Impressive Or What!

At an open night at the girls' school, Sam and I took advantage of seeing their work.

Amber the oldest granddaughter, showed us a lovely description she had on the wall about her self. We were quite impressed except when we came to the sentence that said, There are two things I don't like. One is my sister and the other is olives.

I spent a good while telling her how mean that sounded and also did she just think of her sister as she would a vegetable. I suppose at least she put her sister before the olive.

Millie, my youngest granddaughter, said to me, "One of the boys in our class did a very loud, long fart when we had to be quiet."

Thinking of what kind of reaction that would have caused in my rather stern schooling, I asked what happened next.

The teacher just remarked,"That was very impressive, Tommy"

I loved that answer. We would have had a very stern dressing down about manners, when I was young. Things are so much better today.

We are all trying so hard not to be too excited about a house that my son and granddaughters have put in an offer for. It is very close to where I live and someone has put in an offer for Sam's house, which is just out of Bristol and it is such a bother to get the children to school and see all their friends, not forgetting visiting Granddad and me. The deal is all in the hands of the Estate Agents and Solicitors now and is subject to contract.

With a bit of luck, they will have moved in by December. Fingers crossed it will all work out. Otherwise there will be some very disappointed people about.

I am nearing the end of my radiation treatment now and am in pain at the moment with lesions and burns. I know they will go in a few weeks, but at the moment I am moaning like Hell.

Chimes

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

I have always loved wind chimes......... Well with a Japanese influence in the family it is no surprise that I have been introduced to them over the years. Now they seem to be popular in England too.

I already had several small ones that I accumulated over the years, as well as a large wooden one that I rescued from a neglected garden that I was once tending.

I quite love the sound of them gently chiming out in the breeze. I find it very soothing.

There was only ever one neighbour who referred to them as noise pollution in a half hearted kind of way but she has moved out of the area now.... not because of my wind chimes, I might add.

Anyway, last Sunday after Church, I was very surprised to be presented with the large chimes in the first photo, from a lovely friend who has just come back from a Cornish holiday.

They have a really lovely mellow sound. She said she thought I would like them!

I have been, and still am very busy looking after Amber and Millie while Sam is in Southampton. It has been an action packed week but my energy levels are quite high and I am only tired by the end of the day, which I think of as normal tiredness.

We have had some lovely conversations, the girls and I....... done spelling revision and looked up things on the net for homework projects and I have taken them in the late afternoons to their after school activities, fed and bathed them and wished they'd go to bed earlier.

They have helped me feed and clean out Ash the rabbit and kept him entertained.

They have spoken to their Daddy on the phone every morning and Skyped every evening, so I think they have had as much of an action packed week as Granddad and I have done.

Sam comes home late on Friday afternoon. He has passed the tests so far this week, though his important exams will be when he goes again to Southampton for the third session, as yet at an unknown date.

I surprised my self by signing up to do two evenings a week in the after school club, starting from next week. If it is too much for me, then I can reduce the hours but I can also go back to my four nights if I feel up to it later on. I will not be going back to lunch times yet as I have to adjust to things very slowly after being at home for so long.

Children's Version of Things

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

After six days I have just managed to get out for a little walk and saw these lovely daffodils growing a long a path. It was a lovely day, in fact there have been some lovely days all week but I haven't felt well enough to go out.

Chemo 5 has not been easy for me and I have felt excessively tired and my skin reacted horribly to it and it will take a good while for the scratches to heal.

I have not felt anywhere near normal and was worried about the effects this is having on my family, not least my granddaughters.

Not long ago, my seven year old granddaughter, Amber came rushing in and said, "I know what your illness is called. Its cancer." That remark went through me like a knife but I didn't let her see that.

As it wasn't a word I have used in front of the children, I thought someone else must have filled her in so I asked her how she knew.

Apparently, there was a programme on Children's TV about a dinner lady who had to miss school for a very long time because she had an illness called cancer. The programme even showed the dinner lady coming back to school in a wig because she had lost her hair.

I was quite impressed by that programme that could have been written about me.

The other day, I was feeling quite miserable with my symptoms and was sitting watching TV, when my five year old granddaughter, Millie, sat on the arm of the chair and snuggled up to me saying, "Grannie, how are you feeling?"

I explained that I was tired & itchy and she told me that I would be better if I went to bed.

She asked me if the good medicine was still fighting the bad things in my body and she asked me if I had been ill for nine years.

It must seem endless to this little child.

She then went on about my hair and told me that she couldn't remember how I had looked before.

I did feel sad for her and hoped she would remember that I hadn't always been like this. I was once energetic and took them out and was a much more interesting Grannie.

She has always been a caring little child and some of the things she said made me feel like weeping.

The Scream

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

Yesterday when I was really hurting though I was trying not to show it in front of the girls, Millie, the youngest drew a picture on the blackboard with chalk.

I thought then, that this was the perfect picture of how I felt. She had unwittingly captured it with chalks.

It is easy to fob off children at the age of nearly five and seven.

They asked me why I wasn't at school ( because they know I work there lunchtimes.)

I told them I had to have my stitches out and that I had been a bit sore and that I felt sad.

That was readily accepted and off they went.

Of course the older grandsons are a different matter altogether. I had been dreading phoning my daughter because she has already had so much stress through her husband's illness and death last year. However she phoned me during the time they were at school. We cried a lot and got that out of our systems. However, when she phoned me again in the evening for a further chat, she told me she had got on touch with the hospice where her husband had died and where she still goes for councelling. She asked what she should say to the boys about my cancer. They love me dearly and have already been hurt by cancer and loss.

The hospice strongly advised her to tell the truth.

So she said to Dean the 11 year old that Granny had cancer and his eyes brimmed with tears. She asked him if he wanted to know the details and he shook his head. She then went on to ask if he would like to know if Granny had some good things happen in her illness and he said that he did want to know about those things.

This is the lad that cannot go to the grave of his father or even talk about him. He is shutting it away.

Rick is 13 and autistic and Deb thought that he might show the wrong emotion because he sometimes gets confused and giggles at inappropriate moments. So when he was told that Granny had cancer, he just shouted "I hate that word cancer...... I hate it!" But he didn't cry or show anything other than anger. He also said he didn't want to know details of my illness but readily agreed that he would like to know of any progress I make.

Of course all this started me off crying again, however, when I woke from a sparse and restless sleep this morning, I knew what I had to do. I must compile all my thoughts, struggles, love and everything that is in my life and write it down so that this blog will be there for the family long after I am gone. And..... I don't plan to go anywhere too soon.

So here we are in a slightly more fighting mood than yesterday. No good kicking doors down, knowing me I'd probably break a foot.

Eddie and I told the doctor all our fears about not starting treatment straightway.

The Doctor examined me in lots of places and didn't feel anything obviously was wrong. He said that he thought I was a very fit person and that it really was very essential to get to find out exactly what kind of cancer that they are dealing with as treatments vary and he would hate to start me off on the wrong one and spoil my chances later.

He thought two weeks was a quick time to get to see the gynaecologist and he has booked me in for an MRI scan. (There is a waiting list for that though.)

In the meantime I am eating chocolate and comfort food and to hell with the 5 fruits & veg that I have been religiously sticking to.

I will get back to healthy eating eventually.

Thank you all for your continued support, prayers and positive vibes that have helped me no end..... for my faithful blog followers and the ones who read my blog but don't comment........ you know who you are. Also for the friends who come round and hug me in person and do all sorts of little things for me.

I won't forget all the kindness....... I really will not. I appreciate all of you.

One of you said something that made me think. Everyone has been sending up prayers for Maggie May and are the prayers really benefiting me? (Gulp!)

Well if all the hairs on our heads are known and counted as Jesus said they were...... then he knows surely who I am. My name is Maggie and you all know where I live. So you can offer up prayers to Maggie in Bristol UK and you can be sure they will benefit me.

Millie's Clothes

Photos are copyright of Maggie May.

Both Millie and Amber have some lovely clothes and both of the girls have been given a free choice as to what they should wear each morning. Amber usually matches her clothes up very nicely, but Millie (being younger and more inexperienced in the ways of fashion) has some really weird ideas about what to wear. I have been told to let her pick out her outfits and not to influence her in any way and this is what I usually comply with.

The same thing happens with hair styles. She says what style she wants and I fix it for her. However before Nursery, she often adds things. Huge hairbands and lots of unusual objects and combs. One day, I thought she had gone too far as she had her head wrapped up in a scarf just the way women from the Muslim faith do and as there are children and mothers who go to the Nursery who might get offended......... I thought it best to change the headdress into a pirate style instead.

I had tried to explain that the first choice could cause offense, but she is only four! She spent a good while crying and said, "But I want to be a Buslim...... I don't want to be a pirate. I think I distracted her by the time we left for Nursery and the scarf was hidden away.

Another day, I noticed that Millie had the same clothes on as she had worn the day before. "Oh, you forgot to change your clothes," I remarked and quick as a flash she told me she had two sets of clothes for every design that she possessed. Her face was quite serious and she looked me straight in the eye. She will always be able to stand up for herself, I think.

On another occasion, I had taken Millie out shopping before Nursery and I thought that the tights clashed a bit with the dress, but never mind, she could wear what she liked. However, I did notice that the dress seemed to be a bit bulky and when I asked her what she had under it, she flashed it up and showed a frilly pink tiered skirt underneath. "I like it," She insisted and she had obviously been unable to choose between two outfits and had decided to wear both.

I sometimes go into the classroom to hand her over and say, "I had nothing to do with the clothes she is wearing or the hair-stye today."

Everyone laughs and one of the assistants sometimes remarks, "Did Millie choose her outfit again?" And that is before I have even mentioned the word *clothes.*

I am going to seriously miss them while they are in Japan for a whole month and I hope that the computer doesn't play up either now that my technical support has gone missing.

If you are reading this from Japan, Sam, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Who Is Influencing Who?

We often have Amber and Millie for a Friday night "sleepover" and its always a pleasure to have them stay.

However, one Saturday morning, I was tidying the table for breakfast, when I noticed the word Millie had been written across the plastic tablecloth in large children's writing. The problem was it had been written in biro.

Obviously I was not very pleased and confronted Millie.

"How did this writing get on my plastic cloth?" I demanded in a stern voice.

Millie gulped and said, "It was put there by accident."

Well....... I ask you! The pen jumped up and wrote Millie's name by itself!

Shortly afterwards, I noticed a piece of china on the draining board. Problem was, it was a broken piece of china and the mug that it was broken from was nowhere to be seen.

"Does anyone know anything about this broken piece of china?" I asked.

It was obvious that the children had nothing to do with it. I could tell by their reactions that consisted of complete lack of interest and no trace of guilt.

Harry ambled in. "Oh that," He said. "It just sort of fell off the mug."

Now who is he kidding? Telling me a large chunk of china just fell off a mug by itself!

Is he learning from the children do you think? Or are they learning from him? Thats what I'd like to know.