At the end of April, I was trying to book our summer holiday for June, when my sister finally got a date for her hip operation of June 4th, so that put paid to any thoughts of a summer holiday. After that, life became extremely full! We continued to go out and about to enjoy the good weather.
This is a view of the beautiful Claremont Gardens, near Esher, taken in mid May.
It proved to be a good year for rhododendrons and azaleas, so our garden was spectacular as usual.
This azalea was difficult to photograph, the colour is so vibrant that the iPhone couldn’t really cope with it!
This was a rhododendron in the Lane outside.
We also continued to walk as much as possible, and I took a few photos whenever I saw something worth remembering.
This is the churchyard of a church in Godstone, on one of our favourite walks.
We went up to Cheshire to visit my younger son and family for half term at the end of May but came back in time for my sister’s operation.
The operation seemed to have been successful and we travelled up to Lewisham every day to visit her - she was in hospital for 4 or 5 days. She had to go home to her own house, rather than convalescing in my house, as she had visits from the physiotherapist and the occupational therapist. This was probably just as well as by then we had 3 visitors from America - some skiing friends of Paul’s. Paul had to ferry them about quite a bit (he had promised them multiple National Trust visits) as I went up to my sister’s house in Hither Green most days which is a difficult journey by train, taking even longer than the 1 hour journey by car.
Once the therapist visits were less frequent, my sister was able to come down to my house and we tried to take her about, so that she didn’t feel she was in prison. She was so bad before the operation she should really have been in a wheelchair, so it is took her a very long time to recover. She still isn’t very mobile.
At the end of June, we took her to Sheffield Park where they allow you to borrow a mobility scooter, so we were able to go right round and admire everything. She drove the mobility scooter and we scampered along behind her.
There was a water lily festival, so it was a good time to visit. Not only were the water lilies in bloom, there were some sculptures in the lake to admire as well.
Sheffield Park is beautiful at any time of the year, but I hadn’t previously realised just how many water lilies there were.
I didn’t know I was allergic to tree pollen until then, and I got really bad hay fever which resulted in the glue ear returning in my right ear in spite of the grommet - which is now falling out anyway. I went so deaf from the glue ear I now have massively expensive hearing aids. I may need to have that grommet replaced as well.
We still have my sister most weekends; she is still on crutches for walking any distance, though she is now shuffling about the house without them. Once she has recovered sufficiently, she will go on a waiting list to have a knee replacement.
So that took care of all of June and July.
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