Mixed Emotions

My body clock has been a little crazy since we landed.  On Friday morning, despite awakening at half two the following day, I was wide awake at half three.  Not good. Phil had wanted to catch up with recordings so it wasn’t as if I had gone to bed early, well 10 pm is late for me so I was surprised and p****d off being up so early.  There was no choice but to get up for fear of disturbing the DH.

So got up I did.  On the plus side I was able to write my blog and do 2 hours of holiday ironing.  I got to the gym before 8 am and had a reasonable workout. I was in the changing room when I overheard a lady member coming into the changing room saying that outside it was blowing a blizzard.  I have a real fear of driving in the snow so I didn’t hesitate. I got dressed and without even drying my hair, I drove straight home.  That lady was so right and I was glad I eavesdropped; my journey home was a nightmare but at least I got back home safely.  

As everyone will know, it snowed all day in Milton Keynes, so we had the perfect excuse to stay indoors in the warm and have a duvet day.  We had pie and mash for our lunch with lashings of gravy then spent the afternoon watching movies and occasionally glancing out of the windows to watch the falling snowflakes.

On Saturday, Phil had planned to drive to Melton to do some jobs for mum and dad then go on to Loughborough to have a boy’s night out with Steve but after looking outside and checking the weather forecast he decided against travelling.  The only driving he did was to drop me off at Milton Keynes station.  I was booked on the 9.13 am train to Birmingham to see Sue; I was slightly worried as there were quite a few cancellations and my train was coming up as delayed but in the end I was only delayed by 20 minutes. Brian had told me about the Virgin train website and I was able to get a return ticket for £13 which I considered a bargain especially as I had a pre-booked seat.

I got into Birmingham New Street at half ten and was at The Queen Elizabeth bang on the dot of 11 which was when visiting started.  Sue was in bed and looked asleep but in fact she wasn’t asleep.  Her nurse told me that she’d had a rough night.  Bless her; I have never seen a patient attached to so many drips, drains and various monitoring machines.  Sue was pleased to see me but I knew she was struggling to talk so I told just her to rest and I would do the talking if she wanted. 

Poor Sue was feeling very sick and the nurse pumped her with a strong anti-sickness drug which did help a little. It didn’t help that I had sprayed myself with a fairly strong perfume which made Sue feel even worse.  I placed my chair as far away as possible.  I didn’t expect Sue to be jumping around because after all, she’d just undergone a very serious major surgery but it upset me greatly to see her in pain.  I stayed a couple of hours then squeezed her hand and left for the station with a bit of a heavy heart I have to confess.

It was bedlam at Birmingham New Street with many cancellations due to bad weather.  Indeed my train was cancelled but there was another fast train 20 minutes later and I was able to get on that.  I had intended on getting the bus back to the flat but Phil insisted on coming to pick me up.  Even though we had plenty of ready meals in the fridge, Phil fancied something home-made so he’d made a pot of chilli and rice.  I had this for my supper and very tasty it was too.   I don’t why but the cold weather makes the pair of us yearn for comfort food.  All very nice, but not very good for my NY diet.

When I got up on Sunday morning I was pleased to see that it wasn’t snowing so I decided to hit the gym.  Before I could go anywhere, firstly I had to scrape my car. This wasn’t easy as the snow was frozen, it took me ages.   I was just about to drive off when the snow started.   By the time I ummed and arrghed whether to chance the roads, it was coming down quite heavily so I decided to abort. I did walk down to the shop to get the papers and some milk but that was as far as I ventured on Sunday.  Harriet came round for lunch; she’s much braver driving than her mum in bed weather.  I cooked a lovely roast chicken with Yorkshire puddings, broccoli, roast spuds, carrots and leeks in cheese sauce.  Yummy.  And that was about it for Sunday, the tabloids, a snooze on the sofas and some crap TV.

Today Phil scraped the land rover and drove me to Birmingham to visit Sue.  Phil doesn’t do hospitals at the best of times and especially ICU but he wanted to see Sue very much so today he had to overcome his phobia.   Thankfully Sue was sitting up in bed and gave us a bright smile when we got to her bedside.  I was so pleased as she looked so much better than when I last saw her.  I was amazed when she told me that she’d some breakfast; she’d sat in her chair for a while and even managed a short walk around the ward, with the help of her nurse of course.  Apart from a quick bite in the restaurant we talked for 3 hours but we could see that Sue was getting tired so at half two when she was helped back into bed we both gave her a kiss and said our goodbyes.  Phil drives like a Formula One driver even in bad weather so we were back home at the flat before 4 pm.

The snow is very pretty and I like it when I can be cooped up inside our cosy flat but tonight I hope the snow melts away.  I really do want to get back to normal and more importantly I NEED to get back to the gym.  Comfort food and sitting on my backside for days on end is doing nothing for my soul, both inside or out, not to mention my morale.  I am a creature of habit and this is a girl that needs her routine.