How to build a very large and perfectly rhomboid chimney

A Day on the Sofa With Chemo Brian

Day 27:  

General status update

Hair: Have given it an extra day in the snood; we both needed to rest today. Will wash it tomorrow and see if it starts falling out.

Nausea demon: Still engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat with the meds; he was winning in the early morning, but the meds have now got him cornered, and he has gone to ground to regroup and plan the next surge when they’re not looking. But they’re on 24 hour watch now- ALL of them.

Chemo Muse: Is she feeling slightly guilty after refusing to allow me to stop last night? You’re kidding. ‘I got the job done. You couldn’t have coped without me’. Annoying, but, true.

Paranoia Demon: on hold. Am too tired and sick to be paranoid as well, just now.

Chemo Brian: He made room for me on the sofa, and we spent most of the day there together, resting.

 

Sleep, lack of: At 1.45am last night, I finally had the good sense to take a Lorazepam. Sorted.

Anxiety level (1-10): see Paranoia

State of mind: Dopey. V. relieved to have got all the anti-nausea meds.

 

After yesterday’s drama and excitement, was forced to take my first ever Chemo sofa day, snuggled up with Chemo Brian. There are worse ways to spend a day.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow, but in the meantime, for your edification and delight, I am going to show you a series of photographs showing how the chimney in the Camel Barn Library, my former home on the north Aegean coast of Turkey, was constructed, almost single-handedly, by a very talented Kurdish stonemason called Apo. He comes from an ancient stone city called Mardin, high on a hill overlooking the Mesopotamian plain in the far south east of Turkey, close to the Syrian border. The people of Mardin call the Mesopotamian plain 'The Ocean' , and you can see why:

 

 

 

The men of Mardin have been famous for being good with stone, and brickwork, for thousands of years. So, here's how it's done, using old fashioned plumb-lines, and pieces of string:

 

 

 

 

And then, a few months later:

 

 

Home, sweet home...