Our lounge used to be such a relaxing place - somewhere to unwind and watch a DVD, read a book or close ones eyes and absorb Rachmaninoff. Now it's a building site. Last Tuesday, with a lot of help from Danny the gas fitter, we disconnected and removed the gas fire, along with its vintage back boiler, and today I set about bricking up the old fireplace aperture. Many a long year has passed since I last attempted anything like this and my current efforts would doubtless reduce a professional brickie to tears, but it's done and I'm actually rather proud of it.
What you can't see in the photo is another enormous hole on the left side of the chimney breast, where the old heating pipes once ran. I plan to cover that over with plasterboard, then comes some more cementing to face those bricks, and finally the plastering. I'm not relishing that last job and may enlist the services of a plasterer, though fellow blogger Shirley Anne has given me lots of advice on how to proceed. And if I don't quite get it right, it hopefully won't show beneath the wallpaper.
Make what you will of the bricklayer's almost-colour-coordinated attire. I'm unrepentant, but promise not to appear like this in public! Skirt, t-shirt and cardie were retired from active service several years ago and are kept for jobs such as this.
Abnormal Result - an updateA heartfelt 'thank you' to Jan, Laura, Lucie, Mel, Sarah, Aunt Sarah and Shirley Anne for their emails and messages of support, following my last blog post. I attended a consultation at Gloucester Royal Hospital yesterday, where I had all the gory details explained to me. Undeterred, I signed the consent form and was given a supply of super-effective laxative that will clean out my bowel. The colonoscopy is booked for Friday 21st February and I will know the result on the day.
Every two years, people in my age group are regularly invited to take a test for bowel cancer. It's all wonderfully simple. You do it yourself in the privacy of your home and post off a few small samples of poo, which are then tested for traces of blood that are invisible to the naked eye. 2% of tests will yield a positive result and this will trigger an investigation to find out what is causing the bleeding.
My test last week was inconclusive, so I was invited to do a re-test. Today I learned that this second result is abnormal, so I've been called into Gloucester Royal Hospital for a consultation, which will probably lead to a colonoscopy.
The letter I was sent clearly states that most abnormal results are not caused by cancer. The statistics break down something like this:
- 50% of those having a colonoscopy will have a normal result.
- A further 40% will have polyps, which are then removed as this reduces the likelihood of cancer developing in the future.
- The remaining 10% will be found to have cancer.
So there's a 90% chance that I don't have bowel cancer. And if I do, early detection will have greatly increased the probability that it can be successfully treated.
But the statistics can be run the other way round. 17-20% of UK citizens will develop bowel cancer at some stage in their lives. So, since only 10% of abnormal results are cancerous, the chances of an abnormal result at some stage in ones lifetime must be pretty high. I'll leave others to work out the mathematical probability.
The lovely thing about spending Christmas Day with children and grandchildren, then New Year with Aunt Sarah, is that I get to celebrate Christmas twice. Giving and receiving presents on New Year's Eve is now a firmly established family tradition, but first one has to buy them – and the rule is that we don't go mad; just something inexpensive, given with love.
Aunt Sarah was keen to try the Metro Centre in Gateshead, which has the distinction of being the largest indoor shopping centre in Britain. Have you noticed, by the way, how these places invariably resemble modern-day cathedrals, with their high vaulted roofs? I have a friend of high church persuasion who says he's frequently overcome with a desire to bow to the east when visiting one!
Sarah had a plan. First we would explore EWM (Edinburgh Woollen Mill), size up their prices on knitwear, then compare the offerings in other shops. If needs be, we could return later to EWM as it was quite near the centre's entrance. The plan lasted about 3 minutes! Sarah emerged from the fitting rooms with a new skirt and cardigan and I fell in love with a couple of modestly priced jumpers, which Sarah bought to give me later in the day. Next we searched John Lewis's and Lakeland for a souffle dish, but without success. No matter, though, as yesterday's shopping exploits had already yielded a couple of small oven dishes to give Sarah.
So here are aunt and niece proudly displaying their presents, before we all sat down to a mouthwatering fondue meal. That just left time to watch a DVD of Love Actually before the champagne cork popped to mark the New Year.
* As connoisseurs of ecclesiastical calendars and Yuletide songs will know, Christmas actually runs from December 25th to January 5th, so in truth it's all one big celebration.
