How Good Is This?

It's raining steadily outside. The phone rang a little while ago. Foxy, the customer for whom I would normally pick today, has said she doesn't want any beech foliage tomorrow, so I can enjoy the rain and a rest today without having to get wet through. It has been a fairly solid six weeks of work since our little Alice Springs holiday.

I drove up the street this morning. I'd say it's the first walk I've missed since the holiday, although I did let the dogs out at the station for a walk for ten minutes in the rain to let them have a good stretch out. 'Pip' flushed a rabbit out of the blackberries behind the little replica of the original station site and ran about 3 k's in ten minutes I'd say. 'Snowie', not really relishing the wet, stayed pretty close to me.

On my way back I dropped off a tub of honey at Chas's front door. Chas is one of my walking mates. He's a retired carpenter. He takes off every winter and camps at Evan's Head in NSW. The last couple of years I've picked some camellia foliage in his garden. I hadn't seen Chas for a couple of months till last Saturday morning, and had wondered if he was away.

"You've lost weight Chas," I said.

"My oath I have. I've  lost more since I got home. "

"Have you been crook?"

"Have I ever? I lost my oesophaegus and the top part of my stomach. The operation was 28th October. I'm just glad to be able able to start walking again, although icould barely make it up the hill."

"Cancer?"

"Yes. I just had a bit of a tickle in the throat to start with. I tell you what. I was so glad to get out of intensive care and I never want to go there again. It was four days of hell. There were wires hooked up to me everywhere and I couldn't sleep. There was so much noise all the time with poor buggers nearly dying around you and all the alarms and emergency procedures. It was hell."

"I didn't even know at all that you were crook, Chas. I'm sure walking again will be a great help, and your strength will gradually return. How's your appetite?"

"I have to try to eat six or seven very small meals a day. The trouble is I'm just not hungry and it's so hard to force yourself to eat."

I thought this morning maybe a bit of nice honey would help. I dropped off a bottle of red wine at Harry's place in the same street. Harry likes a drop of red wine but finds the sulphur presevatives knock him around in the way of 'hangover' if he has more than a couple of glasses. The preservative free wine is OK he finds, and I came across line of unfiltered, preservative free wine while I was shopping at Dan Murphy last week.

While I was in DM I looked for a bottle of Penfold's Kalimna Bin 28 for my friend 'Blossom', which I give her each year at Xmas. They were out of stock in the normal display but I found a 2004 bottle in the special section. 'Bloss is in hospital recovering from a second bowel cancer op. so I'm sure she'll appreciate it, come Xmas she should be well enough. She was in intensive care for some days afterwards as she was having difficulty breathing but I have just enquired and found she's back in the normal ward now.

The wet weather lets me catch up on a few things. I'm off now to pick up the beehive at Keith Smith's. They'll all be inside because of the rain so I can do it in daylight. And I have to pickup the key to the Lakes House. Keith rang me earlier to remind me he still has it, after spending 4 nights down there in late November.