Hanging in; hanging on...

My husband is still in Intensive Care, fighting many fights to regain the ability to breathe independently. He will be permanently paralysed but the extent of this is not known. He'll need months of rehabilitation before we can come home.

I am hovering in my new life; I've been house-sitting for eleven weeks and am now about to move into the 1940's solid brick flat equivalent of a serviced apartment, near the beach. This move is both a step forward and an enormously difficult and energy-defeating task.

The road from 20th January to here is indescribable. But I DO think the odd application of Chanel No. 5 helps.

Sad, sad news...

One week ago my dear husband suffered a catastrophic injury in a car accident. He was not at all at fault; a fact which some people find helpful.

We have had to move to another city to a specialist medical centre for help. Since arriving he's had successful surgery, but unfortunately developed life-threatening complications. This entire week has been a vigil of sorts.

This blog suspended until further notice, which could be months. Today brought to you by the tiniest echo of Chanel No. 5 which my daughter is wearing. I am so terribly, achingly sad for my darling.

Living in interesting times...

We've both been terribly tired lately. Maybe a touch of a virus? Whom nose. But M developed a koff, which turned into pneumonia and he has been hospital overnight, having intravenous antibiotic to quell the bacteria of deth. He's home now, still koffing but feeling better. I, otoh, am still buggered. It seems to be terminal.

This last week has been very exciting as the building of our new pathways around the house has started. We already have a completed bit, a lovely wide arc running from footpath to roadside. It's wide enough at the road end for a car to pull up, and both front and back passengers can step out onto paving (instead of cracked old concrete, mud and weeds which was our previous look). Now the pathways from the side gate and around into the back yard are taking place. At the bottom of the steps down from the deck, Alex has begun laying our stash of old Canberra Red bricks (from when the wall fell down a few years ago), and they look really good. And it's recycling in action!

It's also impressive that each night since this paving was put in place, we've had heavy rain, and not a paver or a crumb of concrete has shifted. Oh, I can't wait for it to be finished!

I should be planting my veggies but today, Monday, I am having a day of utter sloth and rest and heat-packing. I am aching all over for reasons I don't understand, so an actual day off my strange, unfixed retirement life seemed in order. I'm up to my third murder book, my second lot of 2 hours of heat pack, and Maccy has had a lovely day lying on me or squikking at me or sitting in the window doing profiles. He's been flat out catting and has now flaked out on the purple blanky on the chair in the corner, his favourite spot. He lies there looking gorgeous against the Indian sequinned and embroidered cloth, under the pool of light from the turquoise and cream batik lampshade, watched over by a troop of our teddy bears. Every now and then I get a glimpse of a glint, as he manages to just peel open one eye to see if I'm doing anything interesting, like eating bacon or pouring cream into a little porcelain dish. I never am. He seems ever-hopeful.

Tonight I am sending uber-hopeful thoughts of strength and support and love to my darling dorter, who has a challenging day ahead of her tomorrow. HOPE HOPE HOPE HOPE HOPE LUVLUVLUVLUVLUVLUV I go.

I think I shall finish on a note of Chanel No. 5, as I often do. A dear friend gave me a book called 'PERFUME' last week, which analyses and grades thousands of purrfumes from one star ('awful') to five ('sublime'). I went through the index, which is ordered by stars given, and underlined all the purrfumes I recognise or have. It seems I have eclectic taste! Most of my purrfumes come in at 3 or 4 stars, indicating that (according to the authors) I have some taste. But I have representations in every group. I am extremely puzzled that two of my most favourite, most commented-on-favourably-when-I'm-wearing-it purrfumes only got one star. I guess, like all opinions, they are just that. Natch. I shall go on wearing and enjoying my favourites and collecting compliments. I could perhaps conduct a smellathon of my own, and compile a purrsonal listing. It could be based on random pros and cons, such as 'can smell it through wet concrete and two blocked noses', 'leaves scent on a pillow case for at least 3 days' and 'can't tell I've got it on but other ppl notice'. Heh. My favourite pro would be 'can smell it on Maccy's fur hours after I cuddled him'. I still think Prada rools!

What to say when I am speechless?

Why do mornings ALWAYS suck?

How come I'm a mum but I can't fix everything, not even with a purple Mickey Mouse bandaid?

Which purrfume can do the most magic? Try all of them, just in case, or asphyxiate in the attempt?

When will the shit turn to rainbows?

Where will the rainbows be and can I have a ticket?

What does all this mean? - nah, scrap that, just have a coffee.

Today brought to you by a bloody big fat headache, a wonderful afternoon with my best friend, and a short but soothing chat to a darling dorter. Oh, and a very norty interlude at Addicted to Fabric, which cost more than I can afford. Well, YOU try walking past the words 'SILK ON SALE' and maintaining a normal heartbeat... I might, now I've had a whinge, try Chanel No. 5 Huile Sensual, because it's never failed me before.

NOT A BIRTHDAY DAY REALLY...

Wednesday 27th August, putatively a birthday..

... but it bears NO resemblance to any birthday I’ve ever had. I think my idea to postpone it until the festive mood strikes is a good one.

M is out of hospital, laden with medical documents, advice and consolation. Unfortunately our bus to Tallinn IS the 4.45pm, so we spent the day at the dear old Hotel Sonata, resting and packing and preparing to leave. This didn’t include lunch, because we were sleeping, and that was a mistake. We got to the bus station in plenty of time, shoved our bags into the bus, fell into our seats, and set off on time. I had just enough time to nip over to a kiosk to get a couple of bottles of cold drink, no food.

The road from the outskirts of St Petersburg to the Estonian border is a bastard. It’s been mangled by trucks and half-heartedly repaired so often it is a mass of patches, potholes and crumbling edges. We jolt along for a couple of hours and I feel my back beginning to give... there are a few 5 minute stops along the way, we gather from the evidence that these are mainly to allow the driver to have a smoke! I ran into a cafe at one stop and bought two little Russian pastries, rather like pasties actually - a folded pastry cover with meat and onions inside. I *think* the driver told me I wasn’t allowed to eat them on the bus, as I climbed back on, but me no speaka de Russky, so I just smiled angelically at him and marched back to my seat. We devoured them, following them with ‘dessert’ which was a few sweet biccies M had souvenired from his hospital meals. A bottle of cold drink each and that was it for the supplies.

It took about an hour to get through the border: it goes like this:

Bus pulls up; Russian announcement. Our new friend Dmitri Nikolai, in the seat in front of us, turns to explain that we have to get off, collect all our luggage from the bus, and get in the border security queue. Okay. We do this, trying our best to look like overladen but harmless Aussies lost in a vast land. M goes through before me, and I am relieved to hear the double thump of the stamps which means he’s got through. Then it’s my turn, I do my best to look exactly like my dire passport photo - stern, tired and jowly. No problem, the way I feel... the security guard, a woman, gives me several fierce, piercing looks, then thumbs through my passport as she subjects it to x-ray, ultraviolet light, foreign germ de-bugger, suspicious woman in fake-o Georgio Armani t-shirt dag-alert detektor, ... but she’s unable to find anything to object to and I get the double-thump stamps too and I’m through. We load all our stuff back onto the bus, ourselves into the bus, and we drive 50 metres.... and repeat, at the Estonian border security. Dang.

This is slightly different - we are herded into a shed, which includes a huge jack for lifting up a car to inspekt its underneaths. Once we’re all in, a guard hits a button and a huge automatic garage door arrangement squeaks its way down, preventing us from leaving (running screaming back into the demarcation zone, over a cold river full of anglers ready to cast flies into your ankles...). We both have to have our bags inspekted - the guard looking through my backpack has quite good English, and she smiles as I ‘demonstrate’ my knitting! She asked me what was in my cases, I told her the harmless truth - purrsonal possessions. I had the nous to tell her that we were on a long trip; that’s why we have so much luggage. That was all she needed to hear. But M had to open both his cases, and there seemed to be some bother over his mobile phone (purrhaps the guard thought they were Duty Free, although what difference that would have made, since we weren’t trying to claim anything...). I told the guard I’d bought them for A$100 each, which I think is a big lie, but it was enough for him to nod and allow us through.

The bus was full, so there were perhaps 50 people who had to go through this process. It was pretty slick, for those numbers. But what a drag.. twice... oh well. This don’t feel very birthday-like to me. The ONLY positive thing I can think of (apart from being allowed to LEAVE RUSSIA, which means our extended visas were ok, thank all de lawds and gods) is that I didn’t have to open my cases and have someone ferreting through me smalls, like happened to me in the Beijing Customs Hall with quantities of your average Chinese citizen watching in fascination as my gooby old knickers went on display... geez I blushed that day..well, says she defensively, if YOU had been hand-washing yer smalls in Beijing tap water for three months, yours would be grey, tattered and ratty as well! Beijing tap water has to be approached with extreme caution, a small whip, and a strong arm.

So, we take off again, onto a smooth young well-made highway. The lack of bumps is a mercy. M is bothering me a bit with some marital faffing.. suddenly, I think “In 10 years I’ll be 60”. I go all speechless and have to shut my eyes for a bit. This doesn’t feel very celebratory either... I give up and go to sleep. Some people have left the bus now, so there’s room for M to take over a pair of seats across the aisle, giving us a lot more space. And getting him out of range of any loose lips or wifely biffo of any kind, ahem...

Dmitri helped us retrieve our bags at the Tallinn bus station (he’s a Russian Estonian), find a taxi, and ended up sharing the taxi with us cos his home is further along the same way, sort of, as our hotel. So we have a purrsonal escort to the L’Hermitage Hotel. He’s a charming fellow and we’re very grateful for his help, especially at the Russian border, when he stood by in case there were kvestions from the security people. A very nice bloke. He had started a conversation with us when we were loading our umpteen backpacks etc into the bus, because he recognised our Aussie accents. Turns out he’d been a merchant seaman and had lived in 3 different Aussie cities for 10 months in all, before turning into some kind of electrician who helps set up server rooms and suchlike.

Checking in is easy; they recognise us as ‘the Aussies who were delayed by misfortune’. But the bloody hotel restaurant has just closed (at 11pm Tallinn time; 12 in St P time). The local cafe which used to stay open til 12 is shut. DAMN. I’d kill for a bowl of soup or pasta. The receptionist tells us we can walk up the hill (up???? I don’t think so) to the Old City, where we can find plenty of cafes. We just can’t manage it, M is dropping.. he only got out of hospital this morning,after all. My back is aching, my will is weak, and I’m dying equally badly for a shower. I just want a hot drink. No kettle in ze room, and no chance of me getting into the kitchen a la Sonata (which was just a kitchen in a corner of the reception/breakfast room, just like a normal home kitchen).

I have to take our substantial pile of laundry down to reception so we can get it back tomorrow afternoon. And I spy, with my little tired old eye, a coffee machine. And lo, it came to pass that the darling receptionist, a Sonata-strength dear slip of a girl, one Johanna Lind, made me a latte. Sigggggghhhhhh. I drink it with alternate sips of a gin and tonic, my one concession to a celebratory birdy gesture. [Michael is off the turps until 11 September, as part of ze post-hospital treatment. Today is the 6th day of this abstentive oeriod only 15 days to go - but who’s counting!!..2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8!!!!...

[And I should tell you, the girls at the Hotel Sonata were in a lather as we were leaving, wanting us to wait 5 more minutes. Turns out they’d been plotting - they’d seen it was my birdy and had sent a deputation out to find me a gift! I’m so touched; this is on a par with Kirsi and her hand-picked cloudberries. Wow. I feel very special. When I opened the parcel later, on the bus, there was a card telling me I was a ‘perfect guest’ (I was??? I thought I’d been quite demanding. Interesting.); and two gifts. One is a little replica statue of (we think) the Freedom and Democracy Angel; the other is a very beautiful black with 24 carat gold trim and print mug, which has a little infusion-bowl inset, and a lid. All my trips out to the kitchen to make coffee in our plunger has clearly impressed them with my burning need! It’s a very kind gesture, and we all exchange Russian hugs and kisses (one on each cheek) and M enthusiastically joins in, heh. I feel quite teary as we leave; these women have made my time alone SO much easier.

Peoples is good. Look at what Dmitri did for us today, unstintingly.

Today brought to you by early blasts of Chanel No. 5; rather a lot of eau de fairly old Russian bus; and my mercy-latte.

Tomorrow we have only one plan - sleep; get up for breakfast; sleep again. I hope by Friday we are ert enough to actually do and see a few things. On Saturday, at 10 am, we get on another bus (I hope slightly less aged) to Riga.

One last thing: as I was charging off at 8am to meet M at the hospital, I saw my third Russian cat. It was a beautiful grey tabby with white whiskers, completely sacked out on the steps of a local cafe. I mean TOTALLY sacked out, no blandishments or hopeful conversation from me was gonna wake dat cat up. I can only assume that brekkie via the cafe kitchen had been a highly successful arrangement. Trust a cat to achieve that!bp

Remarks on Russia and Reverie on Retailing; 26th August

Thoughts... as I walk to the Autobank to fund lunch and interwebs...

Russian young women are GORGEOUS - slim, beautiful skin, graceful. They walk along Nevsky owning the city.. one prevaling fashion is a fitted dress with a fullish skirt, worn quite short over long, long tanned legs and high, high heels. Many of them are wearing high-heeled Mary Janes, which is a demure look on the feet making a strong comparison to the luscious legs and body above!

Another look, although even here it is fading out, is the skinny jean with bare midriff. Most of the women who wear this look overdo the trimmings, especially with high-heeled pumps, sparkly tops, major makeup and fussy hair. I have even seen a few Paris wannabes wearing a dog in their handbag!

Many of the more mature women wear tailored pantsuits; as I have remarked before they fit incredibly well, and the fabrics are high quality and as up-to-date in fashion terms as anything I see in a Vogue magazine. The men, by contrast, are mostly blokes. They wear jeans and hoodies and loafers or sneakers. From time to time I see a fella in a gorgeous suit; the favoured look is a slightly shiny grey fabric (sometimes it’s the gloss of silk), a purrfectly-ironed white shirt, and a quiet tie. Woven leather loafers and an honest to god leather briefcase complete this look. The other prevailing look for men is rather handsome - very short (but not clipped) hair, a thin black jumper, very form-fitting (slight drooling by writer), and dark jeans with leather shoes. They look great, a bit dark and dangerous , their strong features are enhanced by the short hair and the trim look they have because of the fitted clothes. I much prefer it to the slouchy jeans and hoodie look, although I reckon that might be THE most comfy gear on the streets.

And I'm happy to report that I haven’t seen so many little girls dressed up as pole-dancers, as one does in Australia. I’m glad to see that fashion seems unpopular, although I did see padded bra tops in a children’s clothes section in the big department store, the other day. Pffft I say.

~~~~~~~~

Later... I’ve had a shopping fix of my own - I asked Olga and Ivan (staff at the hospital) where to go to buy ordinary clothes, not tourist trap shops, and they sent me off to the wonderfully-named “PIG” shopping mall, which is where I bought my watch the other day. First I have to buy M a b/p machine. Easy! I find the 24 hour Apotek (chemist) and the pharmacist demonstrates a wrist-machine - I note that HER blood pressure isn’t so good; the reading is quite high! Anyway, purchase #1 successfully made. Next door is a huge supermarket, so I wander in, looking for bananas (nyet, of all the rather wonderful fruit and veg on show, the bananas were the only poor quality item, bugger). I found the washing powder but. I noticed a security guard watching me closely while I queued for the till - I had my pack with me, and I thought he might challenge me outside to check that I hadn’t nicked anything (has HE been reading the blog and seen the confession about the geraniums? - and no, Miss B, I am NOT returning them to the Astoria. If you could see the obscene displays of wealth in that hotel! - why even in the entryway they have fantastically ornate and expensive porcelain-ware on display, and the boring old windows opening the cafe to the street have gold leaf urns on the ledges, ick). The guard didn’t stop me, I’m glad about that even though I know I didn’t have contraband in me bag...

I go upstairs to all the clothes shops, to see if I can find a cardie for me, a pair of jeans, or a jumper for M. The boutiques are full of tiny clothes, being inspected by tiny people. Hm... even the English clothes store has a limited range of sizes - their idea of a size 16 is my idea of a small 14, unless we 16s are meant to wear our clothes so tight that every teeny bulge and freckle shows. NOT for me. Even the ‘sloppy’ cardies are made to be worn with a waist belt (a disastrous look for me), and not really done up, the buttons are for show. No point to it, in my pragmatic view; what’s the point of a cardie if you can’t wrap it around you like a hug?

Next stop is a jeans shop - one of my worst nightmares for years. However I am delighted to report that in spite of the language barrier, I have purchased a pair of jeans which fit very well, and (gob drops to the floor in disbelief, cos I got loooooooong leggies) they are even too long! I think this might be only the second time in my life that I’ve been able to buy daks that are too long. It will be my pleasure to sew the hems up, one day soon. When I can bear to not wear them! Yes, I have them on now, of course I do! The shop assistant was a very non-standard person for a jeans shop (cf Australia I mean) - she was in her 30s, quite pregnant, and not even wearing jeans herself. She understood me well enough to find different shapes and sizes, and I understood her well enough to be able to make decisions about colour, and all those different leg choices you get in jeans (straight, boot, regular, comfort, etc... huh? I just avoid anything which says ‘skinny’, never wear boots, and hope for ze best..). Ta-da!!! I am delighted. [I think I really put my finger on it earlier when I described jeans as ‘so normal’. Normal is good. It’s a dangerous word in nearly all situations I reckon, but applied to putting yer daks on in the morning it’s ok I think.. hey while I’m writing this, on the teev there’s some sort of history of Russian/Baltic ancient buildings, and the background music is something I recognise with great delight (is this the gods sending me an apologetic early birdy offering???) - it’s Arvo Paert’s ‘Fratres’, oh swooon. I love this spare, elegaic music. Wowee....]

Where was I? Oh yes, in shopping mode. Well, on the strength of the successful jeans purchase (not cheap, in fact it’s the most I’ve ever paid for mere denim .. nyup I’m not gonna think about that. It seems really REALLY bad in roubles, cos to get the cost of roubles from Aussie dollars, you multiply by 20. Puts the numbers into the thousands!), I looked in a few menswear shops and found a good cotton jumper that M and I can share. It’s maroon cotton knit, cables all down ze front, maybe a touch fancy, but cotton is good, long man-shaped jumper is good, and maroon is a lovely colour for both of us. I left M wearing it at the hospital, after I staggered back there with all my stuff. It was fun unpacking all the loot, and he’s delighted with his new little travelling b/p machine. Even Olga the nurse had a play with it.

Yeah, retail therapy. As I stomped home in the rain at 9pm, I was thinking “am I shallow; easily-led; a mere money-laundering machine in human form?” - this being one of the eternal worries that women berate themselves with (I don’t know if men do it, I’m only generalising about women cos I’ve never discussed it with a bloke). But I dunno, if shopping IS a wasteful, indulgent, shallow, mindless and self-deluding pastime, it sure works. And I don’t think we can ALL be these negative things. I came round to thinking (as I passed the rich, useless gleam of the Astoria doorman’s waistcoat button) that shopping functions as a diversion, which can be a very merciful thing. And being good little capitalists, we are programmed to acquire, accumulate, enhance ... and when one has money too, it seems quite a natural process. I’m not going to enter the debate about the moral issue, if it IS a moral issue, of consumerism, I’m sticking to my point which is wondering why *I* felt better after I’d been shopping. And one can read as much into this as one likes, it’s an old, old debate which can have all sorts of irksome lurking guilts and depths of moral turpitude attached to it. Nyet to that. I think I felt better because I’d ACHIEVED something I needed to achieve - the b/p machine and the wash powder -; I was happy to get good service AND to find something I wanted - the jeans -; I was feeling affectionately happy about being able to give M another jumper, and feeling satisfied that it was a good discount for what I could see was a decent quality item (that old Virgo gratification of value for money, the elemental practicality!); and then I found an excellent giftie for my darling dorter. Which of course I can’t describe or it won’t be a sprise for her.. and the thing about THIS purchase was that it was a total impulse buy, and the young woman who tempted me into it had excellent if eccentric English, and was happy to discuss with me various words she needed to describe her wares, and to have a little sisterly sort of chat, and we were best friends in five minutes. AND it was a good price and so pretty.... heh, darling dorter, is all this driving you nuts not knowing? Sowwy...

AND my reward for all this money-for-jam activity was to see an actual cat, the second one in 10 days. This guy was a short-haired torty, quite dark, wearing a most attractive yellow collar. He eschewed any contakt with me, speaking purrfekt Russki kat in his total ignore. I didn’t want to pat him in case I got germs, this is NOT the time for me to get sick. But I went ‘puss puss’ and he went ‘staring in opposite direction because I am too supurrior to notice a mere wet stranger’. And then a woman walking a bloody great bear of a German Shepherd monster went past, and the cat had to give it a really hairy eyeball. I noticed that the dawg looked away first! This evidence of the natural order cheered me, too.

My thoughts on the value of shopping have not exactly coalesced, but I wonder why we put a moral value on it as an activity (as we do eating, ‘fatness’, purrfectly normal variations in body bits, sex, gender relations of certain kinds - eg having doors opened for one, or not; getting paid less as a workforce if you’re not a bloke; drinking ‘too much’, etc etc.). I don’t understand the moral value bit - why is it a good thing to spend money and then feel guilty afterwards? Why bother? Guilt is paralysing and leads to nothing much in the way of a good thing in my view. I prefer to examine what conscience I have and try to take a less emotional approach - if I feel ok, then I think it’s ok to feel ok. If I don’t, cos I’ve broken the Visa or paid more than I know is within my means, or is what the product is worth, then I reckon a bit of self-admonishing is about right. ... I think I’m saying the same thing in different ways, and getting PROFOUND. This is an alarming manifestation which occurs when I am tired, and/or pissed, and/or being allowed to talk too much. So I’m off to me bed, happy, OH so happy, to know that M will be released from room 2, 4th floor, American Medical Clinic, St Petersburg, tomorrow morning some time. We have until 4pm to loll about and get ready for the bus, and we’ll be in Tallinn by 11pm. Yoiks tally ho!

Today brought to you by mild cheese, the aroma of my lunchtime grilled chicken, and a few more buckets of Chanel No. 5. And I’d like it noted that I went PAST a purrfume shop at “PIG” - I dearly wanted to go in and buy a bottle of Chanel No. 5 ‘Huile Sensual’ AND I DIDN’T. I’m sorry now but.

Reverie at Sonata 23/8 - evening, tired and lonely...

It was harder, today, to leave M at the clinic and come ‘home’ alone... I wandered through some different parts of the streets, half-looking for a small ‘milk bar’; half-hoping for a restaurant to entice me in; half-ready to cry. It’s all very well being practical and patient, but the implicit drama of ‘M is in hospital in Russia, with fluctuating heartbeat, blood pressure and liver function’ is playing its part. He’s fine in himself, getting bored with the very limited reading we have, and none of the signs of illness are worsening. I bumped into the doctor as I went in this evening (having failed to have my internet fix, which I think has got me down a bit, I’d dearly love to read some news from home); his rundown is that M’s signs are still not stable, and he (the doc) is relieved that we are prepared to stay as long as necessary to make sure M is quite well, before we resume our travels.

He said M’s heartbeat was very low during the day, combined with big fluctuations in blood pressure. The white blood cell count has come down (good); the potassium level has gone up a bit (good), and he has no purging or further signs of gastric disturbance. He’s been up and walking around, eating his light diet, absorbing buckets of IV fluids, etc etc... why am I so uneasy?

Maybe I’m a bit lonely. A hotel room with a dead-donkey-coloured rug is not exactly inspiring. Then again the staff have gone out of their way to make sure I’m comfy, supplied with anything and everything they can offer me; the maid chattered to me in Russian as she tenderly made my bed with fresh sheets (and had a loooong fight to get the doona back into the cover, that was funny). The plumber came in and inspyekted the side and back of the wardrobe (ie the walls) to see where the leak was coming from, but of course when HE ran the shower, nothing happened. Purrhaps I overcharged the system with all my rinsing of clothes before lavishly showering myself, those two times it puddled. I dunno.

I found a little superette and bought a big bottle of still water (I can’t get used to the fizzing when I clean my teeth with the sparkling stuff); some poppyseed crackers, and some chocolate. They didn’t have tins of gin and tonic, only gallons of beer and vodka, and something called Red Martini. Looks like cherry port - syrupy and a bit toxic! I decided to go back to the bakery to get some bread; nothing like a bit of carbohydrate. No problem getting it; in fact I got a discount! My purchase was R56, and I only had a R1000 note, or R53. The assistant didn’t like the R1000 note; said sternly to me ‘SMALL MONEY!’, and I showed her I only had the R53. ‘Okay’ she said. Amazing! I worked it out, a discount of 3 roubles is worth about .15 of one Australian cent. Won’t be able to retire on that just yet.

Got meself back to the hotel room and then remembered - booze. Damn. I can’t be stuffed going back out for that. On with the ‘lympix and try to cheer up a bit. Here is my recipe for cheering-up-of-lonely-nearly-birthday-grrl-in-anonymously-average-Russian-hotel:

-take shoes and socks off
-take t-shirt off, hot hot hot
-wash hands lavishly and apply Aquium
-eat crust of bread - not bad
-eat next slice of bread too, thinking ‘I should go and get some butter’ but don’t act on it
-eat small sticky bun purchased against my weak willpower
-unpack 1.5 litre bottle of water and have a glug of cold, fresh, not-fizzy water
-look skeptically at poppy-seed crackers and open chocolate instead
-discover it is similar to a giant Kit Kat, nom
-eat 2/3 of it without the willpower issue causing any further problems
-wish I had some booze but drink more water
-turn shower on to get hot water to steam wrinkles out of tomorrow’s daks
-change into clean nightie, turn down bed, spray self lavishly with Chanel No. 5
-think about darling dorter, mother, father and dear friends; add 10 hours to current time and think that they won’t love me back much if I ring now
-think about ringing M but don’t want to wake him if he’s finally stopped having things poured into his wrists [he has to watch the fluid level in the IV bags and ring ze bell for ze nurse when it gets low. Not the nurse’s chob apparently... he was hoping his 10pm bag would start early so he could get to sleep; he’s tired. Didn’t/couldn’t sleep much last night; pillows and bed all wrong; worry; lack of wifey etc etc..]
-watch a bit of ‘lympic biffo on the teev - a kickboxer disagreeing with the umpire had a shout and then kicked him in the head! tsk tsk..
-realise I must write out my wowwies so I can sleep myself. I could, of course, take extra meds, but I don’t want to be groggy in ze morgen (sorry, yes dad of course I mean ‘groggiER’). Ha ha etc.

If you follow this recipe, you will be feeling more like this:

-you’ll smell great
-your feet will have stopped aching
-you’ll have that ‘organised Virgo’ feeling about your clothes for tomorrow
-you’ll be able to tell yourself that no booze means your willpower DID work, just not in the usual field of calories
-you’ll also be able to enjoy rather than be irritated by the loud bangs and thumps going on outside, which is more RF Flag Day fireworks going off in the Heritage Square, about 150m away behind a row of buildings. [I can just see the edges of some of the pretties... not sufficiently well to take photos. And no, I’m not going out to join the crowd. I’ll get my feets trodden on or my pockets pickled or my purrson propositioned or somesuch. Not my cuppa tea today.]. Yep, here comes ze nekxt rrrevolutionsk!
-and, you might even feel better in general. A bit. Sort of. Nothing a cat couldn’t fix propurrly if a cat was anywhere it was NEEDED.

MY blood pressure going down...

Hello all,

Firstly thanks, very very BIG thanks, to all of you who have been in touch. All the hugs and sisterly swears and cat news (and a special thanks to Miss G for beyond-the-call-of-duty cat pix, I love them all, and so will M when I take the puter off to see him) and support has made the world seem a lot smaller.. I don't think I've been particularly stoic, more focussed on the many practical things I could or had to do.. and the schlepping, of course! And the bloody hand-washing...

M was not so good last night, he had a bad headache. The docs (right from the start on Friday) had to make major adjustments to his usual regime of blood pressure meds, and headaches are very common when that happens. When I got to see him, at about 7.30, he was quite pale and clearly in pain. He had an injection of something like "fixupsky" which Xenia assured me would help head, stomach, everything. But in an hour he was no better, and getting very anxious, so I did a wifely intervention and told Xenia I thought he was really quite upset and certainly in pain, could she do anything? Well! Next thing a godly figure sailed into the room, starched white coat and all. This was Doktor Anton, who came over and gripped M's shoulder and delivered (in excellent, elegant English) a short homily on the lack of catastrophe, major advances in healing and good blood test results, successful visa-extending, etc etc, and then said 'You myust nyot worry; all will be wyell in the myornying". He also prescribed M some type of diazepam. Then Xenia returned with another shot (this is all going into the drip so M is not holey) and soon, the diazepam. I left, after administering the only thing a wife can - patting with wafts of Chanel No. 5 - at about 10pm, when he was fading out. This morning he sounded much more cheerful, even managing to swear a bit about having the drip in his hand.

I've not been eating properly, because of the difficulty (perceived, to some extent) of finding cafes at 10.30pm. I've had Maccas twice, mea culpa - the second time definitely reminded me why I don't eat this except in emergencies - and last night I couldn't be stuffed finding even that, I was out of roubles and my leggies didn't want to go the extra half-km to the autobank, so I had a rather pathetic meal in my room... a cheese sandwich, made of stale-ish bread, plastic cheese, washed down with my last mini-tin of gin and tonic. I crept out to the fridge for a little thing of condensed milk for my sugar fix. Moop moop...

It's quite windy at the moment, about 17 degrees and rainy. The wind was making my door rattle, it sounded just like someone pulling the door handle to see if they could get in. Not conducive to sleep. Eventually I had to find something to stuff between the door and the door frame to stop it. I'm not saying exactly what, but Carefree was how I felt when the noise stopped....

Today I've made an effort to get money and come back to the WiFi cafe for real food - grilled chicken and a huge salad - to wash down with my Net fix. Wunderbar! And the travel agent person came to the hotel this morning to get my autograph on a Visa charge, so the tickets for Tallinn are now paid for. The actual tickets are supposed to be delivered to the hotel later on today... we were told we were booked on the 2pm bus; then Paulina rang me to say there was a 'blockage' on the computer (the mind boggles at what a Russian computer might get blocked by!) and there was only one 2pm ticket... this means the 4.45 bus, which arrives at midnight, not purrfect. She was hopeful that the blockage would clear (heh, I can imagine someone taking to the cables with Ratsack) and the 2pm bus would be okay-ski after all. So keep those distant fingers crossed, please.

My only complaint is that I have developed a craving to wear jeans, which I don't have with me. Why? Purrhaps because I do wear them a bit at home ... they're so NORMAL ... I noticed a jeans shop with a sale on (when I was trekking St Petersburg on Monday, getting losted and founded again and enduring the smoky Cafe Max etc etc).. I may possibly have the oomph to go there later on .. haven't seen M yet today, we spoke by phone at 8.30am and then the princess needed some more sleep. M was also complaining that he was sick of wearing his grey jumper and didn't we have another one? The short answer is no, but maybe (heh) I can fix that too! He'll be horrified if I tell him I'm going shopping, so I won't. Tell him, I mean.

I expect there are other things I ought to be commenting on, but my brain is blank. Tourist activity is simply not possible, all my mental and emotional energy is going into the practical things I need to do, and keeping myself calm and trying to get enough rest. The last is the most difficult, because as soon as I lie down the brain goes CHARGE!!!!!!!!!! and I have to invoke major interventions to get it to shut up. ... and thanks to Mal for the excellent training in how to do this.

So, off I go now to waft lots more Chanel No. 5 at M, hear the story of his day, and maybe get that shopping done. I need to buy a blood pressure monitor for M, because his 'case' doktor asked that we keep records of his b/p for a couple of weeks. We'll be in Berlin in about 15 days, and that is a good place to find a quality medical centre and have blood tests, a checkup for him, and get them to review his case notes and make sure all is well. Of course we have a purrfectly good b/p machine at home. Oh well. We also have a purrfectly good coffee plunger at home, and we bought another one of those on about day 5.

Gotta go. Keep writing, please! All news, remarks (esp rude ones), advice, cats and ramblings are very, very welcome. I salute you all!

You already know what today is brought to you by. But let me add cheesecake, because the waitress just blandished me into some.... :-)