Story completed

Cold and overcast again today and a good seven and a half hour's sleep, though not quite enough. By the time I had breakfast I began to feel light headed, as if I'd just woken up in the middle of the night. After saying Morning Prayer I fell asleep in the chair for another hour, and woke up feeling much better. In the meanwhile Clare had done most of the shared house cleaning chores, and left the vacuum cleaner in the lounge where I was asleep, to finish off the last room and empty it ready for next time. Somewhat revived, I started making a batch of bread dough. On this occasion it had a higher percentage of strong white flour in the mix as we'd run out of the kind we routinely use. It was interesting to feel the difference in handling this dough. It started out dry and difficult to knead together, but ended up smooth and sticky. 

Just after I'd started kneading, my mobile phone went off and it was Tim from the surgery checking how I am after my A&E crisis - the discharge letter landed in their in-tray this morning. I was pleased to report on my recovery and its manageable ups and downs. Just as pleased that my hands weren't sticky the way they usually are at the early stage. What a good idea to have a follow up phone call, so that I could report recovery is progressing and there's nothing to worry about. It saves them from having to book me in for a surgery visit (hopefully) to check my blood pressure and find nothing has changed. The same pattern now as when I was discharged with high systolic pressure after my gall bladder op. Same old remedy. Expect to recover more slowly than I presume, rest more, carry on as normal otherwise.

I made a lentil for lunch with celery carrot and onion grated and then cooked together in oil before adding in the half cooked lentils to finish off. Simple and quick to cook once you've passed prepared veg through a food processor. Cleaning the food processor takes time afterward unfortunately, but you can add all sorts of flavours to the mix, depending on what you fancy.

Lots more rain on the eastern Spanish coast today, as far as Barcelona. A big row has broken out between Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Carlos Mazon head of the Valencia & Alicante regional government, due to the slow local government response to extreme weather warnings given eight hours ahead. For all the weather data in hand, the complexity of the impact of such a fast and heavy deluge when it arrives is I suspect far harder to assess because of the random mix of environmental factors, just working out where and when the worst affected places will enter the crisis is impossible to predict with total accuracy.  This is what catastrophe theory tells us, I believe.

The bread was ready to be knocked back and put into baking tins by the time we'd eaten. It rose quickly and was out of the oven, cooked by three. We went for a circuit of the park, then I did another longer one on my own, and got back after it had got dark. After supper, I wrote for nearly three hours and completed my speculative account of my Grandpa's adventure to America, from which he returned to marry Grandma and make our family identity for what it is.

Early bonfire night

Another overcast day. A good long night's sleep as the light wasn't strong enough to wake me early. Still feeling fragile and disconnected starting the day. After breakfast we went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's. Sion thanks me for taking Wednesday's service, and had to be corrected. He hadn't read the Daily Prayer WhatsApp message I left from A&E, and I forgot to report this to him personally, as he was away for the week in Bologna. Embarrassing. We were again just over thirty in church, as there's no Sunday school for the two half term weekends.

After lunch I slept for an hour and a half and woke up feeling normal and refreshed for the first time since Monday last. A review of my sleep record for this past five days shows that the amount of extra sleep I've had, both night and afternoon is just about equal to the amount of sleep I lost that night in A&E. I expect to get on average about seven and a half hours sleep, but a run of below average nights of sleep can leave me feeling slightly light headed, and not fully alert. I'm wondering if my expected sleep average should be set higher, as it seems I need more sleep and regular to maintain a modestly active lifestyle these days.

We walked in the park for an hour then returned for tea and cake when it got dark. Then we went out again to visit the annual bonfire in St Catherine's Church garden. There were dozens of young children with their parents and and impressive fire blazing fifty feet from the church west door. I took both my Panasonic TZ95 and my Olympus Pen cameras with me, to try out their nighttime settings. The photos I got were a mixed bunch from both. None of the night time customised settings delivered good pictures handheld but the automatic settings did with a little coaxing. The quality of the Olympus images was a cut above the Panasonic, something to remember for next time.

There were hot dogs and a drink available in the church hall, and after a brief time chatting with people we returned home for supper and the Archers, then writing until making a effort to get ready for bed by ten thirty.

All Souls' disappointment

Despite a long night's sleep, awakening late, I felt fatigued, not quite back into my body. I'm still not fully recovered from the shock of the nose bleed, not as resilient as I was in times past.  Clare was up before me, cooking pancakes for breakfast, and I did little apart from reading the news for the rest of the morning. Last night I had a call from cousin Godfrey's daughter Tegwen inviting us to a surprise Sunday lunch in a pub near Nelson, near where I grew up to celebrate the 80th birthday of my cousin Ros. A great opportunity to meet family members related to other families I've not met.

I didn't feel up to going to the Cathedral for the Solemn Requiem Mass at eleven nor to St German's by car for the lunchtime Mass. I just had to make my prayers for the dead alone. Looking for Ros' address to send a card, I opened a digital address file that must be twenty years old, which has been added to but not pruned. That's the point when you realise how many family members on your mailing list have died; parents, in-laws, uncles, aunts and cousins. A very salutary thing to do on All Souls' Day.

When I went out to the shops to buy a birthday card I realised how fragile I was feeling, wondering if my reactions were sharp enough to drive safely. It was enough to persuade me to call Tegwen and send my apologies for missing the celebration. I'm forced to accept my limitations. So disappointing.

I walked for an hour and a half in the park. Fresh air cleared my head but didn't really invigorate me today. After supper, I continued writing Grandpa Jack's story. There were details to investigate and add into the story, to make the portrayal of the background plausible. It made me realise how little I know about the history and geography of the USA. Interesting as much as time consuming. Writing a story is a source of pleasure in several different ways. It means I can get carried away, and despite the desire to get to bed earlier, I rarely succeed.

Recovery not so straightforward

I didn't sleep well, and kept being disturbed by a dry mouth, and probably soreness from snoring. When I woke up at first light, blood was leaking slowly from my left nostril. It wasn't from a lesion cauterised yesterday but another near the tip of my nose, where I've had problems before. It didn't get any worse but sleeping after this disruption was sporadic. When I got up after eight I felt worse than I did yesterday, a step backwards in recovery. It was probably a result of not drinking enough water yesterday evening, so I made myself drink a glass regularly during the day, whether or not I felt thirsty. I didn't feel well enough to drive to St German's for the Mass of All Saints at lunchtime, but had to bow to the inevitable.

Terrible news of flooding in Valencia preoccupied me. The death toll is already 158 and rising, I read Spanish news sites for updates. It's a city I love, having visited with my sister in 2008, and then again in 2012 while on locum duty in Costa Azahar. It seems that the deviation of the river course to the west and south of the city after the floods of 1957 protected the ancient city centre and surrounding areas, but unprecedented colossal rainfall in the sierras above to the west in recent days has unleashed a torrent of water and mud causing the rio Turia to burst its banks, destroying bridges, roads, houses, as the water sped down on to the plain. The scale of this caught everyone by surprise. It wasn't raining when the river started rising rapidly, and for some victims, too rapidly to escape from. More rain is now hitting the entire eastern coast of Spain, and areas of flooding are extending. As forewarned by climate scientists, change in the world's weather patterns is speeding up, with more violent and unpredictable impacts.

The coastal plain to the south of Valencia is where its famous paella rice is grown in the wetlands. Inland there's a huge horticultural area, market gardens and orchards covered by a network of irrigation channels, but if an infrastructure that distributes water gets overwhelmed by flooding it cannot drain away fast enough to avoid dangerous depths of water building up rapidly. People get caught at home and at work. Cars go out of control on fast flooding roads and crash. The flood death toll rose to over 200 while I was reading news reports. It made me think. If Cardiff had a year's worth of rain in half a day as happened here how would the river Taff's current flood defences fare, especially at high tide in the Channel. Already the world is seeing unthinkable weather occurrences. Planet earth is responding to our abuse of it.

Clare cooked mackerel and roast veg for lunch. I slept for an hour and a half afterwards. Only then did I start to feel ready for some fresh air. It was coming up to four when I went out, so I limited myself to a walk half my usual distance with the aim of returning by sunset. When it's overcast like today, darkness seems to descend even more rapidly.

After supper I wrote some more of my Grandfather's story. In the course of looking through some photos I came across a page from the 1911 census on the Kimber family household in Waun Lwyd, Ebbw Vale, and noticed something I'd not taken in before. My grandfather's profession was recorded as 'Rope Splicer, inspector and cycle trader' (presumably his other job after working down the pit). Such a coincidence that I should see this while writing about his time in a Philadelphia steel works. My father was a Rope Splicer too - like father like son. The same I think for Clare's father, following his father into marine engineering at Chatham dockyard. The mystery is how Grandpa Jack became a rope splicer? Did he learn when he was working in Ebbw Vale steel works, or when he worked in a Philly steel works?

I stopped writing at nine to watch the penultimate episode of 'Chateau Murders'. There are enough strands to this story line to make it difficult to follow. Will I understand any better after the finale I wonder.