Lucky Bugger!

Wow, what a blooming week!!
 On Monday, we went off for Ady’s bone scan. This isn’t a quick trip to the hospital at all. We had to get there at 10am for the nuclear injection and then go away for three hours and come back at 1pm for the scan which would take about half an hour.
This give all the nuclear waste time to travel around his body and  settle on all the dodgy bits of bone and then when you go though the scanning machine, all the dodgy bits light up or turn into ‘hot spots’.
We were wondering if Ady was going to light up like a Christmas tree.

While I was waiting for Ady in the scanner, and elderly couple…well in about their 70s I spose, came and sat to wait for the husbands scan. They told me that he had prostate cancer about 5 years ago and had it removed. Everything had been fine and they got on with their lives and pretty much forgot about it…then they had a call from the GP to say his PSA was on the rise and he needed a bone scan. Bloody hell, his starting PSA was only 7 with a gleason score of 6.
I thought to myself ‘ Feck me, we’re doomed’

So, the scan was done and off we went home. We were told it would take 7 to 10 days for the results.
 So there we were, on that bloody waiting game again. I hate that game because the rules are, that you have to plan the funeral and wonder what sandwiches everyone will like, then you have to plan about what to do if the scan is clear, then you have to go back to planning funerals and what music to play, and then you have to go back to wondering what the problem is if it is clear, and then back to how to tell the children, cos he must surely have mets, and then back to thinking that it is clear cos there is no psa rise.
You have to do this ALL week, in between getting on with thinking about what to cook for dinner, what to wear tomorrow and all other normal things that normal people think about.
Thank God I’m a mentalist.

I got Ady to take his co codamol and ibuprofen religiously to try and keep the pain at bay. He was a good boy and did as he was told, pretty much.
When people asked how he was, his answer was “Oh, well, I’m still alive” FFS.
Last Thursday, I took the girls to school and popped in on my man I look after. I got home to find Ady in the kitchen leaning on the side with his hands.
I said “Are you OK?”
He said “No I am not, my feet are killing me, I have never ever felt pain like this, ever”
I have to admit, he didn’t look too good either.
“Have you taken you tablets?” I asked
“Yes , Christ this is agony” and off he went to lay down on the settee.
I thought to myself, ‘Hmm, what should I do…I know, when in a moment of panic, stop and assess the situation calmly, so I did for a minute, and then decided, nah, feck it, lets ring the doctors.
I rang the doctors and spoke to the lovely receptionist and asked for a telephone appointment. Of course he didn’t have any left, so she offered to take a message and our GP would  ring me anyway.
I asked her to write in his book that Emma and Ady say his tablets are crap.

Later that day, Dr K phoned and I had a good chat with him. Ady was asleep, as usual, but earlier, I had questioned him heavily about his pain and on a scale of one to ten, how bad was it and all that.

I told Dr K that in the morning, his pain was a good 10, and it has only gone down to a five or six mid tablet session, and his pain only ever goes down to a five or six but he just deals with it.
I asked Ady what I would be like on his 5 or 6 pain number, and he said that I would want to be in hospital on a drip, so I think he must have been in the most hugest amount of pain ever if that’s the case !!
Anyway, back to Dr K. I asked if he can have spread without a psa rise, and he said it is possible and also, with Ady’s history of multiple cancers, he didn’t really trust the blood tests.
He was chasing up the hospital for the scan results and had asked for them to fax it urgently. He would ring me in the morning and wanted to see us in the afternoon. He booked us an appointment there and then.
He said that Ady should not be in this amount of pain at all, and we need to get some sort of pain management thing going.

So, this morning, I popped out to look after my elderly man, and when I got back, Ady said to me, “You have better hold off the sandwiches cos Dr K has just rung and the bone scan is clear”
“Clear?” I said “Well what else did he say?”
“Oh I cant remember, he said something about there being nothing untoward on the scan except a few bits, but that main thing is that it is clear”
 “What do you mean you can’t remember? You must have only just got off the phone to him…have you got dementia too…?”
“Well” he said “ I knew he would ring while you were out, he should be speaking to you and then we would know what is going on!”

‘I wonder what the ‘few bits’ mean, I thought to myself.
We sent general texts to people to let them know the scan was clear and everyone was very pleased, however,  of my friends replied that if the pain was in Ady’s arse, he had a good idea as to what was causing it, and another friend replied with “That’s great news, do they know what is causing the pain|? Do you think it might be you Emma?
I would have told them both to feck orf, but then I would have no friends left.

This afternoon, we went to the doctors and spent a good half an hour with him.
He said that on the scan, it showed degenerative bone disease in his right knee, both feet and right lower back. They didn’t look at the top bit I don’t think, cos they were in a hurry to get the results back.
He offered Ady a steroid injection which he really doesn’t want cos it lulls him into a false sense of security for six weeks and then all the pain comes back with a vengeance and he has to suffer until he can have another one. He didn’t want to add anymore arthritis medication cos he feels the methothexate and sulphasalazine is toxic enough, so at the moment, we have gone for staying on the co codamol  and ibuprofen and to take them regularly to keep the pain at bay and then when he gets what they call breakthrough pain, then he can have a swig of morphine from the bottle, because his pain is very up and down and not constant.

So there we have it, the bone scan is clear but he has lots of arthritis causing him lots of pain, so we have cancelled the hearse and vicar, and cracked open the morphine!!

The beginning of the End?

I’ve been meaning to write in my blog for ages but I just haven’t had the time at all.

There are loads of things I wanted to write about. I was going to do a thing about life after cancer and what we all think and that sort of stuff, and I was going to tell you about Ady’s visit from the police and stuff like that. I will do all that, but there are more pressing things to tell you!

Well, Ady finished his Casodex on 1st August. There was no big celebration or anything, I just stopped putting them in his tablet box and that was sort of that really.
Ady said that he felt a bit all at sea now he wasn’t taking anything or seeing anyone about his cancer but we agreed that we would get used to it and everything would be fine.

Not long after stopping the Casodex, Ady started getting swollen legs, and one of them was quite red. He said they were aching a bit too. So off we went to the doctors and he diagnosed cellulitis and gave some antibiotics. Two weeks later everything was supa doopa, oh, apart from him complaining that he still had sore man boobs. His man boobs took a good 6 weeks to go!

So back in August, we were thinking “Right, we have done the prostate treatment and all is good, so now we have the PSA test at the beginning of September, then we have the blood test at the beginning of October for the colon cancer and a CT scan at the end of October for the colon cancer too, then we see the colorectal nurses in November to get the results and talk about his arse and another PSA test in December just in time for Christmas. All that will be sorted and then come the New Year, we are going to be re assessed with the benefits and Ady can go on the ‘getting back to work benefit’ and we can all live happily ever after. Marvellous!

Well, we sort of thought that his PSA test in September might possibly be a false negative because he still had a lot of side effects of the Casodex in his system. We both agreed that the December test will be the biggie. Septembers test came in at <0.1 or undetectable. Brilliant, things are moving in the right direction at last !

About a week after the cellulitis had cleared, the swelling on Ady’s legs, went down a bit but not completely and they started really aching. Off back to the doctors we went and as we were due to see the rheumatologist (thank you spell check) that afternoon, we all agreed that we would see if he thought it was linked to his arthritis.
Ady just said that they hurt all over, from the top to the bottom. He couldn’t pin point where the pain was but just said that it bloody hurt!
The rheumy chap examined him and said that it was nothing to do with his arthritis.
We talked about whether it could be the Methotrexate or Sulphasalazine and Ady was told that that could be a possibility and if he wanted to, he could come off the drugs, one lot at a time and see if the pain goes.
So, we got home and stopped the Sulfasalazine. Well, within three days, Ady said all his joints ached and the pain was still there, so he went back on three a day instead of his five. We didn’t bother stopping the Methotrexate but we bought some vitamin D, just in case that was the problem.

Over the last couple of weeks, Ady has been REALLY complaining about his sore legs. I suggested to him that he took his Ibuprofen regularly and took paracetamol in between. By the end of last week, he said that the pain was making him feel sick and he had no rest from it. The paracetamol and Ibuprofen weren’t touching it at all.
By the weekend, his feet had gone numb.

He was sitting on the chair banging mainly his left foot on the floor saying “This is really weird, I cant feel my foot at all!” The pains were still in his legs, but mainly the left one.

Ady told me that out of everything he has been through over the last couple of years, this pain will make him depressed and pissed off.

I rang the surgery on Monday morning and we went to see our fantastic GP at 11am.
He spent a good half an hour with me and Ady and examined him thoroughly.
He ruled out sciatica - that should have gone by now, or getting better and two months after it all started, it has got much worse with numbness and pins and needles (I forgot to mention the pins and needles).He checked for disc problems and a whole load of other stuff.
We agreed that it probably isn’t his arthritis meds cos he has been on the for years, so why suddenly cause a problem now?
So then he asked when Ady last had a bone scan. We said last year when he was first diagnosed, so our GP thought he ought to have another one.

D’ya know, we saw our GP on Monday morning, and by Tuesday morning, we had an appointment through for the scan to happen the next Monday!
That’s a bit too quick for my liking !

On the Tuesday, Ady went for a whole barrage or blood tests, one of them was the colon cancer test. We didn’t bother with the PSA, that can happen at Christmas for what it’s worth, because google has since told me that you can have mets to the bone without a rise in PSA FFS!!
Wednesday evening, our GP took the time and trouble to ring us to tell us that his colon cancer test came back perfect and did we have the bone scan appointment yet.
Bloody nice bloke, our GP !
Ady is now knocked out and as high as a kite on co codamol 500 which thankfully has taken the edge off the pain.

So there we have it. Does Ady have metastasises to the bone?
Was the casodex covering up any little cells that were mutating behind its back?
If we did a pSA test to three decimal points, would it be rising, or was that last PSA test very very nearly on 0.1 and but the machine did under 0.1 and the next test will be 0.1.
Does he have a little met just settled by a nerve causing the leg swelling, pain, numbness and pins and needles?
Or is it none of the above and something completely different?

There is one thing I have learnt recently is that as soon as you sit back and think ’phew just a few more tests to do and we are on the home run’ then something bites you in the arse.
Even when you become clear of this bloody disease, you are never free of it.

Not Long To Go !

Well, after having his prostate chopped out, his pelvic innerds fried and his testosterone blasted, Ady finally finishes the Casodex in a couple of weeks on 1^st August.

Thank God for that cos all we hear about these days are his sore man boobs and his excuse for everything he does wrong is “Well it’s my hormones!”

In fact, the other day, I came in from looking after my elderly man in the evening and the girls were upstairs doing their homework or so they say, so I shouted “Hellooooo, anyone hooome”. Silence....so I shouted again.

I’m not sure what homework involves using headphones full of music in your ears, but hey, what do I know!!

Then I heard some sort of grunting sound from the sitting room. The sort of grunting sound only men make when they have been woken up, then a “Hello”

So I said back “Everything OK?”

He replied “Hello....hello.....oh bugger”

I thought to myself, ‘That’s it, Ady has lost the plot, finally...the end is coming’

I went into the sitting room to find that Ady had fallen asleep on the phone mid conversation to his brother. According to Dick (his brother) he was busy chatting away and realised that Ady wasn’t replying, and then heard snoring...he tried shouting at him down the phone but ended up hanging up. ‘Must have been a riveting conversation then’, I chuckled to myself.

Ady blames it on his hormones, and Dick believes him. I’m not getting involved!

Oooh, I must tell you a bit more about my choir I joined. I did tell you a bit about it a few blogs back, so I will try not to bore you too much, but....I was asked to do a flash choir a town or two away. Oh Em Gee, it was SUCH fun!!

We had secret meetings for a few weeks on Tuesdays to practice our songs, which was A Stevie Wonder number ‘I just called to say I love you’ and that Jar of Hearts song by whatshername.

Then, on the Saturday, we went off to Waitrose. There were about 30 of us altogether. The manager was in on it by the way and we dotted ourselves around the shop.

I hung around the fruit and veg with my friends Gill and Maria who are both as mad as hatters.

Our cue was an announcement on the tannoy for a Mr Wonder to come to customer services and then we started with Stevies number, walking through the shops singing to as many men as we could and ended with the Jar of Hearts one by the cafe.

Ady and the girls refused to come and watch cos they said it would be too embarrassing, cheeky buggers.

It is something I will remember for a long time and just brilliant fun!

We are setting up a travelling flash choir, so be careful people, I could be singing in a shop near you !!!

Now, another thing I must tell you about, is my allotment!

Oh my goodness, this is another thing that’s SUCH fun. I am growing SO many things!!

We have been eating lots of new potatoes and salad. My cucumbers are the biggest I have ever seen, and my tomatoes are coming along nicely.

I have managed to grow lots of strawberries and raspberries too. In fact the other day for pudding, we had chewy in the middle meringues that I made with Daisy and Matilda’s eggs, with raspberries and strawberries from the allotment and cream.....from one stop up the road.

As Steph is allergic to apples, pears, plums and cherries, I thought I would grow her some nice peppers. She loves peppers!

I was really chuffed with myself as I watched them grow in their growbags in my greenhouse. Especially as I grew them from seed.

I thought to myself ‘bloody hell, I’m getting really good at this allotment lark!’

In fact, I was so chuffed with all my watering, weeding and growings, especially my peppers, that I made Ady come down to look.

As I was wandering around, generally surveying all my growings, I heard Ady say “What the bloody hell have you got cabbages growing in here for?”

“What are you talking about” I said “ My cabbages are over there, next to my broccoli”

“No” he said “I mean these cabbages here in the greenhouse”

“Oh dont be stupid, they are peppers” I said “I’m growing them for Steph”

“In all my years of gardening, woman, I have never seen a pepper plant look like a cabbage!”

“Well” I said, “It said peppers on the packet, so they are peppers”

“You should have gone to spec savers then” and promptly threw my cabbages out of the greenhouse!! Can you bloody believe it!! Four of them!!

The poor things, that were doing so well, are now outside and Ady went off the next day to buy me some pepper plants.

“These are what peppers look like” He said. I spose the leaves are a bit smaller, and the more the cabbages grow, the more cabbagy they look, but I’m not telling Ady !

I didn’t realise that cucumbers grow quite so many cucumbers on each plant. I thought they only grew one or two per plant, so I bought five plants. Christ, I am awash with cucumbers!!

And what with my six tomato plants, it’s a bit of a squeeze in my greenhouse. Then I decided to buy a melon plant for £2.99 in Lidl. Bloody hell, I didn’t realise that that grows all over the place with hooky twine things and everything. Blimey, if each flower make a melon, we will all end up with the chronic shits after a week !

Never mind, my peas are in the freezer all ready for Christmas J

Ebay, Casodex and The Post Office

The other week, I met up with some forum/facebook  friends for lunch. We all drove an hour and a half and met in the middle, which made it Cambridge I think...anyway, they all complained to me that I haven’t been updating my blog and how rude am I.

They complained that they have had to wade through the misery with me and they have sat on the edge of their seats waiting for each update and now everything has come to a comer/stop, I haven’t bothered updating.

I did feel momentarily bad about that and didn’t realise people were still wanting to know what is going on, even if it isn’t about hospital appointments and stuff.

I clicked on my blog, and realised that loads of people are still clicking on it to have a read, which I have to say, I am quite surprised about really, cos I think I am quite boring, wittering on about me myself and I and a little bit about Ady and the girls!

So, if you are interested, then keep reading and if you aren’t, then what the bloody hell are you doing reading this anyway!

Now then, let me rewind my brain back to the last time I updated.......OK, I must sort some pictures of Daisy and Matilda. They are very good girls and lay us an egg each every day!

As you probably know, Ady likes his model trains and he has got a whole thing going on in the loft. Every September, he goes off with his train chums to Milton Keynes, I think it is, on a big exhibition thing where they can buy the latest in choo choos.

Ady usually takes a load of money he gets for his birthday with him to have a spend up, and the last two years, he has said that it would probably be the last time he would be able to go cos he keeps getting diagnosed with cancer around that time.

Anyway, this year, so far, touch wood, he is cancerless and he is looking forward to going. We agreed that we dont have the money this year, so he agreed that he would sell some of his old stock and get the money that way.

He gathered up what he wanted to sell and rang a man in a train shop who offered to give him £130 for his trains. Ady was happy with that and sent them off.

A week or so later, Ady’s cousin rang and said that he could see Ady’s trains for sale on Ebay, going for two or three times the price he got for them.

Ady had a whole load more that he wanted to sell and I said that I would try and suss how you go about selling them on Ebay ourselves.

Blimey, it’s a whole new world out there!!

I am having great fun, taking photos of his trains and putting it all on Ebay and watching people bid on them and then wrapping them into Christmas presents to send off. Ady is very happy cos he is making so much more money...he is practically clearing the loft out!

And his cousin and his friend are now getting me to sell their stuff for them too.

I have been sending things first class recorded, like you do and I had been merrily going to the post office myself and doing it, but then I decided that Ady could do the post office trips.

The post was costing £3.65 to send, so I was charging £4.00 to include the envelope and bubble wrap.

So off Ady went (still on his casodex and a muddled mind like a sieve) to the post office with his parcels.

“Blimey” He said “That was expensive to post, it cost £6.85”

“What do you mean £6.85, it should have been £3.65.....did you sent it special delivery?”

“No” he said “I sent it registered, like you told me to”

“No” I said back “I said to send it RECORDED...no wonder it has cost so much!”

So the next week, I sent him again and told him to make sure he sends is recorded and not registered.

He also had to get some bread and milk this time.....He rang me from the village and checked that it was to be sent recorded and not registered, and I agreed.

He came back home with the bread and milk and said “Thats still bloody expensive you know Em, it was still £6.85”

I said “Well what did you ask for?”..He said “Registered, like you said”

I shan’t repeat what I said back to him on here, needless to say that he has been sacked from his post office duties.

Tablets and Blood Tests.

I had written a list somewhere, of all the things that have happened lately and what needs blogging about, but would you believe, I’ve gone and lost the blooming thing. So now I am going to have a sit and think about what I wrote on that list.....hang on......In fact, I know why I have lost it, it’s because Charlotte wanted  some CDs and I told her that she couldn’t until she learned about being tidy...for at least a week.

I went out and came back to find she had tidied my bloody desk !!! Now I have lost everything including my list!

Now I want to tell you about the rheumatologist and white blood cells, and about Ady’s hair and my choir..hmm, I had written other things down, but I can’t remember them for the moment. I’m sure that once I get going, they will come to me.

I will start with rheumatology.

We went to see Ady’s nice consultant to talk about starting back on the Methotrexate. I think I have told you this before, but never mind, a recap is never a bad thing  eh !

Anyway, he said to start back on the Methotrexate, doing 10mg for a couple of weeks and build up to his usual 22.5mg. He wanted bloods taken every 2 weeks for 6 weeks and then monthly after that.

He took a blood test while we were there and his white cells came back at something like 3.5, which by all accounts, is getting quite low.

The rheumy nurse and I agreed that it is probably to do with the radiotherapy and it should sort itself out. Well a couple of weeks later, he had another test done and his white cells were still dropping...they were about 3.2, so the rheumy nurse spoke to the consultant and he said to stop all of his arthritis drugs and see what happens to the white cells and then he will make a plan.

So, Ady has come off his Sulphasalazine and methotrexate and his white cells have come up to 4.8, which I assume is a good thing, even though he now has a stinking cold. He is not sure if his bones ache cos he has man flu or if it is because he is off the drugs.

I must ring the rheumy nurse on Monday and speak to her.

Last year, I was asked by my friend Gill, if I wanted to join a choir, but to be honest, that was the last thing I had on my mind at the time, but now things have settled down a bit, I thought I would go along and see what it was all about. Well blimey, what fun it is, I love it!

I go along once a week for a couple of hours, forget the world and its woes and have a good old sing song. And before you start sniggering, our choir leader says I have a lovely voice..so there!

It also happens, which is VERY handy, that our choir leader was a GP and she says I can ask her any questions I like and she will be very happy to answer them. She is also a right old laugh.

We had a good chat about white cells and she said not to worry until they get to about 1, so I am not worrying and Ady is just going with the flow.

As I think you know, Ady is taking Casodex 150mg for six months to try and stop any possible lurking cancer cells feeding off his testosterone and multiplying. Well, there was me thinking yay, he will be multitasking and asking for directions before the week is out, when all that has happened is that he has started growing some bum fluff on the top of his head. He is absolutely delighted! I think he looks a pratt, but he doesn’t care.He says he wants to enjoy his hair while he has it.

In fact, it has made all of his hair go a bit bum fluffy and fly away and now he has started complaining about bad hair days....for goodness sake!

The other thing the casodex has done, is zapped all of his energy. He is knackered all day. (Ady says, just like a woman.....knackered all day and can’t do feck all). So then he has this whole guilt thing going on in his brain all day about whether he is just being lazy and should fight it and try and go to work, or whether he should go with the flow and sleep it off when he is tired.

He doesn’t just doze when he sleeps, he is completely out for the count and I have to give him a jolly good shaking to wake him up.

He drives me around the twist sometimes, with his guilt trips. There he is, trying to complete his treatment for cancer, the second cancer, off all his arthritis medication cos his white cells are up the shoot, so that needs sorting, plus all the other things that are wrong with him and the silly sod thinks he should be going out for the day digging over someone’s bloody rose bed!!

Thank the Lord that we went to see his oncologist the other day who told him not to fight the tiredness and to sleep his way through it. Work can wait.

Well because someone in authority has ‘given him permission’ to sleep, he is quite happy with that arrangement and so hopefully the guilt conversations will stop!

The Oncologist also said that she is very pleased that his PSA has remained at zero and because of that, she is discharging him from her care, back into the care of Mr D our urologist.

She said that she hopes, in the nicest possible way that she doesn’t see him again. I didn’t like to ask what she thought the chances of that happening were and from what I have learnt about prostate cancer, is that it has no rules and it takes no set path of destruction.

Prostate cancer has a complete mind of its own and is totally unpredictable.

I really really hope, in the nicest possible way of course, that we don’t see her again, but I have a nagging gut feeling from his ‘high risk’ stats, that we just might do.

For the moment, we are going to get used to the ‘new normal’ we have found. The one where all the cancers have been packed away in a box, get the casodex finished in August and then tightly cross our fingers that the PSA doesn’t rise next year, or the year after, or even the year after that...we will get used to it...you have to!

Someone said to me the other day “It’s not the lion you are watching that will get you, it’s the snake creeping up your leg that you didn’t see”

Blimey, that made me think a bit!

Daisy and Matilda.

Ady was really really miserable about losing Bluebell and Pepper and I have to say, our house was very quiet without them.

Ady told me that he would cheer up a lot of he could have some more chickens. His little girls had kept his spirits up all through his bowel cancer and were helping him through his prostate cancer, so we agreed that he could have some more.

He found a place nearby that was selling some, and we were able to go the next day to collect them.

Well, Ady cheered up in an instant and off he went outside to the run to do a few more ‘Tom and Jerry’ efforts on it, just to make quite sure that My fox couldn’t get in.

I had to tell him at one point that if he carries on with the hammer and nails, then none of us will be able to get in!

The girls noticed Ady’s new upbeat mood and suggested that they would be equally happy if they could have a dog...a nice rescue one. I thought that would be a nice idea and had visions of us all going on nice walks as a family like they do on adverts, so me and the girls looked some up on the internet.

We printed off a picture of one we liked and showed it to Ady. Well, he can’t keep a happy mood for long that one, and told us in no uncertain terms that if we got a dog then he wouldn’t have the new chickens and he would get rid of the cats, oh, and the hamsters would have to go to, and we would have to walk it cos there is no way that he is swinging warm dog shit around in a bag. He wasn’t happy at all as it happens.

So Ady won the battle and we picked up Daisy and Matilda the next day. Ady has put himself a chair in the run with them and sits there just watching them and doing his thing..whatever that is..

Our new girls are very cute and friendly and they lay us two eggs every day. Good girls!

I will do a picture of them when I take one!

A Day Out.

I was told that Julia’s funeral was going to be a simple affair, which was quite a relief actually because Ady and I weren’t sure if we should let the girls come with us.

Charlotte said she didn’t mind not going and Steph stamped her foot a few times saying that it’s not fair cos we never let her go to funerals, so we decided that they could come.

This would be their first funeral, and a nice one to go to for the first time. Not too solemn and dark if you know what I mean.

So, I got my sat nav and blu tac all ready, and just to make sure, I printed off the directions from the AA route finder, bought us some journey sweets, phoned the girls school to get them the day off, made sure Ady had his piss bag things ready and a spare set of clothes, and off we went on our day trip out (we don’t go out often).

I was really chuffed, cos I had managed to get us there without getting lost !

The funeral itself was really nice and certainly good for the girls first one.

Ady told them that it would good practice for his.

 They played Status Quo as we walked in and when we left, because she was a Kylie Monogue fan, so Ady’s just shouted from the kitchen, sily arse.

I’m getting Charlotte to type this for me while I dictate to her, thinking it will be easier but i’ve got Ady shouting additions to this blog which is really off putting.

I brought my finest singing voice with me (which reminds me, I must talk about my choir at some point!) Ady, again has shouted “your choir’s got nothing to do with my cancer! Why the bloody hell do people want to know about that? It’s all me, me, me and me.” Charlotte and I have just told him that we are bored of his cancer now...that’s old news...

Any way, we sang All Things Bright And Beautiful, which I have to say, is an octave too high for me. So luckily we sang Jerusalem which is much more with in my vocal range!

At the end of the service, we were given a piece of paper with directions to go to a pub for cucumber sandwiches and a cup of tea. Ady’s brother Dave had come to the funeral too, and had got himself wedged in a car parking space where the only way to get out was to drive over somebody’s grave. So he had to wait until someone else moved their car so he could follow us to the pub.

Now the problem with me, is that I always think that I know where I’m going, when actually I haven’t got a clue. We were going to wait and follow someone who actually knew where they were going but Dave had got out of his space and was waiting behind us so I decided to just go and find the pub. It couldn’t have been that difficult?

Ady was reading the directions and frankly he’s crap at doing that and sent me the wrong way. The next minute we found ourselves in some bloody one way system in the middle of poxy Cheltenham. What a bloody place that is!

Normally, you would expect a one way system to go around in a sort of circle..not this one, it seemed to snake everywhere and all the signs are upon you before you have time to get in the correct lane (assuming you know where you are going in the first place).

So I had the girls in the back moaning “Muuuum, do you know the way? How far it is to the pub?” and Ady sitting next to me saying, well shouting actually “If you had listened to me and turned at the roundabout when I said, we wouldn’t be in this fecking one way system woman....you want the left hand lane...THE LEFT HAND ONE!!” and of course Dave was following merrily behind us.

Tony (Julia’s dad) then rang to ask us if we had gone home to which Ady replied that we were going round and round in circles on some bloody one way system in the middle of Cheltenham. Good old Tony talked us all the way out of the one way system and to the pub.

I tell you, nothing we ever do can go without a hitch !!

Ady coped very well throughout the day and the cucumber sandwiches bit was filled with laughter and jokes..just the way Julia would have wanted it.

So there we have it...I won’t be rushing off to Cheltenham again in a hurry cos it’s full of roads that go in the wrong direction that you want to go, and one way systems!