In no particular order, this happened in the last three weeks:

A short but massive heatwave.

For the second or third or possibly tenth time in my life, I had a dose of vestibular neuritis, aka inflammation of the balance nerve. It's all part and parcel of the weird autoimmune disease I have acquired ages ago. Basically, I acted and possibly looked like a drunken sailor in a heavy storm. Actually, no, make that a tourist, a non-sea worthy tourist, incl. some unpleasant emptying of stomach contents. It's exhausting but the euphoria once I was beginning to recover was probably not unlike what seasick tourists experience when reaching the shore. I am not quite there yet, small steps etc. I spent long hours listening to Louise Erdrich reading in her gentle voice The Night Watchman.

On Wednesday, the covid app informed me that I had spent an extended period of time in close contact with at least one covid-positive person two days earlier and that for the next ten days I should test daily, watch for symptoms and isolate. The close contact was at least one person at the ENT surgery, maybe even the doctor who examined me on Monday.  So far, I have no symptoms and all of the lateral flow tests have been negative. But apparently, I can still pass on viral load, i.e. be infectious, although I doubt that. Anyway, this new variant is a tricky fellow. 

For the last three days now I can walk without having to hold R's arm, I keep my food in the proper place and this evening, we even cycled a short distance - in splendid isolation - but afterwards, I felt like a train had run me over. 

The garden is a delight. 

garden secrets

Yet another storm is brewing, the weather app is pinging and shouting. Again, we cleared the basement floors, tidied up the garden furniture, shut the green house and with any luck, it'll pass.

The skies on Friday were dramatic. But that was it. Not a single drop of rain.

Others were not so lucky and who knows what this evening will bring.

My new friends, a pair of wood pigeons, woke me at the crack of dawn. The have found a favourite spot in the almond tree outside the bedroom window, where they bicker for a while before cooing back and forth at length and at volume. I have decided to actually not mind this at all. Even at 5:30 am. 

the Robin rose

I had to get up anyway for my immunologist check-up. The new guy is very jolly and we agreed that not much has changed or needs to be done apart from more blood work to figure out the low iron levels and sure, why not, maybe see a phlebologist because of that markedly swollen right ankle etc. etc. We discussed the 30+ hrs travel (two stop-overs incl.) later this year with medication that needs to be kept below 5°C at all times. Not a good fit but there should has to be way. And in the end, in connection with one thing or another, I forget which, he uttered the fateful saying "never change a winning team" (in English) and I tried very hard to keep a straight face but failed. We then discussed at length the origin of this phrase (soccer) and how it found its way into medicine (he did recall an actual lecture with this title) and for the life of him, he couldn't see how a patient as tolerant as myself could find this inappropriate. I told him, he will get there over time and how silly sayings convey not a message that one can trust and that especially when saddled with a chronic illness, these stupid remarks don't get any better when one has to hear them repeatedly.  To cut him short, I uttered WTF (in English) which he thought was hilarious. And so we parted as friends.

ash, black cherry, rambling rose and mackerel skies

On my way back, cycling through the lushest of forest, I stopped at the frog spawn pond but failed to take a picture. As it was still before 10 am, I sat down for a café au lait outside at the French place and then got some of fancy tea, which is black Assam with cream flavouring and blue cornflower blossoms and a punnet of blueberries. My life of luxury.

This here is our covid patch, four square meters in a sunny spot we have left untouched in the bottom lawn since spring 2020. We just mow around it, never water it. Currently, it has about 25 different wild flower species in it, all humming with insects, one small walnut tree and a fat hedgehog moves through it at night. The secrets a badly tended lawn can bring forth. With the help of birds and squirrels and the wind.

 

 

This is the last item from my grandmother's house and thus, my father's home-before-the-care-home and therefore also the last item from my childhood that I have rescued. It is my grandmother's bread bin and has been my father's for the past 25 years. As he no longer needs to store bread, he graciously let me have it. Graciously is a euphemism, it was more, what do you want that old tin for anyway.

When during my childhood, we visited my grandmother we would always have a look into that tin just in case she did have some of her soft home baked rolls in it - not often, usually it was Franconian sourdough bread. My father had the exact same bread in it over the years. 

At the moment it's empty, we spent the weekend polishing 25 years of neglect from its surface and got half way to my grandmother's standards. It's solid copper, you need two hands to hold it. For the time being I am keeping it. If the price of copper soars one day when we are old and poor, we will sell it and live the life of luxury.

I should be sentimental but no. I have a considerable selection of my grandparent's Wilhelminian period wardrobes (2), bedside cabinets (2), too-short bed frames (2), sideboards with cracked marble tops (1), all in full use around the house, and what my grandmother referred to "the vertico", which I am currently attempting to sell because we replaced it with a cheap and nasty but enormously handy ikea press (which we managed to scratch while assembling). The vertico could look fabulous (for a beautiful one, not exactly like mine, click here) but currently it is showing its age and the years of use.  It always stood in the hall of my grandparent's house and held hat boxes, a basket of leather and lace gloves, a shelf of many scarves and most importantly, the fox stole. Next to it was the umbrella stand with the fancy sun umbrellas. Apart from the fox stole, I still have the hats and most of the gloves and some of the scarves and of course, the fancy umbrellas. My daughter played with all of these things as did I when I was small.

I should mention that on the back of the vertico is a stamp by the US army, declaring it as German property item 16 on loan.  The US army had confiscated my grandparent's house for several years after the war.

In other news, we had a good day of rain, we harvest plenty of fresh lettuce, rhubarb, radish and I am watching the baby apricots and pears and peaches and plums. Also, the spuds are pushing up.

 

 

Monday

 

The first warm day of spring
and I step out into the garden from the gloom
of a house where hope had died
to tally the storm damage, to seek what may
have survived. And finding some forgotten
lupins I’d sown from seed last autumn
holding in their fingers a raindrop each
like a peace offering, or a promise,
I am suddenly grateful and would
offer a prayer if I believed in God.
But not believing, I bless the power of seed,
its casual, useful persistence,
and bless the power of sun,
its conspiracy with the underground,
and thank my stars the winter’s ended.

Paula Meehan

Flowering fruit trees, bees pollinating, warm sun, lunch on the patio. There will be rain, maybe even some snow in the coming days. April.

To date, 1 500 refugees from Ukraine have officially arrived in our city, in the coming days, weeks, this number will go up to about 10 000, schools and kindergartens, youth clubs, hospitals, vaccination centers, churches, local community centers are organising language support, extra teachers, staff, volunteers.

As a result of one of my new year's resolutions (concentrating life's necessities to within cycling/walking reach) I walk to the new dentist. She also meets another resolution (switch to female medical experts), and she hums while she polishes and cleans. She laughs when I mention sage tea, yes, yes, the stronger the better, rinse every day.

My country's government is considering installation of a vast missile shield system, an iron dome. Our nation's elected leader explains on national tv during Sunday prime time why and how "we will not become militarily engaged there" and that "even if they are called peacekeepers, they are troops."  We try to consider this, R coming from a neutral country that was brutally colonised for centuries, I was raised in the country that brought about WWII and the genocide of 6 millions Jews. My sister-in-law, a pastor in the Lutheran church and peace activist, sends me links to anti-war songs, urgent petitions to sign, war resisters statements on non-violent solidarity. My child and her family live peacefully in an insignificant far away country.

Later, we bake the first rhubarb crumble, a bit too sour and too soggy but delicious as every year.

 

what else is new

Sunday is exhaustion recovery day, when I remain inside my dressing gown for a very long time. As always, I have made a list of stuff I want to do on the weekend, ranging from the sublime (baking, cooking, writing invoices for editorial work) to the ridiculous (clean bathroom, cut fringe, sort out fridge) and weather permitting, cycle for a bit before sundown. Weather is currently not permitting, we have storm force gusts of wind.

So far, I have managed to drink lots of tea while looking out into the middle distance, or rather the garden where the pigeons are mating aggressively. Also, one of the almond trees, the one closest to the side of the house, has started to bud and even produced a first few leaves.

Life is full of surprises. One of them is that I have to have yet another MRI. I could pretend it's fun, maybe I will. 

Of course there is the pandemic, we haven't forgotten that pesky virus. How could we. I am now double-boostered, as in four (4) jabs. Because contrary to what was believed a few months ago, the booster is not merely a booster vaccination that restores the number of antibodies that have evaporated a few months after the second dose. No. The vaccination is only complete after three doses, just like the vaccination against polio or tetanus. This means that with the booster, a protective effect is achieved that was still not there two weeks after the second dose.
Apparently, this is especially true for omicron, even though the booster has not yet been adapted to this variant. The risk of being hospitalised is half that of twice-vaccinated people. In addition, triple-vaccinated people are less likely to pass the virus on to each other, even within a family. (If anybody needs the source of my claims, let me know, there's tons of published study material out there.)

And since my booster (aka third jab) was way back in September, I was given another one. Just so, I didn't even have to sit around for 15 mins afterwards. I just cycled home and washed out the cold frames for the new seeds. Let the 2022 garden season begin.

I finished watching Station Eleven and I cried a good bit, especially during the episode when all the babies are born. But also because it is such an unbelievably hopeful ending. Once the emotional stirrings had calmed down, I reviewed it with my clever daughter and we agreed that even 20 years after a mind boggling all consuming planet wide pandemic, women - who are all courageous and powerful - appear to have access to excellent make-up produce and stuff to diligently shave their legs and other body parts while men - who on the whole are a bit lost, but strive to be wise and kind - have taken on a hairy, disheveled hobbit-like appearance. We left it at that. It's good tv.

Other than that, I am almost 65 years old, my mother has been dead for 22 years and I am still learning that I don't owe my parents anything, that, however unhappy my father is right now, it's not my fault.

Here's another nice video for distraction.

swinging on a star

Half way through my two week September holiday - and still more to come! A week each in October, November and December. The beauty of German civil service regulations. 

I don't miss a thing, apart from maybe a visit to the seaside. I mostly sit on the patio, R's voice drifting out of his office upstairs, explaining to some (un)fortunate final year student the intricate workings of cell membrane structures, around me the busy noises of the retired neighbours exercising their expensive gardening tools. 

I crawl out of bed every morning in disbelief that this body is actually me. Morning stiffness is a glorious euphemism. This is when dawdling comes in handy. Slow dawdling.

And so I fill my time with pleasant useless stuff until eventually, my limbs begin to respond to my wishes, at least enough to push the bicycle out into the world and get a move on. I have slowly but purposefully increased my daily distance to a now staggering 20 km, which is still a crying shame compared to my healthy past self. Anyway, must take things as they are. By the time I am back home, triumphant and sore, inflamed tendons screaming, more dawdling awaits. 

And thinking, trying to explain the world in my head. 

In no particular order, this is what's swirling around:

1. The covid conspiracy theories - there are people I know, who really truly want to believe that the world is good at its core, that all power lies with nature. And now this evil nature dishes up a creepy virus. So it must be someone else's fault. I have given up any desire to discuss this. I admit I have avoided phone calls.

2. Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
(Isaac Asimov)

3. Garden. Here is one blossom from each of the currently flowering plants. As of today. We are inundated by wasps this year and we have completely surrendered one apple tree and most of the grapes. They feed on it in a frenzy for a day and end up dead on the patio stones. In other words, they are starving. It won't last much longer.

4. Sir Ken Robinson died in August. I was a great fan. Watching this talk always brings me back to my student days, when I still had dreams of changing the way children are educated - something I soon realised as utopian on a grand scale. Anyway, listening to him still makes me a tiny bit hopeful.

5. I had to agree have been told to reduce my home office work and, after this holiday, will have to go back working on campus for two days a week. My GP is not amused. In theory, there is a strict hygiene protocol incl. airing the room every 30 mins which I can just see happening in the winter months. Not.

6. I leave this here for general perusal (for source click here).  When I am in my office, I'll be in the yellow. But currently, only 40 cases in my city.

Risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from asymptomatic people in different settings and for different occupation times, venting, and crowding levels (ignoring variation in susceptibility and viral shedding rates). Face covering refers to those for the general population and not high grade respirators. The grades are indicative of qualitative relative risk and do not represent a quantitative measure. Other factors not presented in these tables may also need to be taken into account when considering transmission risk, including viral load of an infected person and people’s susceptibility to infection. Coughing or sneezing, even if these are due to irritation or allergies while asymptomatic, would exacerbate risk of exposure across an indoor space, regardless of ventilation.

7. We are in for another heat wave, apparently. 

8. This week's music is in memory of R's parents, who taught this to my daughter one day driving back from the beach.

 

home office

So there I was early, very early one morning, long before day break and even earlier than the birds, too exhausted to go back to sleep. The woman from the corner house, the painter who howls at the moon, had just shattered another glass bottle onto her driveway, throwing it out of her upstairs bathroom window with many curse words and threats. She is not boozing, several time that night it was empty water bottles she threw out, an expensive French brand, volcanic source, with a 1 Euro refund per bottle.

I lay there contemplating again if I should do something, go over and ring her door bell and offer my help and risk getting a bottle whacked over my head. Once again, I reprimanded myself for not having done that weeks ago, before she started with the throwing of glass and china and that walking over there in the dark would be tricky what with all the shards on her garden path. And then I started worrying whether I should wear a mask or not and well, I fell asleep again, dreaming of my mother.

The way she would climb onto the upstairs window ledge threatening to jump because we didn't tidy up our room.

In the morning, I wrote an email to the social psychiatric helpline about the scenario, bottles and howling and cursing and please, please, no police, and ended it with asking for a call back. Then I tried to delete the email but too late.

An hour later, someone called me, one of these firm female voices, professionally emphatic, and we had a decent enough talk and she took down notes and described the possible steps, i.e. a letter offering help, followed by a house call, no pressure, all voluntarily, but possibly not until sometime in August and that we should only consider calling the cops if she keeps it up with the bottle throwing and noise disruption at night and while I tried to frantically pedal back explaining that there was a lot more noise from neighbours revving their expensive cars and leaf blowers and hedge cutters and that it was her safety I was concerned for, the police arrived. I almost started to cry but it turns out, another neighbour was responsible for that and she never opened her door and stayed quiet as a mouse. In fairness, the professionally emphatic female on the phone seemed to get my point and we exchanged numbers and decided to keep an eye on things. Whatever that implies.

Why do I do stuff like that? That woman did not have the time of day for me in all the years we lived here and I have one bad dream about my mother and cannot keep my mouth shut.

In other news, I am officially on holidays. In fact, while busily working from home since mid March, due to pandemic measures, I have lost touch of my holiday entitlement and now must take at least one week every month until the end of the year or else. Also, I was informed by HR that since the beginning of my pandemic related home office confinement I have worked far more than my contract hours and must stop doing that as home office and overtime are mutually exclusive concepts. I reacted by collapsing into a deep semi coma of exhaustion and have now told R that I intend to sleep for the next three days. At least. Seriously.

The video above is the free entertainment laid on for us on the patio. The one below is music for a Friday.

songs and pictures

Today, Friday, music day, I have the same song in two versions. There is a third version, which is the one I have been singing to my myself all day.  To the extent that R has politely asked me to cut it out.

And at the end of the week I am also tired. So just some pictures of and from the garden. The raspberry harvest is massive, the freezer is packed, R is making jam and clafoutis.

The blackcurrants are already soaking in gin.

The onions are now drying in the wood shed

and that patch of wildflower is the square experiment, I insisted on leaving a section of the lawn go wild and with a little help from a seed packet, this is what happened. Apart from the poppy, there are eight other different flowering plants - so far.

The grapes ripen while we watch,

the lilies are just lilies

and the feijoa tree is somewhat camera shy, but it is simply loaded with blossoms and every morning buzzing with bumble bees, giving us hope of some fruit eventually.

never a dull moment

 What should have been just another routine medical appointment turned into a rather lengthy painful procedure involving barfing all over the place and full anesthetics and sleeping it off at home - thankfully. Results in a week or so.

We had about seven drops of rain today. The sum total since I cannot remember when. This is the summer we need to seriously consider gardening in a changed climate. Daily watering is not an option. The rambling rose, however, is coping well. Even on a muggy day.

Words for our time:

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it emotionally.

Flannery O'Connor

The most prominent and most frightening aspect of the escape from reality (. . . ) lies in the attitude to dealing with facts as if they were opinions.

Hannah Arendt


Also, it's Friday. This is music from Sweden.

feeling a bit snappy

Pushing along. I am climbing mountains. It feels like it. Every day. So now they tell me that cutting down the cortisone after almost ten years does produce symptoms such as all the shit that is going on. Now! Seriously. There is me learning about the cortisol metabolism and how cortisone fits in and the adrenal glands and, wait for it, adrenal fatigue. Brilliant, isn't it, that there's a name for almost everything which feels great for a while until you realise it doesn't matter and certainly is of no help. None whatsoever.

Anyway, it could last for about 12 months, they said. And we all know that 12 months is one whole year. But, they said, it comes and goes. Ah sure. Doesn't everything. Come and go.

Cutting down the cortisone has now become my mission in life. I have a chart drawn. I am keeping a cortisone tapering diary and I am the best pupil in the school of cortisone tapering the young and well-dressed immunologist has ever had. He in his pretty argyle socks.

And, in the words of a learned and sceptical friend, if it all goes sideways, everybody'll know why and let them pick up the pieces then. Well-dressed or not.

There are bigger things to concentrate on. It rained! One whole day and most of the night. That was weird and wonderful. The word lush comes back into use. But with caution.

The larger family is assembling in my father's garden on the weekend. Instead of coming out in a rash, as some would at the the thought of 17 people talking at the top of their voices pretending to be close, I woke up with vertigo in the early hours and have been spending a considerable amount of time today dealing with seasickness and the various ways this causes voiding of half digested food stuff. Somehow I will get to sit in my father's garden eventually, R can do the driving, and once we arrive I could hide somewhere in a tree. Or under one.

After that, we are going to the sea side. At least it's booked. That's the plan. Let's not think of what could go wrong. In other words, I am on holiday. My boss suggested I take a rest. Very funny.

In an effort to not lose sight of the bigger picture, to avoid getting lost in too much self pity, and to keep the mind occupied during sleepless hours, I have listened to episodes from the Awake at Night podcast (https://www.unhcr.org/awakeatnight/) where "listeners will join UNHCR’s communications chief, Melissa Fleming, in personal conversations with an array of humanitarian workers, and learn what drives them to risk their own lives protecting and assisting people displaced by war". It's strangely uplifting, reminding me of the fact that there are good people everywhere.
 
I leave you with another sign of hope and happiness.

Trevor Mallard, New Zealand's House of Representatives speaker, bottle feeding Mr Tāmati Coffey's baby while he presided over a debate. Mr Coffey is an elected politician and is married to Mr Tim Smith and this is their son Tūtānekai Smith-Coffey.

mostly lilies

day lilies

A few cool days. But no rain. The garden looks shaggy, I pick up dry stalks, pull out plants that didn't make it. Others don't seem to mind the lack of water. We need to make changes. Smaller leaves, deeper roots. Two days ago, I furiously watered the lot, it took ages. Too late for some anyway.

white agapanthus a friend brought from Madeira

My father talks about the dry summer and I can hear the concern in his voice. Something he rarely shows and never about people. But land, dairy farms, rivers, aquifers, forests, even after 30 years of retirement, all that matters so much to him. We also talked about the tennis and the soccer worldcup or rather, he did because what would I know about that anyway.

tiger lilies

After much deliberation and a couple of angry painful nights, I increased my medication last week without consulting the expert. Today I lost my nerve and called in to my GP and she waved all my concerns away with a brisk smile and a couple of reassurances and, don't worry, it's still a low dose and why don't I give you a sick cert. Which I declined and she shook her head in sorrow.

purple heart lilies

Let's face it, I'll never be rid of cortisone - no matter how careful I am tapering the stuff - and my digestive system will never fully recover.

happy tansy

I have been eating comforting bland porridge, crunchy plain toast and delicious alphabet soup (from a packet) for the last couple of days, topped with probiotics, and just one slightly milky cup of coffee. Surely, something good will come of it.

queen feijoa

But hey, I can move my hands, fingers and feet with considerably less pain, sleep without colics waking me at all hours and the mouth ulcers are in the single digits again. This is the life!

ecchinacea

I intend cycling to work by Thursday or maybe even Wednesday.

trumpet vine

gardening as an instrument of patience

eremurus (foxtail lily) is the queen

fennel, we love fennel

fresia, a bit shy this year

the busy greenhouse

lilies getting ready

something South African

onions and carrots love each other

the spuds

the rambling rose

tomato blossoms . . .

. . .  turn into tomatoes

and the zucchini will do the same

Definition of antibody: any of a large number of proteins of high molecular weight that are produced normally by specialized B cells inside an individual's body after stimulation by an outside antigen and that act specifically against this antigen in an immune response to the benefit of the individual

Definition of autoantibody:  an antibody active against a tissue constituent of the individual producing it

Every so often I am encouraged to  fight or at least make peace with this autoimmune disease. Best intentions etc. I am not complaining and I've long stopped responding. Generally, people mean well.

One of the perks of working in a medical research facility is that from time to time I get to watch the experts when they check my blood samples. Most of the routine parameters are done by machines, a long line of humming equipment, robots, but the tricky ones, like autoantibodies, have to be assessed in person by at least two people. It's a complicated process of sample dilution and electronic microscopy and control tests and seriously, I haven't the slightest idea how it actually works.

First the shock of realising that these light and dark green blobs displayed on a large monitor in a darkened room are actually incredibly minute parts of my white blood cells and that the two people in the room with me can determine my state of health - at least one aspect of it - by looking at them. 

Then the realisation that this is neither an alchemist's workshop nor a witch's coven. Nobody is whispering spells. Instead, careful observation, comparison, determination, measurement. But my blood, nevertheless.

It can be almost uplifting to watch, to follow the cursor outlining edges and highlights. My blood. And yet, I am still at a loss.  Where others see proof, I see green blobs. (BTW, this image is not of my actual blood, it's a training picture.)

I had a hard time with some of the childhood illnesses. To some of the experts this is yet another indication of something or other connected with an autoimmune predisposition. Not that it helps.

When I was eight years old, I caught a triple whammy (mumps, chicken pox and croup) and - so the story goes - was ill for weeks. When it was suggested that I should be in hospital, my mother did her not-over-my-dead-body act and as a result, an elderly doctor, a friend of the family, would come every evening with his elderly wife to administer an injection of penicillin. The elderly wife was meant to calm me with story telling and singing of songs. To this day I have a vivid image in my mind of me kicking and screaming with a hoarse voice while several arms are holding me down.

I recovered. Walking was hard at first. I was a skinny rat and needed a strong hand to hold on to for a short while. This of course has long become part of my family's folklore, at times used to highlight my weakness, other times, my strength and above all, my mother's despair and dedication.

When I was 16, I got the measles. It was quite embarrassing when my boyfriend-at-the-time looked at my face and said, yuk. That was on the evening of a trip to Berlin. I had won this trip in an essay competition. At the time, every teenager worth their wild dreams wanted to go to Berlin and mix with the anti-establishment crowd. But trips to Berlin were complicated in the cold war years of the 1970s. Berlin was a fortified, divided city under the administration of the four allied forces who won WWII. Getting there involved permits and lots of regulations from vaccines to hard currency and most importantly, a neat appearance both in real life and on the passport picture, then a slow bus journey on one of the transit corridors cutting through East Germany and long hours of border checks.

It was deemed important for all Germans to somehow be connected to Berlin and the authorities, German and allied, came up with all sorts of ideas to entice the right people to visit and defy the image of West Berlin being a beleagered slice of a city surrounded by an iron curtain.

In my family, it was a difficult and emotional subject because, while she had family and history in Berlin, my mother could not get a permit to travel. This had to do with the infamous Lastenausgleich, a post WWII programme intended to recompense for material losses, e.g. my mother's childhood home in East Berlin, but opening badly healed scars and considered fraught and unfair by many incl. my mother. Long story.

Winning this essay contest was a bit of balm on my mother's wounded soul. So to speak. And I messed it up. As usual.

The boyfriend-at-the-time had come to see me off to Berlin, somewhat jealous, and in view of my glaringly obvious unfit state he quickly spread the news that not even a prize winning essay could save me from looking like a rotting pumpkin.

So, the measles, followed immediately by pneumonia, kidney inflammation and gastritis. My mother moved me into my parent's bedroom and the entire family suffered from lack of sleep for the weeks it took me to recover. Also, I missed two exams but the glorious essay saved me from having to resit. I don't remember what the essay was about - nothing momentous - and the boyfriend fell by the wayside.

My point: I did fight. Then. These were battles I knew I could win provided I worked hard. On every level, even the cellular.

This one, no. I haven't a hope.

As for making peace, why? With whom, with what?

Instead, here I am, exhausted, searching for comfort looking out from the patio doors across the garden, peonies, roses, iris, a freshly cut lawn, all glorious in the sunshine. 

I take a deep disciplinary breath and get on with it.

These are the last of the Muscat grapes. We harvested them last night or to be more precise, I held up a bucket while R stood on the ladder doing all the work. The wasp, hornet and blackbird community was not amused. But they had their fair share.

There is lots more to harvest. We have five different types of grapes in the garden: Muscat, Dornfelder, blue Venus whatever, the one Jack brought back from the US and the no-idea-what-it's-called. You have no idea how delicious the grapes are this year. Heat and drought, that's all it takes.

I've been eating them before and after meeting the immunologist. We didn't see eye to eye. Especially once she upped all the meds in one big swoop when only four months ago she had told me it was time to lower the dosage (of one of them). WTF, I asked, and she said, well, look at the shitty mess you are in (our actual exchange of words was somewhat more medical and distanced), didn't quite work out, didn't it.

She also had a few more stern warnings about work and travel and risks and life expectancy and I had to look at that stupid calendar on her wall really hard and blow my nose a few times while she wrote her copious notes and then she shook my hand and I said thank you, see you in two months time and I ran out of there and almost crashed into R who laughed and said, what's the hurry love, we have all the time in the world, don't we.

After the first cool night, and with a gentle breeze after breakfast, we walk, in fact, crawl through the garden and find hidden pumpkins and strange fruit, wasps buzzing and generally, the place is a mess.