Telling Phyllis to Move On

Now I don’t often swear, and rarely swear on here but today I’m going to make an exception, so if you’re likely to be offended then please just skip this post. I hope you don’t though, because it’s about cancer which quite frankly is offensive and indiscriminate.

Sadly cancer isn’t a stranger in my family, or yours too I suspect. My parents have both had their own battle with the disease (which they both won) but unfortunately my FIL wasn’t so lucky and we lost him last summer. I’ve friends that have encountered cancer, with mixed success, and I’m sure you have too.

One of those is Emma from Island Living 365 who has recently been diagnosed with Bowel cancer and who is bravely sharing her cancer journey online. Despite her recent post entitled Running away from Bowel Cancer she’s doing far from that. Instead she’s planning to run - or as she would say - plod, in the Race for Life for Cancer Research UK in Jersey at the end of May. While she’s already smashed her fundraising target, it would be great if we could add to her total, if you’re able to, to help beat cancer for everyone sooner.

Emma has named her cancer Phyllis and her updates regularly include #PissOffPhyllis - today many of the blogging community are showing our support for Emma and encouraging Phyllis (and her friends) to move on, as they’re really not welcome. Anywhere. Any of them.

We’ve all got badges with the #PissOffPhyllis message (thanks Lucy and the BlogOn team!) and we’re wearing them proudly and hitting our blogs and social media to show Emma our support. If you’re able to share this post, or any of my social posts for this on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram then I’d really appreciate your help.

April is Bowel cancer Awareness month

So it’s only fitting that we’ve managed to get this arranged to sneak in to the end of this month, and appropriate that I include some information about Bowel cancer too:

• Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK claiming more than 16,000 lives a year, that's over 44 people every day.

• Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, after breast, prostate and lung cancers.

• Every 15 minutes in the UK someone is diagnosed with bowel cancer. That’s almost 42,000 people every year. Every 30 minutes someone dies from the disease in the UK. 

• More than nine out of ten new cases (94%) are diagnosed in people over the age of 50, and nearly six out of ten cases (58%) are diagnosed in people aged 70 or over. But bowel cancer can affect any age. More than 2,500 people under 50 are diagnosed with bowel cancer in the UK every year.

• 1 in 14 men and 1 in 19 women will be diagnosed with bowel cancer during their lifetime.

Bowel cancer is very treatable but the earlier it is diagnosed, the easier it is to treat. People whose cancer is diagnosed at an early stage have a much higher chance of successful treatment than those whose cancer has become more widespread. If you have any symptoms, don’t be embarrassed and don’t ignore them. Doctors are used to seeing lots of people with bowel problems.

The symptoms of Bowel cancer can include:

• Bleeding from your bottom and/or blood in your poo

• A persistent and unexplained change in bowel habit 

• Unexplained weight loss

• Extreme tiredness for no obvious reason

• A pain or lump in your tummy

So Phyllis, it’s time for you (and all your friends) to move on

You’re most definitely not welcome. In fact I’ve struggled to find anywhere where you are welcome.

If you would also like to support Emma beating cancer you can follow her updates on her blog, Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram. Or if you can spare a pound or two then a donation to her fundraising page for Cancer Research UK would be appreciated.  Thank you.

Putting the Ultimax gardening gloves to the test

* This item was gifted by Town & Country
It must be said I’m a fan of pink gardening gloves. My regular go to gardening gloves are pink, and are also by Town & Country. They’re reliable, but somehow I do seem to go through quite a few, and I’m not quite sure why. While I do always wear gloves while gardening, I don’t think I go through them due to some kind of extreme gardening, it just seems to be the way it goes.

I always revert to buying the same sort - or style? (do gardening gloves have style, now that’s a whole other question I’m sure!), because I know they fit. They don’t have overly long fingers which mean they’re useless, and of course they’re pink. I mentioned before I like a pink gardening glove or two. Actually two gloves are better than one…

So when Wilkinson Sword offered me a different type of (thankfully pink) gardening gloves, I was sceptical. But then again, they were pink and so I thought I could definitely give them a go. And last weekend I did.

I needed to dig my way into the greenhouse, which had become another storage space for our winter garden. And while I wasn’t expecting it to be mucky, I know what I’m like, and so the gloves went on. The blurb on the label says that these Ultimax gloves have “an innovative design offering an extremely close fit for unequaled dexterity.”

The palm of the gloves do look very high tech - there’s textured pads for grip and extra protection. And while the photo below looks as if there’s holes in the fingertips of my first two fingers, there isn’t, that’s the texture pads. You can see it more clearly on the thumb in the photo below.

The gloves did fit well, the velcro fastening at the wrist kept them on, and I was able to pick things up that perhaps I wouldn’t have in my other pink gloves. I’m not sure I’d be able to sow tiny seeds in these gloves, but then again I’m not sure I’d want to. Even me, who’s someone not keen on having mucky hands, thinks that sometimes you have to feel the soil, and sowing seeds is one of those times.

Thankfully there was nothing nasty or slimy lurking in my greenhouse and it wasn’t long before I’d cleared a space and found a new home for the things I’d moved. Something - a squirrel perhaps - had been in the greenhouse as pots had been disturbed and overturned, but whatever it was seems to have moved on.

The only downside for me with these gloves is the labels (see the photo above). They’re quite large, and while I’m glad this size label isn’t on the inside as that would most likely be uncomfortable, I’m not sure what value these labels add. They stand out literally and visually and I suspect I’ll be cutting them off as I found them distracting - but then again I’m not much of a label lover, and regularly cut them out of clothes too, so it could just be me, but if they were half the size then I think they’d be less intrusive.

I’ve still some more to do in here - including sowing some seeds and rearrange the benches so there’s more space to move in here, and hopefully incorporate some more growing space too. But these new Ultimax pink gloves are a keeper, and on their first outing had quite a workout.

Overall, it’s a thumbs up from me.

* While this item was gifted by Town & Country, I was under no obligation to share it here on my blog.

Reflecting on my week #80

Well, hasn’t the weather over Easter been lovely? You’ll have noticed it’s been unusually quiet here for a bit. Despite plans to catch up with myself and the tasks - and posts - I planned, I found I needed some much needed time away from my blog, and so I did just that.  Work too has been quieter in the run up to the four day weekend and I think that also contributed, strangely. I’m pretty sure it will be gearing up again for the rest of the week, but it was good to enjoy some headspace and time to think, and really reflect on which is the way forward. 

This Easter there’s been time at home, and some family time. I’ve cleared my way into the greenhouse, which was just as well as I brought some plants home from dad, and we’ve even had time for some gardening. I’ve also found some time for some crocheting, although that wasn’t without its challenges. 

The lacy scarf i shared last week had been growing, but I wasn’t happy with the starting chain which was too tight, and pulling. I think I needed to hear mum say to undo it. I knew that was probably the answer but to unravel nearly five inches worth wasn’t really my plan A.  However I’m pretty sure if I didn’t I’d have regretted it. As it goes I’m back up to, and past, where I was before, and it is much better for having restarted. But still, it was a little painful.

Norfolk and its big blue skies are best in the sunshine, and on this visit the fields were full of yellow rape flowers too. I think that makes it even more beautiful.

Mum had been extra busy preparing for Easter, there were Easter Bunny egg cosies for our duck eggs on Sunday, and later that day we started on, but didn’t finish, a rather large cake!

Back home on Monday, the weather was still good, but not quite as good as in Norfolk. The seedlings I’d brought home from dad had survived what turned out to be a longer than normal journey, mostly due to Bank Holiday and good weather traffic - while it’s nice to have the weather, they don’t always mix, do they? So now in my clearer-than-it-was greenhouse, there’s a couple of tiny squash seedlings, and a couple of slightly larger courgette seedlings.

It was good to see our lilac starting to flower. I’m hoping it’s got plenty more flowers to come, and this year it’s due for another trim, but not before its finished flowering.

And with two green bins to fill, we decided to make the most of the weather. The plan was to tackle the shape of the pear tree, but as it was a bit of a struggle to get the ladder out from where it was padlocked to the forsythia, there was a quick change of plan. The forsythia, which had finished flowering, was taller than we usually keep it, and so the ladder needed to be at its full extension, which meant the first step was about mid thigh-height for me, and so I delegated ladder duties to MOH. Which meant pruning also became much more of a communications exercise!

But still getting the ladder into the right place proved tricky, and at times a long cane was used to point to exactly which branch and where it should be cut. The operation was further complicated as the forsythia has our large, and very prickly yucca plant beneath it. Thankfully I’d hit on the brainwave of covering that with our patio table cover, but only because it was still out drying having finally been removed from the table. It was just as well, as after slightly overstretching MOH toppled, while still up the ladder. It was definitely a slow motion fall, I’d seen it coming and was able to slow down the topple but not stop it completely.

Thankfully MOH was OK, however the yucca fared less well and so one of the stems needed to be removed. Typically it was the stem that was the most upright, but given the circumstances that was the least of my worries. The stake has been repositioned and the plan is to gradually try to correct the tilt, to see if that makes a difference. If it doesn’t, it seems that the yucca has made its own succession plans, as two new plants have started to form, and you can see them in the photo below to the right of the stake. My longer term plan for the yucca is to nurture these and any others that appear.

So quite an eventful time gardening, and our bin filled even more quickly than we thought! Now that we’ve started gardening we become driven by the green bins, and how much we can get in them, as the larger, thicker cuttings take much longer to break down on the compost heap. There is, plenty to do, and I’m hoping there’ll be some chances this week for some seed sowing and pottering in the greenhouse.