The Last Bank Holiday

In the UK we've just had our last Bank Holiday until 25th December.

The rain fell...

The wind blew...

The sun hardly showed itself...

But we had fun out and about, visiting family and doing real Bank Holiday type activities, like taking our grandchildren for their first steam train ride:

Today the local children went back to school. I watched them going down the road wearing new school uniforms with sharp creases in their trousers, perfectly tied ties and plenty of room to 'grow into them'. It reminded me of when I used to send my kids off to school. I even shed a few tears. How soppy is that? 

So the holidays are truly over and, like I said, the next one in the UK won't be for four months [Message to Government: Can we have a few more please?] but in the meantime I have a camera full of photographs and a whole load of memories of a lovely time and that's very precious.

What's your favourite way to spend a Bank Holiday?

You'll never guess what happened on 30 May...

So it’s the May Bank Holiday and I’m sitting up in bed sipping a mug of tea (made for me by my lovely Rod.)

I’ve got Charlie on my lap 

(sitting on a silk scarf because I don’t like cat fur on the quilt) 

and Mabel sitting under the dressing table 

(because she doesn’t do laps). 

BBC Radio 2 with Miranda Hart and Jon Holmes is making me laugh and then they run a feature on this day in history and...

“Yessss!” I say. Charlie opens one eye in a moderately disinterested way. “That’s what I’ll blog about today!”

And this is it... except that I’ve done a bit of research and discovered some different events so that the BBC can’t complain about me ‘stealing’ their script (assuming that the BBC even know I exist.)

Did you know that on 30^th May...

• In 542 King Arthur died following a battle with Modred (assuming that either men actually existed!)

• In 1431 Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake in the market place at Rouen, France. (She was only a young girl of 19. Humans can be so cruel.)

• In 1536 Henry VIII married Jane Seymour. She had been the lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn who had been beheaded just 11 days earlier. (Like I say, humans are cruel.)

• In 1821 James Boyd patented the rubber fire hose. (Not amazingly interesting but the only item from the Radio 2 programme that was verifiable!)

• In 1842 John Francis tried to assassinate Queen Victoria. (How different the history of our monarchy would have been if he’d succeeded.)

• In 1939 the Labour Party had their first General Election win. (In those days many people despised working class men and thought they wouldn’t be able to rule the country. Haven’t we moved on.... erm... have we moved on?)

• In 1989 Cliff Richard released his 100^th single record called ‘The Best of Me’. (No, I’ve never heard of it either but you can see an ever-youthful Cliff singing it on the You Tube link below.)

• And in 2011 in Leicester UK it poured with rain (which means that Rod’s vegetables are coming on a treat. The broad bean flowers are almost ready to turn into yummy pods. I may even blog about our first home-grown meal of the year.)

   

Almost home... but it’s Bank Holiday Weekend

Rod is recovering from his stem cell transplant. He’ll soon be discharged from hospital but not while he has a Hickman line in. It’s yet another source of infection and this is something he must avoid with his present low levels of resistance... but it’s Bank Holiday weekend which means that the lines can’t be taken out until Tuesday so they allowed him home for the afternoon as long as he was back by 8 pm, a bit like being a prisoner out on licence.

Rod’s resistance is so low that I’ve been given a long list of dos and don’ts regarding cleanliness and food hygiene. It’s scary but when I got up this morning I only had to disinfect the door handles and brush the dog to put the finishing touches to my newly super-clean house. All was going well until I stepped into the downstairs toilet. Water was dripping from the hand basin. I tried to phone the plumber... but it’s Bank Holiday weekend and there was no reply so I decided to tackle the leak myself. How hard can it be to tighten a nut under a tap? I found the nut. No problem. I turned it and... OK, so I turned it the wrong way and once the water started to pour it was impossible to get a grip on it with wet fingers. Thankfully a kind neighbour came round with his toolbox, fixed the leak and I was able to finish my cleaning and get to the hospital in time for Rod's 'day-release'.

Rod is very weak and has by no means recovered from the treatment but today he had two good meals, he sat in the conservatory and admired his garden (which fortunately is still surviving) and he was reunited with the dog. Josh-the-dog has a manic streak. When the kids come home to visit he does crazy circuits, the sort of circuits where back legs overtake front legs with hilarious consequences. It’s been almost four weeks since Rod went into hospital. When we arrived home we braced ourselves for a daft dog explosion but Josh didn’t move. He stood and stared and then he pressed his head against Rod’s legs. Rod sat on the stairs. Josh laid his head on Rod’s lap and there they sat. If dogs could cry Josh would have been shedding tears of relief. Dogs can’t cry but we can... and we did.