Yesterday was Family Feast No 3 - we ate another fairly magnificent meal - drank a lot of fizzy, cremant d'Alsace and Cava... lots of red, didn't get around to the port - the walnuts, although we had some of the fab cheese Pollz brought.
The house looked very nice and it was a great day all round - people even noticed that I'd lost weight... success! My father is currently staying with us - which is nice, it gives him a chance for a bit of a rest - and we spent a lot of the day in the sitting room reading. The boys were barely evident - I think he's disappointed not to have them around - but I hope Finn will come and be sociable tomorrow.
I started the day with a bout of gardening - as the sun was shining and I have a small box of bulbs to plant. I didn't get very far, had to deal with the fig tree, weeds and the saponaria in the front garden which is taking over. I managed to plant 5 allium and an erythronium before I became overwhelmed by light-headedness and trembling (my new symptoms - of what? - !). I then returned to my natural habitat: the sofa.
I am itching because I can't really write at the moment - I told myself I would be "on holiday" and available to my beloved family and friends - Mark has been very kind and helpful, Finn and Ned mostly absent - well, 1 out of 3 isn't too bad - and I talked to Pa a lot today.
I was thinking about S - I am quite shocked at how upset I feel about it, I had thought when I heard that he was having more radiotherapy in Jan/Feb that would have some sort of therapeutic effect, but it is actually done to reduce bone pain - it can't reverse the cancer. Although a couple of his tumors had stopped growing - but presumably not shrinking. I had hoped the treatment offered somehow but it's about prolonging life and making it more comfortable - not actually sort it out. Apparently once the cancer has gone beyond the prostate it is incurable - so that's it - just a matter of time really. Yes, death's just a matter of time for all of us, but rather less time probably in S's case. I would like to do something for him, who knows what. Am going to read one of Pa's books to see if I can think what to say to him. But perhaps I am simply suffering from grandiosity - to think that I might be the one to push him in the right direction. He is the cousin that I've been closest to - I always felt he was an ally in some way - especially since the "unpleasantness" a couple of years ago. I don't think he ought to die yet - not for my sake - but for the people who are going to really lose him. After all, I wasn't in touch with him for some years - and it was great to renew our friendship, now that we have done so, I will miss him more than I would have otherwise. But this is in great part about the sorrow one feels as one's contemporaries begin to get scythed down. For various reasons I have always believed that I will get to about 90 - preferably in good mental nick - if not, am happy to die sooner and not be a pain to my family.
I was talking to Angela Flowers the other day about the reptile brain - our cruel hunger for individual survival which makes us happy to see other members of the tribe drop by the wayside - she was very shocked by this idea. I explained that we weren't really like this - we had been socialised and nurtured into being much more caring (some of us - although I can think of some exceptions). I suspect a bit of a lack of nurture in my case makes me a bit less caring than perhaps Angela or even my father. But time may (or may not) tell. I don't think the instinct I had to "discard" in my mother's case was pure selfishness, but a genuine feeling that she had gone beyond the boundaries of an agreeable life, she was always telling one she wanted to die, one couldn't feel sorry when she did, because so much of her had already gone. When I first heard that Edward was going to die, I was upset, I cried even - to M's surprise - but now I would be delighted if he died, for much the same reasons, seeing a good mind going dim is a sorry business. Another factor about caring is clearly quite simply how much one loves someone. That doesn't mean everyone who puts their spouse in a home is unloving - but every spouse who does this and doesn't go and see them every day... or as often as the circumstances allow might be less than 100% loving.
When my mother was ill I never felt very easy about performing les petits soins for her - such as massaging her, doing her hair, wiping her chops or whatever. I think that was definitely uncaring of me, and perhaps a result of not having been cared for (this was the mother who had my hair cut because she was fed up with brushing it for me). Or perhaps I really am rather harder and more selfish than I'd like to think.
The house looked very nice and it was a great day all round - people even noticed that I'd lost weight... success! My father is currently staying with us - which is nice, it gives him a chance for a bit of a rest - and we spent a lot of the day in the sitting room reading. The boys were barely evident - I think he's disappointed not to have them around - but I hope Finn will come and be sociable tomorrow.
I started the day with a bout of gardening - as the sun was shining and I have a small box of bulbs to plant. I didn't get very far, had to deal with the fig tree, weeds and the saponaria in the front garden which is taking over. I managed to plant 5 allium and an erythronium before I became overwhelmed by light-headedness and trembling (my new symptoms - of what? - !). I then returned to my natural habitat: the sofa.
I am itching because I can't really write at the moment - I told myself I would be "on holiday" and available to my beloved family and friends - Mark has been very kind and helpful, Finn and Ned mostly absent - well, 1 out of 3 isn't too bad - and I talked to Pa a lot today.
I was thinking about S - I am quite shocked at how upset I feel about it, I had thought when I heard that he was having more radiotherapy in Jan/Feb that would have some sort of therapeutic effect, but it is actually done to reduce bone pain - it can't reverse the cancer. Although a couple of his tumors had stopped growing - but presumably not shrinking. I had hoped the treatment offered somehow but it's about prolonging life and making it more comfortable - not actually sort it out. Apparently once the cancer has gone beyond the prostate it is incurable - so that's it - just a matter of time really. Yes, death's just a matter of time for all of us, but rather less time probably in S's case. I would like to do something for him, who knows what. Am going to read one of Pa's books to see if I can think what to say to him. But perhaps I am simply suffering from grandiosity - to think that I might be the one to push him in the right direction. He is the cousin that I've been closest to - I always felt he was an ally in some way - especially since the "unpleasantness" a couple of years ago. I don't think he ought to die yet - not for my sake - but for the people who are going to really lose him. After all, I wasn't in touch with him for some years - and it was great to renew our friendship, now that we have done so, I will miss him more than I would have otherwise. But this is in great part about the sorrow one feels as one's contemporaries begin to get scythed down. For various reasons I have always believed that I will get to about 90 - preferably in good mental nick - if not, am happy to die sooner and not be a pain to my family.
I was talking to Angela Flowers the other day about the reptile brain - our cruel hunger for individual survival which makes us happy to see other members of the tribe drop by the wayside - she was very shocked by this idea. I explained that we weren't really like this - we had been socialised and nurtured into being much more caring (some of us - although I can think of some exceptions). I suspect a bit of a lack of nurture in my case makes me a bit less caring than perhaps Angela or even my father. But time may (or may not) tell. I don't think the instinct I had to "discard" in my mother's case was pure selfishness, but a genuine feeling that she had gone beyond the boundaries of an agreeable life, she was always telling one she wanted to die, one couldn't feel sorry when she did, because so much of her had already gone. When I first heard that Edward was going to die, I was upset, I cried even - to M's surprise - but now I would be delighted if he died, for much the same reasons, seeing a good mind going dim is a sorry business. Another factor about caring is clearly quite simply how much one loves someone. That doesn't mean everyone who puts their spouse in a home is unloving - but every spouse who does this and doesn't go and see them every day... or as often as the circumstances allow might be less than 100% loving.
When my mother was ill I never felt very easy about performing les petits soins for her - such as massaging her, doing her hair, wiping her chops or whatever. I think that was definitely uncaring of me, and perhaps a result of not having been cared for (this was the mother who had my hair cut because she was fed up with brushing it for me). Or perhaps I really am rather harder and more selfish than I'd like to think.
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