Tag: health

Posted on

Home and healing

I’m home now in the caravan, and starting the process of healing.

There’s immeasurable comfort in being at home in your own environment when you’re ill. The warmth and familiar feel of your own bed. The support of your loved ones around you. The now familiar views across the croft to the sea and over to the mountains of Knoydart.

The croft

Husband is heroically administering my daily stomach injections. I tried, but simply couldn’t bring myself to self inject – all respect to those that can and have to do this every day. The injections are blood thinners which have to be administered for a week following the operation whilst I’m not as mobile as I would normally be.

Evil injections

I potter about happily as often as I can to keep everything moving between periods of rest, legs up on the bed. I’m not allowed any strenuous activity or lifting whilst my body repairs itself .

I learned the hard way that post operative fatigue is a real thing early on in this process. Stupidly, a few days after getting home I decided that I could sit on a chair and just gently hold a garden hose to water the polycrub plants. It weighed almost nothing, and I wasn’t standing up.

After a few minutes the strain of holding up even something that light started to tell. I rapidly retired back to bed. Since then I’ve been much more sensible and husband takes the strain.

Each day I feel a little more like myself. I’m healing well even though it’s still early days.

Flowers from friends

Friends, family and neighbours have been wonderful, sending messages of comfort and cards, flowers, food and treats. Good friends made dinner for us one evening and drove it over to us. I’m feeling quite overwhelmed at all the kindness.

Posted on

Slight deviation from plan

Health is one of those things that we take for granted when we’re young. And because in my mind I’m still probably 29, even though I’m approaching 60, I’m always taken by surprise when it lets me down.

I’ve had to have a hysterectomy, and as I lie here recovering from the operation I know that this definitely wasn’t on the build plan.

Recovery from any type of illness in a caravan is going to be a challenge, but recovery from something that means that you can’t lift, stand too long, or strain in any way is a big one. If ever I wish that we had been in the house already, it’s now. But we’re not, and so we will make the best of it.

I’m grateful that the operation went well, with huge thanks to the doctors and nurses at the hospital in Inverness. Thank goodness for the professionalism of the NHS who have treated and cared for me brilliantly. And I’m very grateful for the love and care of my fabulous husband, family and friends, who have surrounded me with love since my discharge.

As I lie here in the glory of a pair of surgical stockings, looking ruefully at the stomach injections we will have to do later today, I reflect that many people have it worse. At least I have pain relief, a comfy bed, enough to eat and a strong and caring partner. I honestly don’t know how people who are alone or in less comfortable surroundings would get through this.

We will be in the house soon. It feels close enough to be a reality now, so close that I can almost touch it. One thing that the last few years have taught me for certain is that I will never take good health for granted again.

There’s nothing more guaranteed to impact life, let alone a build plan.

Posted on

Summer eating

This is the season for eating from the croft, and the fresh produce is now coming in with abundance, even from the handful of small grow beds that we have. We are enjoying lettuce, kale, new potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli, chard, onions, peas and fresh herbs.

I’m being challenged to find new ways of serving this bounty, as we can’t store or freeze any produce this season.

This is whipped feta with roasted beetroot, toasted almonds, orange zest, chopped mint and parsley.

I was so excited to try our first baby beets from the croft that I made this dish up specifically to try them. It’s adapted from one that I found that uses goats cheese.

Scooped up with oat biscuits, it was a light nibble to eat before a main meal with friends, but would easily make a lunch on its own. This will become a summer staple, I think, and I’ve resolved to definitely grow more beetroots next year!

Young onions from the croft

Tonight, kale and purple sprouting broccoli from the croft were the central vegetables in our meal. They were lightly sautéed with garlic, sesame, spring onions, lime, a bit of leftover chicken, and noodles.

Uncle Bert’s kale

Lots of potatoes… cold potato salad, fried potatoes, garlic potatoes, mash here we come!

3kg potatoes dug up this morning
Posted on

Gaelic singers, fires and venison

Our first island Christmas.

Last night we attended an outdoor meal with friends around a fire, with local musicians and Gaelic singers. They sang traditional carols but also songs that we didn’t know, hauntingly beautiful in the open air and the darkness of the night.

It was a cold night but we honestly didn’t feel it. Such a lovely introduction to Christmas here.

We returned home smelling of woodsmoke and with heads full of new melodies and happy memories.

This morning, Christmas Day, and it was a day alone for us. The wind howled around the caravan and we sat in front of the fire with big socks on and shared a zoom call with the boys in Manchester.

We ate venison and drank red wine and enjoyed the feeling of peacefulness and nothing that we absolutely had to do.

It’s been a very unusal and quiet Christmas, but a good one for all that. It’s made us remember what’s important and has made us look forward to next year’s celebration with family (and a proper kitchen!) all the more.

Merry Christmas to you all. From the fireside of the caravan on the windswept hillside of the croft I’m sending you all good wishes for health and happiness, wherever you are.