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...

 

Keeping the home fires burning...

Day 17

General status update

Hair: No change

Nausea demon: Apparently, he has ISSUES (according to the Chemo Muse, who is the only person he talks to, now that he has stopped talking to me). But she won’t tell me what they are, and he’s not talking to me. Excellent..

Chemo Muse: Also getting a bit stroppy, now that I keep knocking her out with Lorazepam. She regards this as thoroughly unsporting behaviour. 

Sleep, lack of: Slowly being remedied – hope to catch up before the second chemo cycle starts next week. 

Anxiety level (1-10): Anxiety suspended for the Christmas Holiday. 

State of mind: Christmassy, and happy; happy Christmassy, even.

 

For family reasons today, rather than yesterday, was deemed Christmas Day for R and me here in Gurkha Towers... 

We live in a flat in an old mansion block in Hammersmith, the security staff of which consists entirely of ex-members of the Brigade of Gurhkas who, as any fule know, are some of the world's most fearsome warriors.  I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when, shortly after moving into R's flat, I remarked upon the fact that all the guys on the desk seemed to be Korean, and wondered why that should be, and R told me that they were in fact Nepalese, and ex-Gurhkas to a man. Yes, we are guarded 24 hours a day by trained killers - how good is that? It's rumoured that they have a shrine to Joanna Lumley somewhere in the basement, but that may just be an urban myth.

... and hence was also deemed a Blog Holiday, as we had other, Christmassy things to do. So I will just leave you with a few images of my life, as it was two years ago, and as it is now.

Aegean winters can be quite cold, and wood is by far the cheapest fuel, usually burned in sobas - wood burning stoves. In Ayvalik, where I lived, the wood was delivered by the ton - by horse and cart. I would go to the wood yard, pay for the wood, wait while it was loaded, then lead the woodman and his horse and cart back through the labyrinth of narrow cobbled streets to the Camel Barn.

 

The wood was then stacked in a neat pile in the courtyard, usually with the help of some  little boys living nearby who, mysteriously, seemed to love carrying bits of wood about above all other things..

 

 

Inside the camel barn is a big open fireplace topped by an enormous seven metre high rhomboid chimney, constructed by an excellent Kurdish stonemason called Apo, when the barn was being restored. And through the cold months of January and February I would make a big log fire every night,

 

 

 much to the delight of my dog Freddie, and cats Flossie, Layla and Ollie.

 

  At the other end of the barn, which is about 10 metres long, I installed a big cast-iron 'soba', much more fuel-efficient than the open fire, under which Ollie loved to lie:

 

Now that I’m living back in London again, on the fourth floor of a block of flats, in a smokeless zone, log fires are no longer an option. I miss them enormously. However, the other day I found a really nifty substitute, outrageously kitsch, in quite atrocious taste, no doubt, but I really couldn’t give a monkey’s – this DVD was one of the things R found in his Christmas stocking this morning, but if I’m honest, I really bought it for me:

 

 

It’s silly, but it’s lovely, and psychologically calming (it even has a sound track of authentic log fire spitting and crackling noises), and it takes me back to my Camel Barn, which I won’t be able to visit again in reality for some time (nb Freddie and the cats are still in residence, being looked after by friends who are Camel Barn- and animal-sitting on a long term basis).

Belatedly, I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas – thank you for reading the blog, and I hope you’ll continue to do so over the next few months, until the chemo is finally done.