Two Nights In Somerset

Just back from spending two days and nights with my dear uni chum Mark and his hubby Charlie. They have been renting a very snazzy stone house in Alhampton for 7 weeks a year, for the last few years, with Lottie their dog – who does love to ‘sidecar’ chase/terrorise poor Maddie as they zoom round the huge garden there.

It was our last chance to see Mark before his big op – he has adenocarcinoma (cancer of the oesophagus) and has had 4 rounds of chemo so far but is now facing a pretty daunting op where they will remove a section of his oesophagus and pull the stomach up to fill the gap. This should be in a few weeks’ time, he’s just waiting for the chap to confirm – as it’s a ten hour op the man only does one a day (good to hear..), and only one a week.

Despite the trip being intended to be all about Mark, I managed to slide in with a bit of ‘me, me, me’ as I’ve had an unexplained pain in my right side, which of course just had to reoccur as soon as we had arrived. Well, it actually started in the car but I thought I was just uncomfy as we’d been crawling past Stonehenge on the way down there for what seemed like hours..

Resulted in me feeling increasingly dodgy as we were out walking the dogs – and then throwing up twice in a farmer’s field. What a waste of a nice salmon lunch. Ended up ringing Prof for advice as this was the third time it’s happened – and he said to go to A&E. I didn’t want to (who does?!) and the pain eventually subsided so here I am now, three days later, sat in the delightful St George’s A&E at 7am on a Sunday morning (already thirty or so people here when I arrived and an 8 hour wait!). We’ll see what they say..

Back to Mark & Charlie – their very big news (apart from the spectre of the op) was that they have loved time in Somerset so much that they are selling their St John’s Wood home and have bought a massive pile outside Bath, which does look bloody lovely. Gutted to be losing some more chums to the countryside, but (trying to be) pleased for them.

We had a good pub supper out on the first eve and then Mr H knocked out a delicious BBQ dinner of steak and chicken with lots of trimmings on the second eve. We did also have one bonus success, finding a laden damson tree in the fields near their pad, perfect for this year’s damson chutney making fest.

And they’d also booked a pickleball court so we toddled off in the car and introduced them to the game – which they loved! Said they preferred it to padel – as I do, but I’m not sure H would agree.. A good bit of exercise before a cheeky cocktail at Babington House where they are members – daaaarling – and supper back at the ranch.

Really hoping that Mark comes through the op well and can start his path to recovery. Tough times for my dear chum, so sending lots of love to them both x x