So much catching up

Where do I begin?  Well, let's start with the good news.  Mike and I spent a wonderful week at Rosas in Spain travelling, not by plane, but all the way by train.   In fact, we went with 'Treyn' holidays, and I can only say good things about the whole experience.  We had seats booked on a Virgin train to London, where we spent the night, before meeting up with our tour leader, and the rest of the party, at St Pancras.  Then we travelled by Eurostar to Paris, were transferred from the Gare du Nord to the Gare du Lyon, where we boarded the TGV (upper deck with lots big windows), travelling at high speed through the French countryside, including the Camargue with its marshes, lakes, black bulls, white horses, pink flamingoes and white egrets until, after leaving France (through a tunnel) we reached Figueres in Spain.  A short coach journey took us to our hotel with time to freshen up before the evening meal.  The hotel ticked all the boxes for a relaxing week, and we had a spacious, modern room, with a glimpse of the sea, a couple of blocks away.

The following day we cruised from Rosas to Cadeques and sat outside a bar for lunch, watching the world go by.  As a rock geek I was in heaven during the cruise.  There was plenty of good geology to take in and I've taken far too many photos to prove it.  The following day was 'free' so we just relaxed on the beach and in the hotel garden.  Mike was quite tired, so we opted out of the second (included in the price) trip to Barcelona.  During the week, though, we did go on the third trip, to the Salvador Dali Foundation in Figueres (amazing - could have spent a week there) followed by a visit to the ancient walled town of Besalu.  I left Mike sitting in the shade (it was very hot and sunny all week - sorry!) and went off on my own to explore and take photos.  I seemed to be naturally drawn towards some allotments, and managed to have a sort of conversation with a Catalan plotter, as he sowed bean seeds on his very neat patch.

Brilliant holiday.  Even the tour leader (who spent the whole time with us and was very friendly, helpful and efficient at organising us all) said it was the best tour she'd been on.  We journeyed home the same way, to London, where we spent another night before travelling home - by train.

During the holiday Mike occasionally seemed out of sorts and not quite himself, and on our return took a turn for the worst.  As it was the Jubilee holiday weekend, I found it very difficult to contact the necessary people - the GP's surgery was closed, the team who deal with him at the QE were on holiday, the clinics closed etc.  After getting him to the Badger Clinic at GH, he was admitted there for two days, but after discharge, he became rather ill at home.  Eventually he was admitted to the Oncology Ward at the new QE, where he has undergone surgery to insert a stent, as he had water on the brain.  He's been making a good recovery, but wasn't too good at all yesterday.  What a fighter he is.   I'll leave it at that, for now.  Things are very difficult at the moment. 

You may catch me, from time to time, on my plot.  It does me good to potter around there, amongst the flourishing weeds, and the empty spaces where the seeds haven't germinated (same as many of my fellow plotters).  Still, the rhubarb is doing well, and the clematis looks beautiful.