The Update
Last week a Community Nurse arrived and removed the staples in my suture line. She was very happy with healing and then festooned the suture line with steri strips, sticky strips of medical paper, and advised me to rub the suture line with oil when the strips fall off. About half have fallen off now and I’ve been rubbing the suture line with emu oil. She was less than impressed with the changed designed of the disposal staple remover but nevertheless managed to remove all staples with a minimum of fuss. Oddly enough the remover had been manufactured in the Dominican Republic, an odd location I’d have thought but guess it makes a change from the usual source of all things manufactured.
My “post hospital” cleaner arrived last week. She was organised, focused and got on with the job with minimal need for instruction or supervision. The house was significantly cleaner when she left. Pity she’s not here this week but have to wait for fortnightly visits.
Had a bit of a restless night last night with restless critters and me not settling into a deep sleep. Have become rather fond of the long deep sleeps I’ve been having and not sure why I didn’t last night especially as I’d consumed my last long acting analgesic with the expectation of a good sleep. I thought I’d reasoned out the cat’s behavior and beaten it but was disproved last night. I’d allowed the dogs back inside overnight a few nights before and all has gone well apart from last night; not a major problem but unwelcome. At some stage I threw the dogs out and returned to sleep for a late arousal.
I renewed my membership to a genealogical website and have been fiddling around the edges of ancestry research over the last week or so. Yesterday I found family trees seemingly containing the ancestors of one of the ancestors who came to Australia. Previously I’d been unable to make any headway with that section of the family so was pretty happy to find the tree especially as it came with a “cast of thousands” involving siblings ++ and multiple older generations. I started look for indexes to the original records and by the time I reached the second sibling the penny had dropped and I realized I had a problem. The parents had produced and baptized at least three kids, including my relative, before marrying. In those days the parish records recorded if a baby was born illegitimate and there was no sense of that. I wrote to the owner of the tree to see if he had an explanation. About a dozen other people had also included that marriage and kids as part of their trees. About another half dozen had recorded the kids and parents but without the marriage and only naming the mother as “Mary” without a surname. I have a copy of the original parish records for my ancestor’s birth so will need to return to it and see if I can make headway without the benefit of other people’s trees.
This afternoon I received a phone call from Big Brother who offered to fund my genealogical research. That generous offer will allow me to pay for the current database, chase up some needed certificates, access other required pay data bases and should keep me occupied for a long time. So THANK YOU, KIND PATRON.
This afternoon I walked out to the letter box without any aids. I then returned inside for my long handled picker upper and collected the fallen camellia blossoms. I then took a couple of photos and proceeded, still unaided, down the back stairs to the back lawn where I can now walk since Son Number 3 mowed the lawn on Sunday. Some of the flowers are pretty and the rose bushes are thriving and growing new buds since a Kind Friend pruned them ten days ago. After feeding Floyd and taking a few photos it was time to return inside. It had been drizzling so was not a good time to walk the street. Yesterday I saw a beautiful bush in blossom down in a small section of public land. It needs a photo in the right climatic and light conditions and today is not the day.