Nearly we are at the end of March, and what a busy month it has been for me. The Ides bought me no foul. I was concerned, as on the 15th I was to make a trip to Flinders Hospital to have the vascular team examine the ultrasound pictures of my carotid arteries, which were taken a week earlier at the Sir Mark Oliphant building on the other side of the Expressway to Flinders Hospital.
At my consultation a lady doctor, not Thaven, the man who did my surgery, told me the pictures were all good. I could henceforth drop the Clopidogrel blood thinning medication but I should continue the 100mg aspirin for life. Also the Atorvastin. I asked her could that dose be reduced from the very strong 80mg with time. She said she wouldn't if she were me, but I could if I wish, reduce to 40 mg when I'd finished the 80mg stock that I have. I have a few repeat prescriptions so as of the15th I have been cutting them to have half a tablet each day.
Interestingly, on my way out of the hospital, when I was wrestling with the pay machine in the car park to gain exit ticket, my phone rang. It was the lady doctor. She said they'd had a close look at the images and there was some residual narrowing in the artery they cleaned out and she was going to organize a surveillance ultrasound for six months' time. I have since had a letter telling me I'm booked in at the Victor Harbor Medical Centre for ultrasound on the 11th of September (another significant date). I reckon Thaven had come in and asked how I went and took a look at the images and overruled her which caused the phone call so soon after I left the vascular clinic. Anyway, I don't mind. A future check is a good safeguard. And because it's 6 months away, the Victor Harbour place where they come to do them once a week is not booked out, as it was when I had to go to Flinders on the 8th.
We had another trip to Adelaide on the 23/24th. Gord had bought a ticket to go to a music festival at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa Valley. One of his favourite all-time bands was performing there, Cheap Trick. Gord organized and paid for hotel accommodation at the Rose and Crown in Elizabeth. It had a sportsbar so Lib and I could watch Melbourne and Hawthorn playing while Gord was at his concert. After checking in at the hotel we took Gord to Sepplesfield about 30 minutes away. It took us 50 as we took backroads by mistake. Then Lib and I got lost on the way coming back through Elizabeth, wrong turn again, and it was over an hour. Still, we caught the last half of the game on the bigscreen. No sound, as music was playing, and a table with a bogan family next to us, grandparents down to feral children made increasing noise as the pots went down, making them more pissed and louder. Footy finished, I went off to buy pizzas up the road, while Lib had a crack at the pokies. I gave her $20 and she came back with $50 so that about paid for the pizza, as Gord reimbursed me for his. He ate his back in our room after we picked him up at the festival in darkness at the arranged time and place. The hotel accomm was like an apartment with 2 bedrooms and a fridge and microwave in a kitchenette. All good, a nice weekend and a break from normal routine. *
Another trip to Adelaide was this Wednesday gone, to have our Skoda serviced at the dealer where we bought it. Lib stayed home and cooked a casserole and had a bit of quiet time by herself, while Gord and I enjoyed our day out in the city, lunching in the Rundle mall and shopping at the central market.
We had two lots of visitors from Victoria during March. Old friends John and Nicky Bridges from Moyhu stayed a couple of nights at the Port Elliot Caravan Park in their A-Van and Annie Hiskins and her friend Margot stayed a few nights in an Air B&B, also in Port Elliot. These friends go back to the 1970's so it was wonderful to see them and have them for dinner and see our environment.
On March 5 I had a crown fitted to a screw that was implanted in a gap in my lower jaw late last year. It works well, I can chew easily and confidently on both sides now. When I got in the chair I asked dentist Ah Ling, a delightful young lady, how she was. She said she had a bad start to the day. She left home in her VW Golf at 7am to pick up two other dentists, they drive share rotate, but not a couple of hundred metres from her home she somehow clipped a car parked in the street and her car tipped almost to rolling over and came to rest badly damaged all up one side, probably totalling it. But here she was fitting my crown that she'd measured up the previous week. All computerized, the measuring and the machine that makes the crown.
Between all this happening when I can I walk down the river late afternoons, I water some of the river group's young plantings by water bottle, and I've made good inroad into 2 large boxthorn thickets, cutting my way in and sawing off the stems near ground level and painting the cut with roundup. I also cut my way into the base of a big olive tree and drilled holes around and filled with the herbicide. It may take another go or two, it's multi trunked from the base and I therefore couldn't get the drill to a few places on the inside of the meeting trunks. These tree weeds are on the council's and the Friends' group list to be removed, and on my list to do this autumn, so it's satisfying to get it done. As I get about, I also pull out any persistent African daisies I see, and cape ivy and boneseeds. They keep appearing. Most of these weeds are Sth African in origin. I'm led to believe the first came here as ballast in sailing ships that was unloaded in ports to make way for wheat etc for the trip back.
February and March have been bone dry, bar for a light shower at night a few weeks ago that barely wet the ground. We badly need a good rain now. One of our Friends' group members was killed on 21 Mar, hit by a truck while riding on the Nullabor in the Fremantle to Sydney race. He was 62, an ex Kiwi, a lovely bloke I had enjoyed working with at a working bee. It was his 6th time in that race, and he had ridden his pushbike completely around Australia.
An event of significance for me in March was my sister Meredith's 70th birthday. I could not participate in person, but it was nice reflecting that my little sister had reached 70. I'm soon to be 72 and Jod turns 75 later this year so we are fortunate. April Fool's Day Monday. I'll try to avoid putting my foot or mouth in it.
* When we stayed at the Rose and Crown hotel we were given two complimentary drink cards to the value of $10 each. After we returned from taking Gord to his festival we made use of these, a pot of beer for Lib (Hahn super dry) and for me I meant to order a soda lime and bitters, but in a slip of the tongue I said brandy lime and soda, at least that's what came. I explained to the bar lady I'm off alcohol and had made a mistake. I asked her to get me the AF drink saying I was happy to pay for it. She made my drink no charge and commended me for going alcohol free. I was most impressed. Later I ordered another pot for Lib, it cost $10. I wondered at the bogans who were making all the noise, sitting there knocking pots down. At $10 each pot, they must have plenty of money.
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