Roast Mediterranean veg with cheesy jacket potatoes
The universe has really had it in for me today.
I got a call back from the rheumatologist this morning, and one of his first questions was who had told me that the GP could only give 10 days of steroids to mum, “because that’s just not true”. He’s going to write back to the GP to explain that he can and should prescribe enough steroids to cover mum until her hospital appointment, which can’t be any sooner than early May.
Which is one serious problem solved, but at the cost of mum adding “the doctor couldn’t help, could he? to her rotation of anxious complaints.
Then I had lunch: a cheese and pickle sandwich, a bag of crisps, and a pear. I sat down to eat, and mum came in, saw my pear, and immediately wanted it. So then I had just a sandwich and a bag of crisps. I opened the crisps, and found they were so stale they were liking eating vaguely tangy cardboard. So then I had just a sandwich. It was a nice sandwich, but even so…
Eventually I went and got another pear: a little under-ripe, but good. Until it threw itself out of my hand and onto the floor. đ¤Ļââī¸
At this point I resorted to, as AI đ put it, ‘resilience by spite’: I wiped the fluff off and ate it anyway. đ¤ˇââī¸
On the positive side, we finally got mum’s outstanding prescription meds – I don’t know if it was my email or the chasing by the memory service (or even my blog posts) that did the trick, but something worked. I really hope the new meds help, and rescue us both from the purgatory of a never-ending pain loop.
I also got to speak to a GP about getting more antidepressants. I was expecting a bit of an argument, but maybe because he was so late calling (nearly an hour after he was meant to call) he immediately agreed that I could have the antidepressants the consultant recommended. That’s one issue solved, thank goodness.
[Put here because I’m not sure where else it will fit: early-ish this morning, there was a loud engine noise overhead, and over flew one small plane, then a second small plane, then a much larger plane with a distinctive silhouette – a Lancaster bomber! Or at least I think so, but I can’t find anything anywhere that suggests anyone else saw it. I can’t imagine I would hallucinate a WW2 plane, but who knows?1]
This afternoon I did a bit of gardening, potting on the little plug plants that have been sitting, looking increasingly sad, in the shower tray for nearly a week. I persuaded mum to come and help, hoping that would distract her from the “my head hurts, my teeth hurt, the doctor won’t help, I’m so miserable”. It worked for just long enough for me to get the plants into pots, then she decided she was cold and missing her tv programme, so she went back inside.
I then moved onto planting seeds. My dad loved growing veg – any veg as long as it wasn’t the expected colour. I grew up eating salads of red lettuce, green tomatoes and purple carrots, with pink potatoes on the side. The veg I’m growing is, naturally, the same: tomatoes in purple, green, orange, and red (going conservative at the end there), peppers in multiple colours, and white-striped purple aubergines. Tomorrow I will add yellow courgettes, purple pak choi, and multi-colour carrots.
Meal photos will become a lot more colourful from late June onwards.
As mum is still feeling lousy, I made her favourite dinner of “those round things”2 with “ooh, I like the red bits!”. It took her a while to eat it all, but she did manage to finish a full portion of a proper meal. Now she’s onto coffee ice cream, and I’m going to go for a blueberry muffin.
Then it will be decaff coffee and Suki snuggles, and doubtless lots more of mum worrying about going out for lunch tomorrow (“I’m not worried” đ ), before finally peace returns for an hour or so until it’s time to sleep.
I just hope that the universe has got the spite out of its star systems and will let me have a half-decent day tomorrow.
Is it pineapple sponge today? 