128 days and counting ... er ... coughing

Why do they call it the 100-day cough if it’s gonna last (so far) more than 128 days!? It must have been named by the same publicists who named the 100-year war. Which, incidentally, still technically hasn’t ended…

This bleeding cough is driving me nuts, sending me ga-ga, although no one appears to have noticed. There’s me struggling to breathe, and all people can think of is, well, someone else.

Take my youngest little boy for instance. 30 years old? Big deal, I’ll be there soon. (Well, 30 years coughing maybe.)

Cute isn’t he? Er … wasn’t he…

Then there’s my youngest daughter, due to sprog in about four months. Everyone’s clucking around her excited that she’s to have a baby hormonal time-bomb (aka baby girl). No one seems to care that my ducks are busy laying eggs…

My father-in-law is still fading away in hospital (even I draw the line at making light of this) which leaves my mother-in-law (I sense a ‘humour opportunity’ coming) living with us, clucking around me whilst gently mocking my cooking skills. If nothing else it is helping me practice my Peter Sellers french accent.

There is certainly a lot of clucking going on. And coughing.

In a vain attempt at lifting spirits I tried turning once more to rugby.

Despite Montauban doing well, England have gone and spoilt it all by narrowly missing out on the six-nations cup. Made worse by my continuing failure to grasp some of the more basic French vocabulary, thinking ‘Samedi’ meant ‘Sunday’ thus missing the bloody match altogether.

So how about some respite in the Pyrénées?

Beautiful but (there’s always a but) this was the last opportunity to ski as the resort is closing today, despite there being shit-loads of snow. Added to which, because we are, ahem, responsible adults, our stay was restricted to only one day so that we could spend time trying to get comfortable sitting on a hospital floor.

Now there’s something not quite right about hospitals. The general idea, I had reasoned, was that you go into hospital because you are unwell and require aid to get back to one’s normal state. This seems perfectly logical to me. Hey! I run a couple of animal hospitals, I know about these things!

So why does someone like my ‘papa’ get admitted because of having pretty much end-stage aspiration pneumonia, and get pretty much ignored for a couple of weeks (quote: “don’t bother pressing the alarm button in the night because we won’t come to you anyway”) until they realise that the bacteria that they have incompetently given him to add to his woes (in his case both C. difficile and MRSA!) are potentially hazardous to other inpatients (and staff, and visitors) thus then throwing the medical book at him, plus, just to make him feel really on top of the world, shove him into isolation where the only way to visit him is to wear fancy dress! That includes masks that we’ve taken to writting our names on so that he can tell who we are…

Well, there is a life outside hospital (although clearly not a great deal inside it) and to cheer us up a little, it looks as though the farm purchase is going to happen (long live the strong pound). This place is just down the road…

So, having got all that off my chest, I’ll bid you farewell as the sun settles behind the mountains of the Vallée de Ger.

Well, I’d like to, but we’re still in Montauban where it’s bloody pissing down…

A bientôt

Phil

Pax Vobiscum

Well, Sophie’s gone and done it. She’s tied the knot. Got hitched. Got spliced. Joined together, and other such phrases that’ll confuse the hell out of google translate…

Yup, my youngest girl… who’d have thought?



She and Ulrich left their flat this morning as free people…



… to get PACSed.

A PACS is, well, um, it’s sort of means going in to a room separately, and coming out together. With a piece of paper. A contract.



It takes a couple of minutes and that’s that.

Thankfully the hoards were waiting…



…then off we trundled to the, er, reception in a local coffee house..



…before making our way through the cloisters of Place National…



…to dinner, where we had the traditional blowing up the cake ceremony…



…then the traditional eating the cake ceremony…



…before the happy couple went off to see ISIS…



(Isis is their dog by the way, named after the Egyptian Goddess, not, well, you know…)

…before finally riding off into the sunset…



… and they lived happily ever after…

Pax vobiscum - peace be with you.

Bittersweet

And so… 20 years of being hitched to my beloved have passed us by. The traditional gift to give on this great occasion is usually china. Having decided against buying each other an entire continent, we settled on the obvious; a farm and parents…

This may appear confusing to some, but please bear with me…

The year started with us, as usual, in the Pyrénées. We love this corner of France and try to see as much of it as we can. This has proven a little difficult of late due in part to my ‘100-day cough’. Now on day 110 and feeling somewhat unhealthy, we decided to buy an electric wheelchair:

This is Lady Muck awaiting her chauffeur.

Well, it certainly gets us to places previously impenetrable to my war-torn body.



We love our little cabin in the forest soooooo much. It may be creaky and old, but for some reason that makes me feel at home. Because of this we got to thinking of our house in Montauban and decided to look around for something with more character.

We’ve found a little farm in Lamothe Capdeville, just north of Montauban. Houses in France are ridiculously cheap at the moment. If the sale goes through, we will set about renovating it with a view to moving in permanently.



This explains the 'farm’ bit of the traditional gift exchange, but what about the 'parents’ bit? Well, sadly Annick’s mum and dad are not doing too well, and have moved in with us. The word 'temporaire’ gets used a lot; I think it means 'Don’t ask’. Papa has since moved on to hospital, where things do not look too good.

I then spent a couple of days in Wales catching up with the kiddos and with work (yes indeed, I am still technically a vet, and have finally been given the dubious honour of using the title 'Doctor’). I thought I’d take some pictures of another crumbling ruin (more here).



Which brings us to today, the 9th March. As we pass by our 20 year mark, Sophie starts into hers as, today at 10am, she enters into a PACS (a French contractual version of marriage) with her one true love, Ulrich. I’ll post some photos later I hope.



How times change. This was us 20 years ago…



My parents gone, and Papa feeble, failing but fighting.

Bittersweet.

 

Dr Phil

Another one bites the dust.

Day 91…

My friend Cock-a-whoop (nearly French for whooping cough) is still with me, keeping me awake at nights partying. I thought he was going away, but has decided to come back like a bad penny…

This hasn’t stopped me trying to find nirvana in the mountain tops…

We’ve had a house full in the Pyrénées this week, two of the fantastic four (Lisa with Christian and Luke with friend Dave) along with my really old schoolmate Geoff (really old, er, as in same age as me…) and Chrystelle and her two kids (Victor & Max). Ten of us, most of whom seemed intent on throwing themselves off mountains. Their success has been well documented by Queen…

Cue lyrics:

Another one bites the dirt…(Victor)

… and another one down (Christian)

… and another one down (Dave)

… and another one bites the dust (Luke)


…

All this falling about caused multiple bruises and the occasional broken bone. Fun eh?

None of which took my eye off the views, which, with the cloud layers below us, were nothing short of stunning.

Same view, different clouds…

and when the sun burst through these self same clouds … Magic!

A great week, apart from the sodding coughing.

Next week, another few days coughing in the snow. Not a bad form of convalescence eh? …

All this coughing lark has had an effect unthought of by whomever designed my bacterial friend. It has given me time. Time spent not sleeping. Time spent not expending energy. Time well spent irritating the world by writing.

5 chapters finished and 15 to go on my photography book(s) with a veterinary bent.

Please read that line carefully.

Check it out at www.philhyde.photos French translation to follow.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes…

…

Hey, I’m gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust. (Lisa)

All photos of me falling in the snow have been deemed unreliable evidence.

Phil

… with Geoff trying to photo-bomb.

Day 77 - bad news, I'm getting better...

Re-doing my book completely - unfinished edition here.

Part 1 here: http://www.philhyde.photos/383343/capturing-the-moment-free-book

Enjoy!

No refunds given

 

Phil

Everybody's a critic

Day 74

Well, I’ve had a change of vocation!

All this sitting around on my arse coughing up stuff which is better left without description, does have its advantages.

After spending a considerable time fiddlin’ with my photos (since actually taking them requires movement) I have descended into my inner-self - not a pretty place I can assure you…

All this messin’ around got me invited onto a flickr group as a regular contributor (https://www.flickr.com/groups/the_art_of_critique_technique_).

My ego thus inflated, it just couldn’t stop there. It was world domination or write a book.

My first attempt at world domination failed, so I have set about writing a book…

Here is where I need your help. I need critics, and you guys fit the bill!

The book is on photography, called ‘Capturing the Moment - Taking Photos of what you Actually See)’. It will be free to download.

I’ve finished a first draft of the intro and chapter 1 (of about 20 chapters) and can be downloaded here:

http://philhyde.photos/381821/capturing-the-moment

Please send me your cruel and hurtful comments below.

 

Phil

Day 61 - a grumble day

There a several things that bug me. The weeks events in Paris have certainly focused on one of them, religion, but other things also get me irate. I get upset to see how easily people are fooled into throwing away money on useless ‘alternative’ medicines. I curse when friends get conned into avoiding proven therapy (with associated risks) and go for the supposedly risk free option, and end up suffering long-term.

What has me pissed-off at the moment, however, is how otherwise intelligent people feel that they have the right to risk their children’s lives, and the lives of others, by not getting their kids vaccinated. The only excuse for this is profound ignorance. But loads do it, and it is leaving our population at risk of diseases long unheard of.

Like bloody whooping cough for instance.

This is now my 61st day of having whooping cough (sometimes called the 100 day cough) and I’m fed up. Some days I cough all day until it hurts. Some days I sleep all day. Some days I’m depressed and grumble a lot. Some days I’m ok.

Today is a grumble day.

There, I’ve done it, I’ve had a good moan and I feel better for it.

There are days when I’m fine, for instance when we went to Carcassone with some friends…

and also when we went skiing for a day…

but most of the time I sit and grumble.

Illness has given me time to 'play’ with my photography. This has produced some pretty bizarre results, but has also allowed me sort out a new website to showcase my favourite stuff.

Take a look at www.philhyde.photos and tell me what you think.

Now I think I’ll grumble about the scenery…