Under the Nurse

These salvias are a much prettier blue than my camera could show

Still colour in the perennial bed

 I dead-headed a few dahlias but the delphiniums proved too much for me and I had to sit down. And so it goes on, with no end in sight. A very high blood pressure reading in casual circumstances on Sunday has both shocked and galvanised me, and I'm seeing the nurse today for a bit of clarification. Was it just a mysterious spike, or has the self-medication with high doses of calcium and vitamin D to try to counteract severe osteoporosis caused my body to overreact? It's a possibility, but checking things on the internet is fatal, and pointless. I'm not one for dwelling on medical matters. Having a mother with hypochondria put paid to that. If you asked me when I last saw the doctor, or why, I'd be hard pressed to remember. Have I ever had a serious illness? Couldn't tell you. Did either of my children? Hang on a minute, let me think .... For me it's out of sight, out of mind. If I'm functioning OK, I never give my body a thought. I tend to believe I'm from the school of that character in French and Saunders: "Leg chopped off? Load of stuff and bloody nonsence. Don't need a doctor, just get on". But actually, when things go seriously wrong, as they seem to be doing now, and the leg is hanging by a thread, I'm completely thrown. It's me head, see. You can't get very far with a dickie head.

Trying to keep Hugo fit without long walks

  
The field behind my house looks like a building site. They are laying drainage pipes to try and make the boggy parts of it more productive. It's been fascinating, watching the trenches being dug out, then filled with stones and blue plastic tubing, miles of it. Several vehicles and not a few men are engaged in the task, and the noise they are making is ricocheting off the walls of the house and bouncing into the summerhouse where I am sitting. Poor Hugo doesn't know what to make of it. We would normally be in the house when there's a commotion outside, but there's a plumber and an electrician in there, building me a new shower room, and boy are they noisy too. Men and their gossip! I don't know why women get such a bad press. I've given up thinking about the dirty floor as well. Time enough to worry about cleaning up after they've gone.

Armageddon

Yesterday I was sent the ticket order forms from Bayreuth Opera House to pursue my dream of going to this Wagnerian shrine in Bavaria to hear one of his operas. I felt a surge of excitement and hope, but in fact I haven't been on the waiting list for very long so probably won't qualify for next year. The average wait is about nine years. I dreamed of seeing Renee Fleming sing in Lohengrin next summer, but so did thousands of other people around the globe, I'm sure. Decades ago, when I was a young thing, my friend James Bell who introduced me to Wagner promised to take me with him but it never happened and we lost touch when I got married. In those days you just bought a ticket. Not any more. What recession? James took me to Covent Garden for the first time, to see Il Barbiere di Seviglia and I disgraced myself by being so bursting to go to the loo, SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bursting, that in the end I climbed over the back of the seat into the rear aisle and fled to the ladies. Luckly he was a Scot with a dry wit, and he saw the funny side. It was the first of many visits with James, and later of course, but I never behaved so outrageously again. Anyway, I'll complete the forms and send off a gigantic cheque, and wait. I've got nothing to lose.

As part of my fight against whatever is making me feel dreadful I've bought a jar of Manuka honey. It has properties, apparently, magical ones. I've seen the long list of things it's meant to cure, or at least help, and "unspecified head issues" aren't on it. I have a feeling about it though. Anything that costs that much must be good. And if not, I can honestly say that it's the very nicest honey I've ever tasted, and if the jar lasts a week that'll be a miracle in itself.