January 2022

Menorca, as always…

2022 – good grief… can we just skip this one and go straight to 2023? I have a feeling that might be better…

To recap the last couple months…. November was the wettest month on record – ever… I think we had more rain in one month than we’ve had in the past 3 years put together… we quite literally saw the sun just twice in the course of the month.  Good Lord….  It made me realize how dependent I am on my outdoor life in order to feel life is worth living… It stopped raining in December, but there were still an awful lot of grey days – miserable…. and it’s been COLD, no warm spells where we could eat lunch out on the patio… However, any day the sun did manage to show its face at lunchtime, I’d pack a sandwich and bike down to the sea, find myself a corner out of the wind, in the sun – I even threw myself in the water a couple of times – bbrrrr! but that saltwater baptism, no matter how cold, and how brief, just makes me feel alive… I got in on Christmas morning (it was sunny, but cold and windy). and again on New Year’s Day with Cristina and David, Margot supplying cava and treats as per tradition –  it was grey and windy and really cold, but I had to do it, and Cristina kept me company, brave soul…

The bad news is that our electricity bills have gone through the roof – more than doubled – the past 3 months have been 220, 190, 220…. after the first shocker I re-arranged everything to run water heaters and pool only in the middle of the night, sis no longer uses her electric radiator (we now get through 2 butanos a week), but it made almost no difference. – I don’t know what we’re going to do…. plus of course we’re burning through wood at the rate of knots…not sleeping very well, needless to say, unless I take a pill…

Sis is much the same as ever.   I take her to physio once a week (only though the end of this month,  I think),  she does her exercises, walks around the pool and washes the breakfast dishes. – that’s about it… I should be grateful for small mercies – it could be a whole lot worse….

Had a lovely Solstice zoom with the NYC gang- that really lifted my spirits,  altho’ seeing them all just makes me miss my other life…

I did have a mammo the other day and they say it was fine, so that’s some good news… my left hip is getting jippier by the week. – going to have it x-rayed. altho’I’m sure it’s arthrosis, nothing to be done.  Oh, I’ve decided to stop with the letrozole as of Jan. 1st – see if I can hurt less…. Joan is not doing well at all –  the crazy last procedure she had did nothing at all, her onc now merely suggests hospice… FUCK… she is back home in Humboldt – at least there she has a wonderfully supportive community of friends and colleagues. Wish I weren’t so far away…. we talk quite often… and doug still calls me every Sunday evening, bless him… he got Covid, had a rough few days but is fine now, thankfully…

And so we lurch onward…