2008
The year started on the sad note 2007 finished on with the funeral of Karen's mother.
We also bought a fruit tree to remember her by and buried the ashes under it when it was planted in her back garden, her housing association house having been transferred to one of her granddaughters.
Back home, I finished the decking: digging out more earth (which has formed quite a high mound on top of the peak of the hill. (I call it “Nant Garw”, from “The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain”.) The back of the deck has a low paving-slab-edged wall topped with triple width decking planks to make a long bench seat the full width of the deck and facing the views over the estuary.
I also renewed the central steps. They had been narrow and steep, and the log roll had perished making them dangerous. It wasn't an easy matter to fit enough steps in, with a large enough footprint on each step, to make the new steps gentle enough. They zig-zag tightly in a cascade of log roll.
We went on two foreign holidays in 2008. The first was meant to have been a surprise but I found out all about it accidentally.
Originally, Karen had been looking at the possibility of a trip to India as a 60th birthday present but those plans had been understandably shelved when her mother had been taken ill. She had worried that my milestone birthday was overlooked but I told her to forget about it as her mother's health was a much greater priority. However, she hadn't forgotten about it and as she started coming to terms with her grief, and as the weather improved, started looking at on-line bargain get-aways. We both get a weekly newsletter from Travelzoo that details bargains to be had. Thus I had previously noticed the deal offered by Anatolian Sky before a package arrived addressed to Karen that had Anatolian Sky printed at the top. A further accident occurred when I went to open a document in Word on the main computer and couldn't help noticing the last document on the MRU list was entitled with a particular date. Being one of Karen's documents, I didn't, of course, attempt to open it but the date rang a bell: I had looked up that Anatolian Sky offer and had seen the dates the holiday offer referred to. Other clues I discovered were a receipt that Karen had dropped and, when checking our bank statements on line, a payment made for airport car parking. Karen, who hates shopping, was also getting very concerned about renewing her summer wardrobe.
Thus, when we left home supposedly driving to spend a week in a caravan with her sister in Weston Super Mare, I knew we were actually driving to Bristol Airport whence we caught the plane to Marmaris. Karen had gone to town to propagate the deception, even going as far as producing “web pages” she'd “downloaded” of the camp site, curiously named, “Atoll Sky”. We had a fantastic week cruising on a gulet round the north Aegean coast of Turkey, including a visit to Symi, swimming daily and relaxing and eating great food with nine other passengers – some of whom we keep contact with and a couple, Simon and Zelda, living in Southampton near the university, we meet up with every couple of weeks or so.
Photos may be viewed here: http://picasaweb.google.com/robichris/Turkey2008?feat=directlink
The other holiday was at the beginning of December, again found on Travelzoo but this time discussed and planned between us. It was a trip to Goa at such a fantastic reduction as to make it almost too good to be true. There were two possible dates. We chose the later one to ensure we had enough time for inoculations and to get visas. There was a choice of one week or two. We chose two weeks; it wasn't much more and it hardly seemed worth travelling all that distance just for one week. There was a choice of two hotels. The one slightly inland by lakes and paddy fields (with a free beach shuttle bus) appealed. We had originally planned to take a couple of days to travel to Mumbai by train. However, the Mumbai terrorist attacks two days before we left caused us to abandon those plans. If we had travelled out on the earlier date, we may well have been using Mumbai station on that fateful day!
We had a great time. In the first week, we saw dolphins and crocodiles, explored old churches in Old Goa and visited the night market and hippy market. The second week was slightly marred through us both becoming unwell: I had three days of violent vomiting and then Karen developed a cold. So we didn't get to do all the things we'd have liked to. However, we did do something amazing:
Before we left for India, I'd been researching the kind of project I could get involved with in a voluntary way using my teaching skills. Thus I had learned about the plight of the street children of Goa and, when we came across a stall for “Child Rescue” (http://www.childrescue.net/) at the night and Anjuna markets, we decided to sponsor a child – a 5 year old girl called Tejasviri whom we visited at the school and travelled home with her and her 50 housemates in a 15 seat minibus. We also met the children again when they went to the beach at the weekend and visited them again the day before we returned.
I haven't been on my bike all year (but have used my free bus pass to go into town a few times). I get out of breath quite quickly if walking up a slope or steps – and can develop chest pains. My doctor sent me for a treadmill test to ensure it wasn't my heart – which it wasn't: just one of my drug side effects. A blood test showed I was low on iron and I have been taking iron tablets since.
After seeing my GI nurse again in March, I was given an August date for a new gastroscopy for August and a referral to the surgical team. I saw a registrar from the surgical team in June who agreed an operation was in order but wanted a colonoscopy as well as a gastroscopy, to make sure my anaemia wasn't due to anything other than the drug side effects. I had the “top and tail” in July a couple of days before we went to Turkey; they found a polyp in the colon which they removed for biopsy. On arrival back from holiday (about 6am) there was a letter on the mat for a hospital appointment that day. Worried that such a quick follow up might be bad news I kept the appointment only to find the GI team had been too efficient and the results weren't in yet. A later follow up said they were satisfied all was OK and, as far as they were concerned, I wouldn't need another gastroscopy until 2011. However,not hearing any more from the surgical team, I phoned the secretary and had a consultation on November 5th with the surgeon who said he'd do a 360o Laprascopic Nissen Fundoplication within 18 weeks. (I am still awaiting a date but guess it will be February.)
House hunting? We discussed using the capital in the bank to buy a house to let and signed up with the estate agents. We viewed a number but then were concerned as there seemed to be a glut of properties to let and we couldn't afford a second house if it wasn't paying for itself (and giving us an income). So we've held fire for a bit, seeing the interest on our capital diminish and not sure what to do with it.
So another year nearly over. We're seeing Ian and the granddaughters on Christmas day. In the New Year, we've arranged to fly out to see Martin and Barbara for a few days in January.