Missing St David

So, yesterday was St. David's Day and normally I'd post about that but yesterday was also quite busy with Zac's in the morning and Husband's hospital appointment in the afternoon.

The news wasn't quite as good as we'd hoped. His ear has healed well but the biopsy showed some remaining cancer cells so he has to have another chunk cut out. The doctor asked if he minded about how it would look as he'll probably be left with a wedge out of his ear. (The answer is he doesn't mind as long as they get all the cells. Me, I'm thinking how cool a big missing chunk would look. He could tell strangers he lost it wrestling with a shark.)

I'd planned for us to go out to eat to celebrate good news so, as it wasn't, we had a Chinese takeaway at home instead. The biggest takeaway we've ever had. It was the same quantity we've always ordered so maybe we're eating less (unlikely) or the portions were just exceptionally large. I had to leave some, and you won't hear me say that very often.

Today a thought occurred to me and I said to Husband, "You realise what this news means don't you? I'm going to have to keep on being nice and not nagging you to do things!"

"I'm sure you'll find a way," he said.

This lovely quilted wall-hanging was in the stairwell in the hospital.

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I signed up recently for a newsletter called Letters of Note, from Shaun Usher. Yesterday this newsletter featured bits from letters all written on 1st March. This one from a letter from Boris Pasternak to his parents in 1930 sums up my relationship with important calendar dates perfectly.

"I should have remembered on the 22nd about your anniversary on February 27th. I did know and remember it, but there’s a big difference between an abstract awareness in one’s memory of a forthcoming date, and paying attention to the real days of our lives, which might pass without being numbered in any way, monotonously grim as they are, so many thousands of versts* from any kind of festivity. I had in my mind the last possible date for sending you a letter of congratulations to reach you by the 27th, and went on carrying the date with me and waiting, while the 27th itself had long come and gone."

*A verst is a unit of length of roughly one kilometre.