Friday, January 24, 2014

It's been HOW LONG!!!!!

Good grief, where does the time go . . .

Now, where were we - ah yes, the ankle!  The troublesome, crappy ankle.  Guess how many torn tendons the MRI showed?  NONE - that's right, not a single one.  What it did show however was a whole lot of fluid in a joint that was obviously (to the person reading the MRI) suffering from a severe dose of inflammatory arthritis.  Easily fixed, says the specialist, and gave me a note to take back to the MRI reading person which somewhere in the doctor-write hieroglyphics said that I was to have a steroid injection into the subtalar joint and perhaps it also gave some instructions regarding ramming that needle in good and hard and pay no heed to the gasps and moans of the subject patient.

It was a singularly unpleasant experience.

However, given that the cortisone takes 10 days to take effect and that it's been 18, I would have hoped that all was now well.  Some days it is - some days, not so much.


Excellent gardening footwear!


If I'm looking like doing a lot of walking during the day, I will still put on the good old moon boot in the morning, otherwise I'm trying to get away without it as much as I can.

And thank goodness I can, because the weather here has been just so rottenly hot.  Up in the 40s celsius.  I've decided that I loathe summer.

And on top of that, up until a few days ago, it resolutely refused to rain.

With my somewhat impaired mobility around the garden, it was decided that I should reduce the size of my garden beds.  And so the roses in what has been known up till now on this blog as the 'western bed'  were earmarked for relocation.  And I decided this because of all the roses in this bed, my absolute favourite was the one furtherest away from the house.  Yes indeed, what numbskull would plant DA Abraham Darby so far away from where it's beautiful blooms can be easily enjoyed.

That would be me.

And so in the heat of a stupidly hot, dry summer and with a stupidly stiff and immobile ankle, I began to dig.  I will not describe here my methods of rose removal - any good self respecting gardener reading this would be horrified beyond belief - suffice to say, it is not a pretty sight.

One of the first moved was Compte de Champagne.  Dug me a pit sized hole among the violets in front of the house and with great difficulty carried/dragged that bush across the garden to its new home.  Only when I was trying to get its new aspect right did I realise that I had also carried a huge wasps' nest, complete with wasps, and two enormous orb weaving spiders!

Next to go were Sweet Juliet and Brother Cadfael.  Poor Brother Cadfael has been very poorly neglected, lots of dead wood and spindly growth.  All of them were given a really good pruning once they had arrived at their new destination.  I had removed a Westringia from outside the front door which gave me room for Sweet Juliet, Brother Cadfael and my beloved Abraham Darby right there on show when I stepped outside the door.  The dear old Brother immediately responded to some love and attention by leafing up brilliantly and he, Sweet Juliet and the Compte, despite the shock of being moved so incompetently and the totally unsuitable weather conditions, have produced leaves and blooms without missing a beat.

And the beloved Abraham Darby?



DEAD AS A DOORNAIL!!



How ironic is that . . .

I bought myself a Christmas present - a new fishpond for the garden fishes.  It's cold cast bronze over fibreglass and they love it!  After the little concrete tub they were in, they have revelled in the space and have learned how to swim like comets should - i.e. very fast!!




Go fishies, go!!


3 comments:

  1. Extraordinarily attractive garden footwear ;0)
    xx

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  2. At least that gardening footwear might protect you from the snakes! xx

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  3. Juliet, thanks for stopping by our blog and writing nice things about our Daisy. We are sure that your Hemskirk westie would be from the same breeder. The scottie litter that Daisy came from was a one-off. Apparently, the husband bred the scotties and then a divorce loomed. The wife, Dr Lyndall Dunlop, breeds westies.

    Hope your foot/leg has improved with the needle. We have only natives in our garden. Anything with 'grows best with neglect' gets added.

    XXXOOO Bella & Roxy

    Hope you check this, because we couldn't find another contact.

    ReplyDelete