Monday 24th January 2022
This hasn’t been a pleasant time. I keep suffering from bouts of depression, as, I think, Cyril does. It’s just over a year now. How time is speeding by! I think someone has given the planet an extra push and its spin has accelerated.
I contacted St Cathryn’s and told the lady who spoke to me perhaps counselling might help me – although the truth is I still have doubts about it, but anyway, it has been arranged someone (a Nicola) will ring me at 2 PM on Wednesday 9th February and make an ‘assessment’. My thoughts are such a jumble these days; I don’t seem to be able to concentrate on anything sanely. Perhaps I am mentally disturbed. So maybe ‘counselling’ will help. Or not.
Some good news: Miriam, an ex-colleague of Bumble, who now works for Virgin, has offered to get us tickets for our hoped-for trip to Florida in the Spring. The price she mentioned was attractive; and the company that supplied the ‘Clear-Click’ gizmo that converted video tape to digital has reimbursed us for the faulty one we returned, AND Fred Schoenberger, a neighbour at Circle Bay has two daughters and they want to buy the place. We think they are serious as they are offering a good price and have even given us the date to take possession. (April 15th) Plus one of them is a realtor and willing to waive the realtor fees. This is the most positive news we have had for weeks – no, months. But there is a snag. I am unable to get medical insurance. As soon as you mention cancer the insurance companies flee like scalded cats, so I am now seriously thinking of having the scan that Neil Smith offered to arrange for me. My thinking is: If the scan reveals how much the disease has spread in the seven months since the last one, which I guess it will, I may be able to work out what kind of risk I am taking by going to Florida in March and staying there for the planned six weeks. It’s a risk, whichever way I look at it. The cost of requiring medical help in the United States is beyond the pale. It would be crippling, and deliberately putting myself four thousand odd miles away from the NHS in my state could be described as stupid. A scan will help to make up my mind. It will be the last time I can stay at Circle Bay, and I really do want to go. With all this in mind I rang Neil Smith’s secretary a couple of days ago and she will ‘tell Neil you called’.
 
           View from the clubhouse at Circle Bay
 2010                                                                                                              
​Some good news: Miriam, an ex-colleague of Bumble, who now works for Virgin, has offered to get us tickets for our hoped-for trip to Florida in the Spring. The price she mentioned was attractive; and the company that supplied the ‘Clear-Click’ gizmo that converted video tape to digital has reimbursed us for the faulty one we returned, AND Fred Schoenberger, a neighbour at Circle Bay has two daughters and they want to buy the place. We think they are serious as they are offering a good price and have even given us the date to take possession. (April 15th) Plus one of them is a realtor and willing to waive the realtor fees. This is the most positive news we have had for weeks – no, months. But there is a snag. I am unable to get medical insurance. As soon as you mention cancer the insurance companies flee like scalded cats, so I am now seriously thinking of having the scan that Neil Smith offered to arrange for me. My thinking is: If the scan reveals how much the disease has spread in the seven months since the last one, which I guess it will, I may be able to work out what kind of risk I am taking by going to Florida in March and staying there for the planned six weeks. It’s a risk, whichever way I look at it. The cost of requiring medical help in the United States is beyond the pale. It would be crippling, and deliberately putting myself four thousand odd miles away from the NHS in my state could be described as stupid. A scan will help to make up my mind. It will be the last time I can stay at Circle Bay, and I really do want to go. With all this in mind I rang Neil Smith’s secretary a couple of days ago and she will ‘tell Neil you called’.
​

​THE VISIT
 
Well, the visit of the brothers, and Pam and Gabby seemed to go well. They arrived around 2pm on Monday.  We sat in the conservatory talking for a while before the minibus arrived at six, on time, I was pleased to note, and took us to the Shipley Bridge for something to eat.  And drink.
We sat around an oval shaped table – almost as good as a round one – and were able to converse with each other without leaning or shouting. As is usual with these annual (sometimes biannual) get-togethers the conversation was lively, witty, and even amusing and, of course, enjoyable.
Back home we watched some old family video of Pam and Derek’s children shot twenty years, or more, ago.
The next day, Tuesday 11th January, we walked, in drizzling rain, to the London Road Grill. The pedometer on my I-phone recorded 2.9 miles, which I managed comfortably enough.  We spent two or three hours there eating drinking and talking. The food, service and atmosphere were good, as it usually is, and everyone seemed to enjoy it there.  Afterwards we walked down to The Railway (or the Punch-up as Heather used to call it) after C and I witnessed a fight there one evening.
 
Thursday, 20th January 2022
Cherry, one of Heather’s ex-colleagues at BA rang to tell us her husband, Amarjit, has died. He has been ill for some time with kidney problems and taken into hospital a few weeks ago, but he caught Pneumonia. Poor guy, his last few years could not have been pleasant for him. He had to go for dialysis two or three times a week. Must have been hard for Cherry too. He was my age born in August 1937  so actually, a few months younger.
      

9th January 2022
NEIL SMITH
As has been arranged for some time Neil Smith rang last Wednesday. What a nice chap he is! (Neil is the surgeon who operated on me a couple of years ago when I was first diagnosed with cancer (of the bowel.) We talked for half an hour or so and although most of the chat was about my feelings, the lung cancer, and its effect on me – which so far is more mental than physical – he somehow makes me feel better. He said if I decided to have another scan to see what’s happening, he would arrange it for me. I’m not sure if I want to do that. If it’s getting worse, spreading qu icker, that won’t help me at all. Quite the reverse.  Ignorance is bliss, is it not? I have sent him a copy of “We Thought It was All Over.” Another short book I have written on my experiences with the NHS.
I also spoke to Ian last week, whom I have known for... how long? We were at school together, so it must be fifty years or so.  At his request I have sent him a copy of my auto-bi. “Blame It on the War.” These chats with Humph tend to be a little depressing; the poor guy is in a bad way. The same age as me he is unable to look after himself, he had a stroke a couple of years ago and now can’t walk, even needs help to get out of the chair he sits in for most of the time.  He has two nurses attend him every day, and he has moved into his daughter’s house in Bishops Stortford. Talking to him is a reminder that there is always someone worse off than me. He asked if I missed Stephanie and I told him I missed Heather more than Steph and as I said it realised, he had forgotten Heather had died. But I do miss Steph, I think of her often. Not as much as Bumble, of course, she is still in my head 95% of my waking hours and I still have this awful guilt. I’m probably not helping myself by working on these videos. There she is, in front of me on the screen, smiling, talking, being Heather: flying in Jim’s Cessna, going up in a balloon, shopping in Hong Kong, Port St Lucie, Rio, Brighton, New York. How she loved shopping! I know, I know, I should stop watching them, it’s probably not doing my mental health any good apart from anything else, but as I think I have said before, it’s comforting seeing her, hearing her.

  Monday 24th January 2022
This hasn’t been a pleasant time. I keep suffering from bouts of depression, as, I think, Cyril does. It’s just over a year now. How time is speeding by! I think someone has given the planet an extra push and its spin has accelerated.
I contacted St Cathryn’s and told the lady who spoke to me perhaps counselling might help me – although the truth is I still have doubts about it, but anyway, it has been arranged someone (a Nicola) will ring me at 2 PM on Wednesday 9th February and make an ‘assessment’. My thoughts are such a jumble these days; I don’t seem to be able to concentrate on anything sanely. Perhaps I am mentally disturbed. So maybe ‘counselling’ will help. Or not.
Some good news: Miriam, an ex-colleague of Bumble, who now works for Virgin, has offered to get us tickets for our hoped-for trip to Florida in the Spring. The price she mentioned was attractive; and the company that supplied the ‘Clear-Click’ gizmo that converted video tape to digital has reimbursed us for the faulty one we returned, AND Fred Schoenberger, a neighbour at Circle Bay has two daughters and they want to buy the place. We think they are serious as they are offering a good price and have even given us the date to take possession. (April 15th) Plus one of them is a realtor and willing to waive the realtor fees. This is the most positive news we have had for weeks – no, months. But there is a snag. I am unable to get medical insurance. As soon as you mention cancer the insurance companies flee like scalded cats, so I am now seriously thinking of having the scan that Neil Smith offered to arrange for me. My thinking is: If the scan reveals how much the disease has spread in the seven months since the last one, which I guess it will, I may be able to work out what kind of risk I am taking by going to Florida in March and staying there for the planned six weeks. It’s a risk, whichever way I look at it. The cost of requiring medical help in the United States is beyond the pale. It would be crippling, and deliberately putting myself four thousand odd miles away from the NHS in my state could be described as stupid. A scan will help to make up my mind. It will be the last time I can stay at Circle Bay, and I really do want to go. With all this in mind I rang Neil Smith’s secretary a couple of days ago and she will ‘tell Neil you called’.
​

 
Attended Amerjit’s Sikh cremation at Crawley crematorium. The first time I had been there since Heather’s cremation on 19th January last year and for some reason, I can’t suggest why, it was a little upsetting. But the Bumbly one is still in my thoughts 90% of the time and I’m beginning to think that’s the way it will be all the time now. Several of Heather’s BA colleagues were there, including Hilary, whom Heather had worked with in British Airways Staff Travel for some years and for a while was Heather’s boss. She looked in a bad way, hardly able to walk, even with the walker thing. We also spoke to Paul, Cherry’s son, and Jessie and Shamus whose wedding we videoed some years ago. Shamus is one of those guys who is instantly likeable. We told him to visit us when he is next up this way.
Afterwards we attended the post-service get-together held at what was described as a Temple, near to Asda’s in Crawley