Milou

Aqua gym was a tough class this morning, she really worked our legs and unfortunately my Achilles tendinitis has flared up again, so it's aggravated it.  I'm getting very frustrated with it, as even after my surgery in November it's still not right, it's improved, but not 100% and now that I'm started to get more active, it's not liking it.  I've got an appointment with my orthopaedic surgeon on Tuesday, so I'll have a chat with him, but I've got a feeling it could be to do with the Tamoxifen that I have to take.

Interestingly while sat in the sauna at the gym, I was talking to Alison about it after the class, and there was a lady in the sauna who is an acupuncturist and asked if I'd tried acupuncture.  I told her that I'd had dry needling as part of my physiotherapy, but she said it isn't the same and doesn't work as well as traditional acupuncture.  I asked where she practices and she said she does it from home, but also volunteers for Macmillan at the Horizon Centre in Brighton for cancer patients.  I told her about the breast cancer and the tamoxifen and she said that tamoxifen does cause a lot of joint pain and suggested I contact Macmillan as I will be entitled to 6 free sessions.  Then before I left she came and gave me her card and told me if I forget anything we've discussed, to give her a call and she'll happily have a chat to me.  

Anyway, my gym is situated in the grounds of Brighton University, and my friend Sandra is a lecturer there, so we arranged to meet up after my class and she took me to the student union for lunch.  They have a fantastic Deli where they hand make sandwiches and wraps to order and the choice was amazing so it was hard to choose, but I had a hoisin duck wrap - it was huge, tasty and cheap!.  

From there I drove into Hove to Toys R Us who have sadly gone into liquidation and will be closing down very soon.  As it's Violet's birthday in a couple of weeks I thought I may as well see if I can get anything in their closing down sale, and luckily they had the 'Live Pet' dog that Rachel said she would like, and it had 25% off.  Scarlett had one for Christmas and Violet keeps wanting to take it off her which then causes squabbles, so now she'll have her own - they're very cute, they actually breath and make puppy like noises.  

Jacqui my friend from Belgium arrived at about 4pm and she'd brought Alan some Belgian beer and a lovely scarf for me, plus a cute rat - sounds a strange thing to give someone, but he's great!   Jacqui is a friend of a friend and whilst I knew her when we lived in Belgium, we weren't particularly close friends, but we have remained in touch via Facebook and she was very supportive when I was going through chemo.  She's an amzing artist who uses oil paints and passed comment about my photography and said she'd love to spend some time with me and to get some tips, so I offered for her to come and stay and here she is.

I'd warmed up the Palace, and after she'd sorted her stuff out we went and sat in there and had a drink, and then the three of us went to VIP our local Italian restaurant.  We've had a great night which has been spent mostly laughing and I look forward to more of the same tomorrow,

As it's been a miserable, wet day I haven't bothered to take my camera out with me, but Milou was willing to pose for me this afternoon :-)