To blog or not to blog

March has sprung with all the zest of Zebedee on valium or a slinky trying to boing its way back UP the stairs, but at least made an attempt to be springy, and the last few days have been glorious with sunshine and blue skies. It makes a change from the rain and cloud of recent weeks, but I suspect that winter is but playing possum. We have finally managed to edge the veg plots – a cunning plan to try to ensure that we don’t end up mowing more crops than we get to eat – and we eventually got round to digging in several bags of well-rotted manure.  It frustrates me that I have to rely on David for the manual labour, but any physical effort still leaves me exhausted and panting for breath. I sound a bit like Darth Vader making a dirty phone call! I did manage to cover the two plots with fleece though, so that should start to warm the soil and hopefully get seeds off to a good start when eventually I can sow outdoors.  I’m looking forward to being busy in the garden – I can potter for hours and when there is an end product I don’t feel like I have wasted my life so much.

I have a few seedlings already coming up in pots on the kitchen window – peppers and tomatoes mainly, although today I also started some plugs of sage, parsley, basil and chives, to get an early crop of herbs. I’ve run out of window sills now though. There are really only two in the house that I can use – any put on the others would fall foul of the cats, who have no respect for anything if it is in their way, and Solo has secured his vantage point both downstairs and in the bedrooms. He sits on guard chattering away to himself as though he is giving a running commentary on life in the Avenue. Maybe he is. Should I float the idea of “Desperate Felines” with the BBC? There IS a ginger cat on the street – who I shall have to refer to as Bree from now on.  I digress.

Most of my bulbs are now at least showing signs of spring and we have had the crocuses in flower; they bring a little cheer into an otherwise overcast existence.  I have hyacinths, tulips, daffs and grape hyacinths all yet to come to flower, although they are at least shooting so we should get a nice display. I should really be using the pots and tubs for veg, but a little splash of colour in the garden is an indulgence I think I have earned.  Speaking of colour, I’m also planning to plant some nasturtiums amongst the veg this year – they should look pretty and are not totally against the whole ‘Good Life’ ethos as they are edible and lovely in salads. That is if the slugs don’t get them first.

I hate slugs. This year I have bought some slug traps to sink into the soil and hopefully lure them to their deaths. I normally don’t like killing anything – I would shoo a wasp or a fly out of the house rather than squish it, but slugs are the exception and they should die with exquisite agony in the full knowledge that they are an affront to Mother Nature and all things good.  The only thing they are any use for is target practice – load a few into a hand-held catapult and see if you can hit a tree/wall/bus etc.  You may remember that last year I managed to cover the tennis courts opposite with splattered slug innards, and this year I may have to up the forward attack in my war against the little slimy bastards. Copper is supposed to give then mild electric shocks. I think copper, wired to the mains, would be an even better idea. Let them spit and frizzle if they try to get at my spuds! There is some satisfaction in the look of terror in their stalky little eyes when you approach with a large tub of salt or a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays. I’d live and let live if they buggered off to someone else’s garden. It isn’t like they NEED to eat my peas and carrots – there is plenty of other vegetation available, so I have to conclude that they do it out of spite.

I am taking the war airborne next – or at least off the ground as I’ve decided to grow strawberries and tomatoes in hanging baskets thus hopefully elevating them above sluggy reach. The sneaky gits will probably find a way to foil even that plan – probably bribe a thrust or two to parachute them into the baskets. But I am steadfast. I shall not flag or fail.  I shall fight them under cloches. I shall fight them up the walls. I shall defend my land, whatever the cost may be.  I shall fight them in the baskets, I shall fight them in the plots, I shall fight them in the greenhouse and in the tubs. I shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this garden or a large part of it were subjugated and withered, then our vegetable plot, armed and guarded by the best slug pellets money can buy, would carry on the struggle and, step forth to the rescue and the liberation of the potatoes, new and old.

We are still getting frosts and it is way too early to move any seedlings outside to the greenhouse-thing we have. (It is really just a plastic bag on a frame, looks as cheap as it was, can’t be heated  and only holds a handful of pots, but its better than nothing) With the cold we have also had blue skies and yesterday I did have a meander round the estate taking a few photos for a community website we have been designing. This is the so-called community which is rapidly transforming into a Lancastrian version of Palestine, and all over the issue of the blessed swimming pool repairs. Since the proper last residents meeting the sides seem to have declared outright war on each other. I fully expect reports over the next few days that one group or the other has developed WMDs and I wouldn’t be surprised if I see Kate Adie and a BBC crew dressed in khakis and trying to file a live report from behind one of the hedges amid the screech of percussion shells and grenades. A small faction of pool protestors has already lodged complaints with parliament and Watchdog, in an attempt to remove the current residents’ committee and managing agent (who are walled up in a fortress of bureaucracy and legal protection. Others are simply refusing to pay for the pool repairs, withholding funds, meaning that there are further delays and I doubt we will have the facility back in working order this side of summer at this rate. I just want to swim. Was that mortar fire and a rocket launcher I just heard?

To be honest, I went out to take the photos yesterday as ‘busy work’ to try to take my mind off the fact that I had another hospital visit scheduled for that afternoon, at which a decision would be made on  whether to start the next phase of my treatment. Now that the cancer is in remission (touching wood) there are still some residual problems that need to be addressed, including damage to my liver. My kidneys are also under close scrutiny as some of the medication I have been taking is known to cause renal problems. Because my liver is one step away from best being served lightly fried in butter with onions and a nice bottle of Chianti, that has huge detrimental impacts on lots of other bodily functions,  even if indirectly, and could be the cause of my sickness and mood swings. My pancreas is also not a happy bunny, but again this may be as a result of medication or my lily-livered liver. So the upshot of all this is that following more poking, pricking, prodding and postulating they want me to start treatment to fix my liver ASAP.  That is likely to be at least a year of injections, tablets and generally feeling ill. Allegedly it is ‘a walk in the park compared to the chemo you have been through’ but still not something I am looking forward to.

I knew this would be needed, so it was no real surprise, but I had hoped we would get a little bit more time before it all kicked off. Knowing about something and it actually happening are two different things and this is not a situation I face gladly or with anything but a heavy heart. I have the rationalization that going through this is better than the alternative but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish it were avoidable. I really wanted to be able to go away on holiday for a week before we were plunged back into the helter-skelter of medical mayhem. I owe that to David, who has been my rock over the last two years and who I am now asking to go through something similar all again. He deserves a holiday; we both do. But this next phase is a pretty unsubtle spanner in that particular jet engine. We wanted to go to the Maldives – tropical beaches, minimal intrusion from other tourists, sunshine and white sand, books to read and lagoons to snorkel, children only available spit roast as a course for dinner, no mobiles or interweb or TV or stress. We have been saving like squirrels for the last 18 months, but prices are extortionate and we were just a few months away from having the pennies. But that is all blown out of the water now as I expect to start treatment in the next fortnight so our tropical tranquillity is now unattainable. So I’ll be starching my stiff upper lip and soldiering on with grim determination, facing whatever this treatment throws at me with good old Dunkirk spirit. I shall fight it in the hospital, I shall fight it in the wards and I shall not be defeated. But if you go on holiday to somewhere sunny this summer, don’t send me a postcard.  I hate to see a grown man cry, especially when it’s me.