It is quite evident that Robert is missing Tania, but thankfully from his point of view she will be coming back tomorrow.

The fruit and vegetables in the market seemed rather expensive today, so we did not stock up with much. It still makes Mas laugh to hear all the market traders shouting out their wares for sale; they must be hoarse by the time they return home in the evenings.

On Sunday morning Wynford came round and gave us an enormous collection of videos, mostly Sherlock Holmes, Poirots and Agatha Christies. They have replaced these as they do not have a video player now. This will cause Mas to go through his collection, weeding some out so that the new ones can be put away, in the meantime they are stacked up in the sitting room.

We then drove up to Robert's house, and before long we were headed off to the airport to meet Tania as she arrived. Once at the airport we had a pizza snack and drink while we chatted until Tania arrived. Robert drove back home, and we stayed for a chat and tea. Tania has bought a karaoke machine which she wants Robert to set up for her. She showed pictures of her family which seemed to be full of laughing children and sunshine.

We left before too long, thinking how devastatingly tired Tania must feel after such a long journey, although she did not really seem as tired as we had expected. By the time we got home it was 8.30pm. We watched one of the new videos called the Fifteen Streets starring Sean Bean,
but I am not really a fan of gritty northern realism.

Pete's visit to home and hospital followed by pizza pie

On Monday I did a few essential things, and made some phone calls. I am glad as I am feeling better today. In the afternoon Pete arrived, and we had a nice time talking all afternoon and evening, and Mas made one of his tasty tamale pies.

Pete and I managed to get to the Royal Free at the right time in the morning. I did the blood test and them saw my doctor who, in view of the strong reaction I had had to the chemo, decided that I should have another week to recover before doing another course. The nurses and doctors in the outpatients are so pleasant, and there is such a good atmosphere there that it takes the sting out of the whole procedure. I had mentioned to Pete that I would really like to eat a pizza, and before long we were both looking forward to one.

We left the hospital, Pete much relieved that I had not been railroaded into taking more chemo before I was better. We ate tasty pizzas in the conservatory in Ask at Belsize Park, and then we went our separate ways home. When I got home Mas was happy that I had another week to recover. He is having a horrible time as he has backache, and a pain in his foot that seems to travel up the sciatic nerve and is finding it difficult to get out of chairs and change position. He has not the 'time' to go to the doctors to get it sorted out despite anything I say to him.

Florence called me, and we talked for about an hour, and were laughing about times we used to work together. Mas and I watched Pie in the Sky, and went to bed rather early