Shades of grey

Firstly a very big thank you to one and all for all your kind comments the last few days and my apologies for the lack of response. I think the load on the kidneys the last week or two was heavier than even I realised. Still a long way from being sorted. In 4 weeks, the next attack on the right side and probably after a few weeks might have to repeat the whole thing on the left side. However, I am fortunate in not having any pain, just fatigue and frustration!

Back home at lunchtime after another boring night. I was lucky to have two very quiet pleasant room mates. Next to me a 1986 Russian immigrant about 80, always smiling and cheerful despite his difficult medical situation and chemotherapy. He hardly spoke a word of German, understood quite a lot though. His wife turned up every mid morning and quietly spent the day in the room. At first I thought she would be a "nuisance" but she was extremely pleasant, only too willing to help any of us in the room, made no fuss and helped out with translation, being very fit with German. Memmingen has a large number of Russians from the former German states pre WWI & WWII.

Furthest away another "East" fugutive, born in the German enclave in the former Czechoslavakia known as the "Sudeten" and expelled by the Potsdam agreement of 1945. The area had been part of the Austro Hungarian empire until WWI. He was a child then and is now to all intents & purposes a Bavarian. After his apprentiship as a mechanic, he joined the German navy and told me of his vists to The UK and notably Dundee harbour.

Back in civvies, he set up his own business and amongst other things came up with an hydraulic post ram to attach to tractors/Unimogs for farmers to set out fencing and then was discovered by someone from the highways council and they developed a version for councils/highways departments that have to place & later remove thousands of marking poles in winter to guide the snow ploughs.

Angie did a walk near Memmingen with the dogs while waiting for me to get my release papers. Then back home she went out for a ride with Sultan and Luna and I did the evening stable work helped by Flash. We were able to play his favourite football game without being disturbed by Luna, just as we used to do several years ago. He is an ace goalie and all his rheumatic pains simply diappear for an hour. Luckily Angie went for another short walk with them in the evening to let him "come down" from the sportly excercise.

Suspect Angie will be pleased to go to work tomorrow and wind down herself from all the work the last three days. It is at least a bit of a shorter week as Shrove Tuesday is a semi official half day. She needs a break, her shoulders  are playing up and her GP isn't yet keen on giving her a cortisone jab but trying the ubiquitous Ibuprofen tablets route.