An odd kind of day.

Hello Dear Friends and Followers.

Have you ever had a day when you think. What the heck happened there?
That was my day yesterday.

We were up at 8 am and the usual stuff happened, walking the dog and boat chores for me. Keith decided to nip off to Royal Leamington-Spa for me as Marmite needed cat food and cat litter. So whilst he went off, I hoovered the saloon and galley, washed floors and tidied. I had just sat down with a coffee, when I heard a voice shouting my name. It was a neighbour asking if I could help him rescue a caterpillar (yes I said a caterpillar).

The Eyed Hawk Moth caterpillar was on his fence rail and he wanted to move it to somewhere safer, but everytime he tried to move it with a £20 note it lashed out in attack mode, which meant he was then scared of it. I asked "Would you mind if I borrowed your £20 note", which he duly handed over. I slide the note under the caterpillar, who was less than impressed at my help. I lifted it up and put it into the plant container which the Willow tree was in. The day before another of the caterpillars had been seen by me burrowing into the pot, so I thought that if I put this caterpillar in the same pot, he would do the same thing, because this is what they do. Having put the caterpillar into the pot, at speed it went round and round the pot a couple of times, before settling on a spot to begin burrowing. It was an incredible thing to watch, but my neighbour was very pleased that we had saved the caterpillar from being eaten by the birds. One life saved I went back to my coffee and e-mails, only to five minutes down the line to be hailed again from outside. It was yet another neighbour requiring my help. This time it was to lift work bench and move it to another location on his pontoon. Phew I was already exhausted and it was only 10 am.
Keith arrived back at the boat around 10.30 am with cat food and cat litter, only to tell me he had chest pains. I stashed away the cat items and he rang our GP, to be told by the receptionist that he needed to ring an ambulance. He dialled 999 and spoke to the person on the other end of the line, who asked him all sorts of questions and decided that she did not think it was life threatening, but would send an ambulance out anyway. Some 5 minutes later a Paramedic car arrived, with a lovely young lady driving. I met her in the car park and helped her with her bags of equipment. Blimey it amazes me that they do not suffer with extended arms and back issues, because it was quite a weight to lump around. Having gotten her into the boat, she began to ask Keith questions, she did an ECG and other tests and also decided she did not think it was life threatening, but because the pain was getting worse and it had extended through to his back, she thought she should take him down to the hospital. So whilst she settled Keith into the car, I closed the boat up and joined them for a trip to A&E. We arrived there at 11.30 am and Keith was immediately seen. Another ECG was done and blood tests. We then had the wait for the blood test results. Eventually the results came back and there was something not right with the heart test, so they wanted to redo it. More blood taken and another wait. The ECG came back ok, which was good news. As we waited more and more people were arriving and it seemed that chest pain in the men was top of the list of problems for the day. Because we only needed to wait for the results, we were moved to Ambulatory Care on Guy Ward, where others were sitting waiting for results. Keith was then seen and examined by a junior doctor and asked yet more questions. I enquired if Keith could possibly have a drink, as neither of us had had anything all day. The junior doctor very kindly made us both a cup of tea. It got to 6 pm and I thought I needed to let paddy out, so walked back to the boat, sorted Paddy and Marmite, got a quick drink and then walked back to Guy Ward, where keith was sat waiting still. He had been for an X-ray though and the consultant had seen him. In the bay there were six people waiting and four of them were waiting on results due to chest pain and they were all men. 8.10 pm we finally were allowed to leave, after the blood test came back normal. So we were no further forward to knowing what was causing his chest pain, but thankfully it had eased a bit.
Once we got back to the boat, we had our first meal of the day and to say we were famished was an understatement. We both went to bed at 10 pm shattered. I always find sitting in a hospital tiring and yet I have no idea why.

This morning we woke up at 6am to the fact that it was the 1st of August and I had an appointment with the practice nurse at 7.30 am. It was my appointment for my HRT and a discussion on whether I can begin to come off of it. I have been Menopausal for Ten years now and on HRT for at least Three years. Last year my GP told me to just stop taking it, but this had a dreadful effect on me, bring on all the Menopausal symptoms in one go, hence the fact I was immediately put back on my tablets. I am ready to give it a try again, but this time I am going to do it at a more sedate pace. For the first month, I will stop one tablet a week, for the second month two tablets a week and carry on until I am down to one a week and then stop. So wish me luck. BP was low and weight was down, so all is good in my world right now. I am not one for taking pills and as I am paying for my prescriptions, I could save £8.60 a time, so that is a bonus. I am still on my Omeprazole though and I will be long term. I have booked my Well Woman check-up, so will find out what my Cholesterol is doing. If these things are offered, then why not take them?
Having returned to the boat from the medical centre, I had my breakfast and then set off into town to pick up my pills. I had a quick walk around the town charity shops, I nipped into Holland and Barrett to talk about good Cholesterol and what were the best foods to eat. Whilst in there a woman was standing outside with a greyhound. As I went to leave the shop, she asked "Would you hold my dog for me, so I can go in and shop". I of course said that I would be only to happy to happy to look after her dog, whilst she went in and did her shopping. The woman explained to me that her dog was very nervous and was not good with people, but I assured her she would be fine with me. I took control of the greyhound for a couple of minutes, then the shop assistant said that he would take over, so i could be on my way. My good deed for the day done.
By the time I got back to the boat, I was well and truly ready for a coffee. It was only 10 am, but i felt like I had done a days work already.

I wonder what the rest of the day will have in store for me?

Pop back soon x