Smile a while...

When I looked at my phone this morning FB memories was showing a photo of Alan and me from 15 years ago (actually it was taken 16 years ago and only put on FB a year later) It made me smile.  It was taken in April 2008 when we were on holiday in Emsworth.  I've put it in extras as it relates to today's blip.

When I showed Alan the photo on my phone this afternoon, it made him smile too.  We chose Emsworth as a holiday destination as it was close to David's Uncle Bill and Effie (his mum's brother and his wife, who were the parents of D's cousin Cilla who visited the other day)  It meant we could visit them and have them to the holiday house for dinner.  

Alan loved Uncle Bill and aunt Effie and they adored him.  He had an especially close bond with Effie and when we visited them she and Alan would disappear for ages into their beautiful garden and we would usually find them chatting and laughing together amongst the roses.  An 11 year old non-verbal boy and his octogenarian Great Aunt who understood each other perfectly and shared the same sense of humour.  It was a joy to behold.  

Sadly Bill and Effie are gone now and we miss them lots.  Alan still loves us to talk about them and look at photos of our holidays there.  I've included a pic of D, Alan, Bill and Effie at the holiday house in Emsworth (my first ever blip was from that holiday house :-) You can see how happy Alan is to be there with them.  

After lunch Alan headed out and I headed to the studio planning to get on with Agnes and Adrian's painting but the best laid schemes...between interruptions of phone calls and answering the door to various deliveries, time ran away with me and no painting was done.

As the afternoon progressed, I decided I could no longer ignore subtle signs of a UTI.  I'd been denying it to myself since this morning given it's only three weeks since I was pumped full of antibiotics and only two weeks since I finished the oral course of antibiotics, but given how fast infection took hold the three weeks ago, I decided I should at least use the dipsticks I bought last week and test a sample.  When I did, the strip lit up like a Christmas tree.  Hmmmm....

It was just after 3.30pm when I phoned our local health centre for advice.  A GP called me back just before 4pm and asked me to go round to be seen by a GP at 4.45pm.  I was very impressed by the service but I suppose having had sepsis twice in 9 weeks means they don't want to take any chances.

Saw Dr P who checked my temperature, BP and oxygen levels. All normal, but his dip test on a fresh sample also lit up, so I am back on a weeks course of antibiotics, and since this has gone of for so long, I've at last been referred to Urology! 

This evening has been spent trying to decide what to wear to Nikki's Hen Do tomorrow.  Thankfully the weather is to be lovely again so no need to worry about rain jackets and umbrellas :-))