Keeping on with the list

I'm still pottering about through my last week of leave; trying to do useful things and enjoy myself at the same time. With limited success ... I went to the doctor on Monday for a regular checkup, which always makes me sad and cranky. Not because my GP is horrible - she is perfectly lovely - and not because there is anything wrong with me - I am perfectly healthy, if a little overweight - but because she checks me over for everything to do with "older women". A phrase used about four times, along with "women in their 50s and 60s" and even once "we have to watch out for this in the over-60s". I am FORTY FIVE YEARS OLD. But the cancer drugs block the hormones, and I have suddenly been propelled into early old age.

And it shouldn't matter, but it does, because now every time there's a news item about hip fractures, or joint pain, I prick my ears up, because that's me, and if that is me, then I must be that white-haired lady in the pastel track suit they're using to illustrate their news item, and when that happens about a dozen times a day, your picture of yourself starts to change. (You will be pleased to know that my bone density is well within normal range, although according to the technician it is "perhaps 2% lower than last years, so something to keep an eye on". I don't like perky 20 somethings telling me to keep an eye on things, so I asked her what the margin of error in the scan was. It's 3%, so I suggested I would not worry about it right now, and she thought that was probably OK.)

So most of the time I am able to think of myself as in the prime of life, one way or another, but every so often I get smacked with the reality, and it takes a while to re-adjust my self-image back to the comfortable lie of 45 (nearly 46. Unsurprisingly, I am not bothered about turning 46. It is at least ten years younger than my body actually is). I knew the doctor would make me sad, so I planned happy things to do afterwards, which I had to cancel because number two son threw a most unconvincing sickie. Which turned out to be quite genuine and the poor little tigger slept almost the whole day while I moped about. It was raining.



But, on a much better note, I made another baby quilt. I am not sure what this block is called but I have made it before because the drawing was in my notebook. I have pieced seven now, so well on the way to my target.