Coffee tea snow and soup

Last week I definitely over did it, and became obsessed with my cancer. Today I feel free because not spending hours upon hours searching has let me go. I’m back in the hands of the universe , whatever may be will be. 🙏

I feel happier and strangely my pain level has dropped again. I believe there is a strong relationship with stress in the mind and pain in the body. The stress in the mind is equal to the pain in the body. The stress comes first the pain follows it. That’s why my pain has gone right down, in fact for most of Monday it was non existent. 💊

I went for a short walk in the morning it was one of those typical British autumnal days, the sun did not shine at all, it was damp but not raining, it was very overcast misty but not quite foggy. Have you noticed when it’s foggy it’s also much quieter. Well today on my walk the birds weren’t singing. The leaves were squealchy , I think the word squealchy was only invented for walking in wet leaves.

 My tree behind us has just 3 leaves left, they look quite sorrowful, it’s almost entirely naked now, a few more must have given up the hope of hanging on and left the tree to join it’s companions on the floor , slowly being recycled by mother nature. 

I walked around the estate which I know is precisely 1.47 km. The estate was strangely subdued, there was not much stuff going on.

It wasn’t very cold and so my new bright blue very warm jacket made me feel quite warm and then the hot flushes which are becoming more frequent as the hormone treatment goes to work, made me feel like I was on fire. These hot flushes come and go quite randomly, I’m often quite sweaty and when the flush dies away I’m left cold and often shivery, it’s a strange circumstance to be in, my internal thermostat must be all over the place.🔥

It was a strange walk. When I got home I sat in the garden with a cup of tea. Chai teabags brewed for 4 minutes gives the best experience. I like the smell of this tea, it’s warm and friendly, it smells of Christmas and nice things. 

It’s still a toss up now between chai and green tea in the league of favourite teas. Tomorrow I might go and buy a new tea, just to add to the competition, I’m thinking of peppermint tea or lemon tea. I’m now drinking just one coffee per day. My normal coffee is at breakfast time just after I’ve taken my pills for the morning not forgetting my super cancer busting pill💊. 

I like my coffee to be fresh, I brew it in one of those caffetiers, I like to do it the right way and take my time. I put my total attention and awareness on brewing my coffee, it’s a great mindfulness exercise. You make the coffee using all five of your senses. It’s a very slow and mindful process.

 Anyone trying to learn mindfulness should firstly just practice doing something and putting 100% of their attention into it, and all 5 senses must be involved if possible, something like peeling an apple making a cup of tea or coffee or even washing the dishes and drying them. In fact the Buddhists make tea a part of their meditation ritual, I can understand now why.🙏 I once wanted to become a buddhist, I even enquired at a temple in London, did you know there are at least 10 in London. I asked about becoming a Buddhist. I was advised you don’t have to change your religion to become a buddhist just be a Buddhist in your ways of being. I think they looked at me and thought no chance😃I thought at first it was dissapointing and then I realised what a great thing that was, just live in the ways of a Buddhist.

 I’m a Christian but I’m not religious. I believe in the universe , I guess that’s God Krishna Allah or who ever you want it to be. I gues now I can also understand why people turn to religion when they are dying. I like the philosophy of Buddhism and the ways of being. Well the simple truth is I’ve been dying since I was born, cancer only makes me more determined to live longer, to appreciate the value of life, and to live it properly not just go through the motions of existing, but to really live. To think there were times in my life when I wanted to not live any longer, I wanted out. I also realise that material things in life no longer matter. People spend their whole lives chasing material happiness that lasts untill the next thing becomes their goal.

Well that was a philosophical moment it must be the chai tea 😃

At midday the house was so dark I had to put the lights on , a sure sign winter is arriving fast. I hope this winter we see some snow , I think I wrote that yesterday. We’ve had no snow down in this area for a while now, I don’t even think it snowed last winter at all. I do know this, the first time it snows I will be out walking in it, that’s for sure, you can’t beat a walk in freshly falling snow, now that’s when the world really goes silent when it snows. I’m going off to the Alps now in my dreams, I often visualise the past and places I’ve been lucky to visit and work in. Tonight I think I’ll be off to Austria and the lovely village of Kitzbuhel, one of my favourite ski seasons, can’t tell you what year it was but I do remember clearly how desperate we were for snow and it did not arrive untill January but when it did eventually arrive it snowed and snowed for days on end, in the end there was too much snow. I’m off there now, good night. 🏂❄️

It’s now Tuesday and I’m sitting outside in the sun, it’s beautiful but with a bit of a nip in the air. I’m sipping a Starbucks cold cafe latte 

Well hello , this is nice, where have you been all my life I say to the drink, I talk to everything now, I have conversations with all the household implements, although slightly hard to have a conversation with our brand new shark hoover, it’s a bit too loud. I’m often talking to the kettle and the toaster often in a three way chat. I talk to the rabbbits and the cats, a part of me is wondering just what dosage of morphine is needed for me to hear them talk back. 🐈🐇

Going back to last night’s little conversation I went to Kitzbuhel had a walk in the fresh snow and then peacefully fell asleep. Its quite often the best way to get back to sleep by visualising being somewhere. The visualisation was so real I can still if I close my eyes now feel the crunch of the soft snow, amazing  ❄️⛄🏂

I’m experiencing some loss of feeling in my right leg, it’s worse today so I send an email to the hospital. My doctor is on the phone within a couple of hours , she’s concerned , I’m going for an MRI scan as soon as they can get me in and I’m going back on the steroids. I’m hoping this isn’t the cancer affecting my back , I was hopping the radiotherapy zapping ⚡had sorted that out for a while. I’m keeping positive about this afterall worrying is going to make me feel a whole lot worse when there’s nothing I can do about this, I’ll leave it to the fantastic folks at the NHS and the universe.🙏

I’ve decided to take my mind off it by cooking something , I’m going to cook up a lentil and white bean vegetable soup, never done this one before , I’ll be back later with the results.

Well im happy with that and more importantly so are the girls ,tastes delicious and looks ok to, and most important it’s pretty healthy. Well that’s the third soup I’ve made in the last couple of weeks. This was the best in my favourite home made soup table 😃 the other two were carrot soup and potato and vegetable soup, I’ll try something else next week, I like the sound of pea and mint but when put to the girls it’s a resounding no way dad. 

Tomatoe soup could be next.🍵🍜

No Samaritans walk tonight, right leg is as stiff as a plank and a new pain now in my hip, this is not the same as before, so decided not to take the challenge on tonight. I’m hoping to hear about the MRI scan as soon as possible , but as before stressing about it is not going to get a scan any quicker.😢

Early night tonight for everyone, my wife’s gone up early , I know she’s worried, I wish I could stop it but I can’t. Hopefully she gets a peaceful night’s sleep🙏

The kids have also turned in early , I blow a kiss at each room as I pass it on my way to the spare room. This is my bedroom now. It’s ok it’s how it is ❤️

12am 

Lots of thoughts like a tumble drier in my mind, it’s not going to be easy to get to sleep, I may have to visit one of my favourite places to get peaceful enough for sleep to come to me tonight.💭

I’ve decided to revisit Sorrento it’s my favourite holiday place that I repped in , I spent 3 summers in Sorrento. I’m going to close my eyes and visit the little harbour called Marina Grande, there are two harbours in Sorrento the other one is Marina Piccola, one means big harbour the other means small harbour, unfortunately the names got mixed up when they named the harbour. Marina Grande is actually the small harbour, that’s the one I’m going to visit tonight, there is a lovely restaurant there which is set into the harbour and you can sit and watch the sun go down. It’s spectacular, calming and is mother nature at its magical best.

Buono Notte ♥️