Christmas Greeting 2014

Though much is taken

"Though much is taken, much abides.
And though we are not now that strength
Which in old days moved earth and heaven,
That which we are, we are:
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate,
But strong in will, to strive, to seek,
To find and not to yield." 



Tennyson.

2014

Dear Family and Friends,


Well, I've been served right for starting last year's letter by being glad of not moving house. A few weeks later the council offered us a ground floor flat and on the 27th of March we moved. We could have done with those boxes after all, doh ! The 3 of us now all have our names on the lease which we hope will give us each security of tenure if any of the others leave.

Taken from the downstairs front door beside our front steps. The neighbours are friendly. The chair is where the grannies sit to chat in the afternoons. Nothing escapes their notice.

 There's a convenient olive grove down the road to walk the dog, (with the craziest snails that sit at the top of the post).The harvest has failed this year so no more olives on sale till 2016. I wonder if they'll still have the olive festival ? It's called the Fete de l'Alicoque. I misread it as Alcolique.

Ginger Biscuit, always inquisitive

We've got a bit of garden which will take some work to get in order but it's got roses, lilac, box, lavender, sage, thyme. Mercifully it's wild mint that's gone rampant not grass as J is allergic to the pollens. It smells lovely after the rain and when we walk on it. We're planning a bonfire party for New Year's Eve.

We've down sized from 100m² to 68m² but we've still all got a bedroom each, as well as two sorts of balconies and a sizeable cellar downstairs. Can't grumble, the couple who lived here before us were Polish refugees and brought up their 12 children in this flat ! We've a fair amount of work to do on the place. Until 4 years ago it was heated with parafin heaters which has left a toxic soot on the walls and has not been great for Joanna's already difficult breathing. We've got one bedroom done which we've moved her into for the time being and one nearly done and her breathing has improved a bit. We're trying to get the place adapted and equipped for a maximum of autonomy. We got the new kitchen sink this week but it's 1cm longer than planned so the new dishwasher doesn't slot in it's place. Hmmm, will have to put our thinking caps again.

Balcony, flowers and view of autumn crocuses down in the garden.

We need to get a bath put in too, we're hoping the disability authorities will help. Plus we'd like them to give us our "helper funding" back. We've tried to campaign to get the law made less discriminatory for disabled under 65s (we haven't found any lobby group for us yet). Joanna recorded a message on the answer phone of a radio programme. The next day we tuned in to the station with fingers crossed and were surprised and excited to hear her voice floating over the waves. We had over 500 people come and look at our site thanks to that ad, though not sure how many actually got round to writing to the President.(http://pchmenage.wordpress.com/)

Teaspoon in for scale, still impressive though.

We've found a sleep specialist nearby who works closely with our doctor so knows about our illness. She's kind and efficient. Joanna had her sleep recording this week and will be starting a treatment soon; Liz will have one in December, and Ruth's going for a brain M.R.I. after that. Ruth had her gall bladder out in April and they found an impressive collection of stones in there. We had thought to compare it to Liz's stone saved from 10 years previous but we left it on the table overnight and the dog ate it...

Sunset, view from the flat

Some of you of you will realise that compared with 10 years housebound and being too weak even to be able to go to hospital appointments this is all very exciting (well, if your life is sufficiently dull). We've had the strength to take on all this because of a year of antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease and co-infections (the previous attempt helped get us up from bedbound, but ended 2006/7 with relapse due to over exertion). We could really do with a period of stability for our systems to be more receptive to the treatment (we've been saying that for how many years now? lol) We have found a group that is making a national regester of those damaged by the Hepatitis B jabs of the mid to late 90s (Ruth and Joanna were 1996) although only those who were compulsorily vaccinated are elegible for compensation so far. We plan to get Ruth and Joanna's names on the list at least for statistical purposes and they will let us know if there is any evolution in the situation for others getting compensation.

In november we had to say good-bye to a dear old friend. Tommy got to the age of 14 and then just wore out.

Tommy trying very hard to smile in an attempt to get us to give him more food

We wish you a very Happy Christmas 2014
and all God's blessings for 2015.

Lots of love from Liz, Ruth and Joanna xxx and Ginger of course.