Book Club, The Cornwall Hotel and Scans

June's Book Club was last week before I went back to Cornwall for five nights.  Our book for the month was The Rapture by Liz Jensen.  It was a weird story.  It started strangely and then improved for a while before deteriorating again coming towards the end.  I wouldn't recommend it.   July's book was much better and I finished that during my stay at my son's house in England.  I usually watch television in bed, but as there wasn't a TV in my room I read the whole book and really enjoyed it.  It was about a young Sri Lankan woman leaving her home and coming to live in England.  The characters were well written and I would definitely recommend this one.

On Sunday, four of us took up the £15.95 offer at The Cornwall Hotel in St Austell, where you can use the Spa facility - infinity pool, sauna, steam room and jacuzzi and have a two course lunch.  If you want to add a third course it's an extra £4.   While the sun shone we took advantage of it and sat outside.

It was excellent.  The food was good as was the service and we all enjoyed the pool, except for my oldest son who couldn't swim as he had cut his thumb badly the previous day and had a large dressing on it.

There was a large sculpture in the grounds which I thought was good fun.

After Tuesday’s "year post op" (really 50 weeks post op) appointment with my gastric bypass surgeon, which went well,  yesterday afternoon saw me having a kidney scan and a bone density scan because of the two small tumours on my left parathyroid glands. I sat in the waiting room reading my current book "The Piano Tuner" by Daniel Mason which is about a London tuner who goes out to Burma to tune a piano belonging to a Surgeon General in the British Army.

The results were given to me immediately, as is usually the case here inBrittany, and I came home with the doctor’s reports and the scan sheets. My kidneys are fine and no sign of stones which is a possible condition leading on from tumours on the parathyroid glands because of their effect on calcium in the body. The bone density scan on my lower spine was fine as was the one for the right hip and thigh. However, the left hip and thigh are on the chart line which divides “normal” from osteopenia. Osteopenia is the area on the chart dividing normal from osteoporosis. That does not mean that I will get osteoporosis as it is possible to have osteopenia without it progressing to osteoporosis, but I will be monitored so they know what is happening. 

I took advantage of being in Guingamp to go shopping in Le Clerc and Lidl. I bought ten tiny artichokes which were banded in bunches of five and described on the label as a "bouqet of artichokes", rather poetic I thought, and I cooked and enjoyed them as soon as I got home. I also bought a couple of notebooks which are feint squared on the pages. I looked at similar things in England last week, but they were all ruled with very dark print and it seemed intrusive.

When I went up to the field to put the hens, ducks and goats to bed, there was a little black chick under my broody Lavender Pekin hen.  She had nine eggs under her.  On Sunday, while I was in England she hatched a blue Cream Legbar egg but the chick died.  This is the first survivor and she/he was still fine this morning so that's good news.  I think it unlikely now that the other seven eggs are viable, but you never know.

Three things I like:

1.   My new tiny weeny black chick.
2.   Gathering an armful of broad beans this morning.
3.   Buying more paperbacks in the charity shop back in Cornwall.