Hello again

As I said in my last post, I'd be back if I had anything important to share. I'm not saying anything about this on instagram because I feel a bit exposed over there.  A few months ago, I was diagnosed with a non-malignant brain tumour. It's a meningioma - it's not cancer and it's not life threatening. The specialist has suggested that we should watch it for 12 months to see if it's growing, and if it is, how fast. When they know that there will either be treatment in the form of surgery and/or radiotherapy, or no treatment at all. My doctor's wife has had the same tumour for the past 10 years and hers has remained the same size and is stable.  We're hoping mine will be the same.

I'm telling you this now because I need to tell certain people and I think when a few people know, they will tell others, and I'll get a lot of emails asking if I'm okay.  I think it's best to let everyone know at the same time and we can just carry on as normal. 😊

My main problems are with dizziness and sleep. The dizziness kicks in mostly when I'm walking on uneven ground, when I'm going down steps or when I'm gardening. Morag came down and helped with the garden a few months ago when I told her about it and it's been okay till now. The weeds are taking over but I'm still harvesting herbs, chillies and cucumbers.  In March I'll get someone to come in and prepare the garden for our yearly planting and I'm sure I'll be able to manage it when the heavy work and planting is complete.  I want to keep going as normal, doing as much as I can with a bit of help when I need it.  Hanno can't do the garden now either because he gets dizzy when he continually bends over and stands up.

Everything else is good. We had a lovely Christmas lunch over at Kerry and Sunny's new home and sat back and enjoyed the Boxing day test match the following day.  This weekend, Jo, my Penguin editor, and her family will come to visit us.  The photos are what I made for her two little girls.  I gave Jo's older daughter one of the Maggie rabbits I made a few years ago so this little one is for her baby sister.

I hope you enjoyed the Christmas break.  I know it's a time of joy and family get-togethers but it's also a lonely time for many as well. If you're one of the lonely ones, let's look to the year ahead. I'm looking forward to 2019 and I hope you are too. We never know what the months ahead will bring but let's hope our harvests are abundant, our neighbours are quiet and our local libraries stock a long list of interesting books for us to read.

I'm opening the comments again and I'll stay here on the blog and see how it feels to be posting again.  No promises about keeping the blog going but I feel more comfortable here than on instagram.  Let's see how it pans out.

ADDED LATER:
Thank you all for your comments and good wishes.  I've tried to reply to a couple of your comments but the system isn't allowing it at the moment. I might have to tweak a few buttons but I'll do that tomorrow.