But life goes on

 Though for how long, we wonder.

Near the end of August we had been looking forward to a solid 2 weeks at the house in France. The weekend before we went I'd had a niggly back pain that became problematic & moved around, peaking bank holiday Monday before easing off but not leaving completely for the next week. Thursday it peaked again, worse than before, and in the end I got an ambulance ride to hospital, multiple scans & stuff.

We see you have a gall stome, but we think it's a digestive problem. Have some codeine and gaviscon, and come back if it persists. 

Hmmm.

Things got a fair bit worse that day before they got a bit better on evening Saturday next day, and so we delayed going away. By Sunday things were much more normal and so Monday we travelled. It was good to be there again, but that first week I was quite wobbly and suddenly much more aware of my own fragility* and the possibility I might not get to retire at all! But by the following week things were pretty much normal, work was done**, progress made and we now feel like the house is a really nice place to be. It's amazing to think we've spent less than 8 weeks in total there so far.

What was also nice was seeing new friendships deepen. Our nearest French neighbours moved from vous (formal) to tu (friends) and we met and spent time with several other people within the village. There's a flip side too, in that we've discovered not everything is quite so idyllic, but that was only to be expected really.

And so now we're back, ready to the 3 month run up to Christmas, damp days, dark nights and the rest. 

Chris had an eye op last week - seems to have gone OK AFAWK, but we've a lot of stress over lack of provision of needed medication that should have been available, but wasn't. Not cool.

* I need to make a 'when I die' list so someone can post to various forums and this blog the fact that I'm no longer around.

**My favourite gardening tool is now the brush cutter - basically a circular saw on a stick.