How Did That Happen?

It only seems like yesterday that I was going to 18th birthday parties and it seemed sooooo grown up to be invited to a twenty-first party.  Aahhh, those salad days.  These days we are invited to 60th and 70th birthday celebrations and Dad will celebrate his 80^th next year.  In May the LGB aka Hop-Along is celebrating a big birthday.  When I say big, I mean he will have to call on all that wind he is so full of to blow out the forest of candles on the cake.  He’s a few years older than me, but as an official spinster of the parish I will soon be saying ‘my boyfriend is sixty’!  How did that happen?

Courtesy of zazzle.co.uk

Many men when they reach a certain age of crisis get themselves a new car or clad themselves in leather and hoik their arthritics legs over the shining metal of a motor bike.  What’s my old man getting?  A new hip. My street cred has just plummeted.

Joking aside, Hop Along has been suffering.  I finally managed to get him to visit the doctor when he had saved up enough ailments to warrant, in his mind, wasting the doctor’s time. So with himself limping, coughing, nursing a sore throat and a tooth infection (he doesn’t do a sicky by halves) we set the alarm for the crack of dawn for our 7 am appointment. Later that day with a tome of prescriptions in his mitt and a referral to a specialist we visited the pharmacist who swapped the pieces of paper for a bagful of creams, potions and tablets.  She even threw in a free bar of very nice soap!! Always good to keep a potentially lucrative client on side.

A visit to the radiographer followed. He informed the LGB he had ‘special bones’. Puzzled we returned to the doctor who on seeing the x-rays confirmed the LGB’s hips were kaput and in fact one of the problems may have been ‘congenial’.  I think he meant congenital.  A subsequent visit to an orthopaedic consultant confirmed the diagnosis when the consultant told the LGB his hips were completely worn down and in fact he had the hips of an eighty year old man!  We are now looking for the aforementioned octogenarian to give him his hips back because they are no bloody good to us.

That was just the start.  No such thing as a one shop stop here. He had urine and blood samples taken.  Next stop was the cardiologist.  This rather rotund man whilst extremely pleasant was in no condition to advise anybody that they ought to lose weight for the sake of their health. He wired the LGB up and Eureka, found a heart. A little drop of antifreeze should do the trick! Back to the pharmacist to buy crutches and bandages as instructed then another drive to Angouleme to the hospital to book his room. Then back to the lab to collect the results for the blood and urine tests.

Today we returned to Angouleme for the final appointment before the operation with the anaesthetist. The LGB is still trying to pronounce that one. En route we somehow came to discussing whether, in the event of the worst outcome he would come back to haunt me!  We’re a bundle of joy and laughs us two!  I said he would have to so that he could tell me how to finish the house.  

I can watch all kinds of surgical procedures on the television but the LGB hates them.  He is very squeamish about these things. He says in the event that he may have to have one of the interventions he would rather not know what is happening to him on the table.  He has been very relaxed about the whole process and just eager to get the new hip and back to work.

The appointment with the anaesthetist went well until he told the LGB he would be awake during the operation. That went down like a lead balloon.  The LGB is no longer the happy-go-lucky-pre-oppy-chappy he was this morning. He’s gone a little nervy and is muttering that perhaps he won’t have the second hip done after all!  I am trying to console him by telling him he won’t feel a thing, he will just be able to hear the sawing and chiselling, with a little bit of hammering thrown in.  Just the normal sounds of a building site really. For some reason that information is not going down too well.

Amazingly, from the first visit to the doctor to the operation will be about three weeks.

Blue for a day!

Before Hipsgate the LGB had nearly finished plastering the house.  We have undercoated everywhere except the landing and one bedroom. I have been varnishing the bedroom floors.  I mixed a shade of cappuccino for one of the bedrooms, had to repaint a little and spent forever trying to mix the right match again.  I painted the en-suite a sunny shade of sky blue.  Two days later I mixed a shade of mocha and repainted over the sky blue.  A girl can change her mind can’t she? 

My paint mix looks good enough to eat!

A few pictures of what has been done so far. The kitchen units aren't fixed yet as they will have to come out to tile the floors.

I now have doors to replace the curtains under the sink.

Drawers painted in Fired Earth carbon blue.
Handles in Annie Sloane charcoal

With my mixing stick still smoking I mixed a green/grey for the dining room and hallway. I’m pleased with the outcome; the LGB is just dizzy with the mixing and changing colours.


  



  

He has been tidying the garden to make life a little easier for me whilst he’s recovering. The consultant says he will be out of action for three months because of the nature of his work. He’s made a couple of raised beds to grow veggies. We have been tidying, bringing in some furniture from storage to the house, generally doing the things he won’t be able to do for some time.  I’ve been painting pieces of furniture, emptying boxes and moving boxes.


Some lovely days and evenings in the garden

The cranes coming back.
Summer must be coming!

I’ve never stayed in this house on my own. I shall be checking under beds and in cupboards before turning in at night.  I’m not sure who will be more scared, him or me.