ILL!

What a few weeks this has been....

First my eye operation goes wrong, and I have to have a second procedure - though not painful.

Then, my landlady's family - three grandsons, daughter, sort-of-son-in-law - arrive from Australia; very nice to see them all, and they bought a painting too.

But either I caught an infection from one of the boys, which he had picked up on the 'plane, or (and quite possibly) he had nothing to do with it and I caught it from Chris the landlord who nursed it lovingly at the hospital and brought it back just for me.

Wherever it came from, I've had to postpone my scheduled eye inspection, could hardly eat anything - thank goodness for my neighbour who brought me a tray of cooked meats: I couldn't have swallowed anything else - and for a week now I've been unable to go to bed at all, because the moment I lay down, my chest banged and wheezed and heaved - it was like listening to a couple of elderly cats having a row.  So I've slept in my office chair - oddly enough, not uncomfortably.

I can't imagine that uncontrollable coughing is exactly good for you when you've had a cataract replaced and pressure in the eye, but I'll find out about that at the end of the month now.

So no painting has been possible - I was having trouble with a picture anyway: it's gone so wrong I've had to gesso over it and start again; I'm not at all sure I can save it - the  Ampersand board, which worked so well for an oil painting, has been disastrous for my sort of acrylic painting; but in any event I haven't the strength to stand up to it just now.

On the plus side, Pat, my landlady, has come home at last after 16 weeks in the stroke unit, with more drugs to take than she's ever taken in her life before.  Of course this is good in nearly every respect, except that the real tasks now begin - of managing at home, accessing full and continuing support, providing some relief for Chris my landlord; things that are generally beyond my power, although perhaps I can help with Charley, the small but ubiquitous and lively dog.

Fed totally up would summarize the mood here at the Batcave right now.....!