If we have a group hug, keep away from my right hand side, that’s all I’m saying ;0)
Moving round with more confidence today but having a weepy day. I think I’m in mourning.
OH has come armed with cake and truffles.
Hope everyone is feeling chipper or at least calm and dignified.
Well done you Ninja…we’ll keep away from your right side, as long as that doesn’t leave us on your wrong side! Spot of mourning sounds appropriate… Jo - all the very best for tomorrow, and be enfolded in that group hug… Calm and dignified? Us? Really???
Thank you Jane, I’m not sure calm and dignified are really the right words to describe myself at the moment! xx
Hi All
Hope the barbie was good yesterday.
Ninja - glad you’re doing OK physically. I’d be surprised if you weren’t weepy. It’s a weepy old thing to have to go through. I was usually fine until someone was extra nice to me, then would dissolve v easily.
Janipi/Jo C - I was born and bred in Epping, so v close to Loughton.
Still got a bit of rads fatigue, so a late ‘do’ last night (it was my Mum’s 80th BD celebs) and an afternoon on the motorway have wiped me out - and it’s back to work in the morning!
If you hear extra laoud snoring, it’s probably me.
Dx
we’ll try not to wake you up on the way back from the JM later on… No rads fatigue, but rads lymphodema! Wearing a sleeve thingy when I “DO things”. Anyone any idea how to stop the inside of the elbow getting sore in it? Anyway, off to the pub… presume I won’t be alone in there - there’s usually someone lurking/skulking…
Hallooooo Ninja! Now just you make sure you behave yourself at Stalagluft or they’ll put you in solitary again.
If anyone’s a bit peckish pop on over to the patisserie yurt on your way to join Jane at the JM. I’ve been baking (not again, I hear you groan) and have some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter icing on top and some strawberry ones with vanilla butter icing and half a strawberry on top all going spare.
Silly me baked too many to fit in the box… 
First come, first served!
Jane xxx
What a wonderful thread Swannie ladies. You have adventure starting novices watching you from behind the trees. We are not as beautiful as you Swans. Ugly youngsters with stubble for hair and sore feet all flapping madly into the danger zone of the big “T”.( note I did not mention ducklings Duckie) We envy you the cakes and wine so deserved because of all you have been through. Thank you for showing us how to get thereRevcat, Ninja, GIJaneH and the other pathfinders.
Watching you carefully
Cackles
Cackles
Don’t hide behind the trees. Pick up your tents and supplies from the supply hut behind the JM bar. Pitch your tent where ever you like.
ALL are welcome here. And we all deserve the free drinks and cocktails from Jingling Merkin Bar and the cakes from the patisserie yurt.
If you have come this far, then take a while to pitch your tent and rest amongst friends.
I will be here in the woods until November when I move on to the mx marshes. Until then - please come and join me.
Thankyou Supertrouper. Don’t mind if I do. Long time since I have pitched a tent but we ex Guides should never forget how to survive in the wild, It’s just a bit difficult at the moment so I am watching my leaders carefully.
The one that will always make me stay is good food and drink. I’ll bring the Sloe Gin and apple cake.
I have been in the bilateral mx marshes and found them not too sticky. Its the unknown ‘T’ I’m stalking news about.
Thank you for having me in the wood
Cackles
Greetings from Mx Marsh. Day 3 begins.
Had a much better night last night, the noise from the neighbouring rooms (noisier than the JM would you believe?) went as the inhabitants with over-noisy tv habits and (I suspect) smoking out of the bedroom window next to me so it blew in to mine were all discharged.
I don’t have any immediate neighbours till some more get admitted today but nursie said that the other end of the ward is busy.
I’ll pop over to the woods later today to give Jo a virtual hug before she departs for her next adventure.
Is there any cake left?
Welcome, cackles, need a hand with your pegs and guys?
Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go, crazy week here in Glasgow… but first, a quick stroll in the woods…
Ninja, so good to see your posts, glad you’re doing well. Have some left over Brazilian Honey cake from yesterday’s ‘harvest vegetable’ (what I called it when I was a five-year-old) and some decent FT coffee brewing.
Jo C, thinking of you this morning and hoping that you are flooded with calm… that doesn’t sound right… bathed in peacefulness… well, that you feel upheld in the love, prayers, vibes and other good wishes of those who walk or visit the woods
Cackles - fab name btw - hope your stay in the woods is as good as it can be. Anyone who loves cakes and coffee and crazy songs and nights at the JM and laughing in the face of bc and admitting they are pertrified when they are is a friend.
Other woodies, hope you’re well, that the leprechaun Tam O’Xifen is being kind to you (he’s been boiling and drowning me with renewed energy the last couple of days) as he does his work.
Hugs to all… must go back to Land of NED now… work is calling and will not wait!
Welcome Cackles - pitch your tent and join us. The path through The Woods is, unfortunately, well worn and so you should be able to see your way.
Ninja - everyday is a step further away from the terror that the surgery held. I cried everyday for a week - not all day and then found that I gave myself time in the shower to indulge my howling and then was ready to face the day. Let it all out now rather than storing it for the future when you really want to be ‘over it’.
Jo - we’re all cheering you on.
Rads Rushes are still reassuringly boring
Xx
No calm here just hospital gowns and paper knickers oh and very attractive stockings. Just waiting to see PS then apparently it all kicks off mid morning. Thanks for all the hugs they are much needed and appreciated.
Xx
Good luck for today Jo C, breathe in…breathe out… hope all goes smoothly for you this morning and they don’t keep you waiting around too long.
Welcome to Cackles, settle in and join us later in the JM for a cheeky snifter. I’ll be dancing with the leprechaun ‘Tam’ from today, hope he doesn’t boil me too much…
Posh coffee is on,teapot is warming and I’m serving today… a large campo for Ninja, complete with doilies (sp?) and a hooooge selection of fancies, cakes and pastries for all…
Jo C. Thinking about you today and sending you light.
This too will pass.
Had to smile when I saw Jo’s paper knickers. Her comment, I mean, ahem. Not her knickers.
Got yet another new nursie today. She’s very nice and was good when I was crying this morning because when I went for a walk up the corridor, it felt like I was on board a cross-channel ferry.
In November.
In a force 8.
I’ll never get home if I can’t walk by myself, but she said it’s going to take me some time yet to find my feet.
Still feeling wobbly so I’m staying firmly on my behind this morning.
Thanks for the campo.
Healing vibes for Jo.
Been persuaded by cackles to crawl off this log under my Harry invisible cloak and join you in the woods,I have lurked here too long and have had so much entertainment watching your antics,I was a chronic insomniac,helped by CBT then on my 77 birthday in May found the lump!!Femara to shrink and then August Mastectomy,now due to age "allowed chemotherapy"lippy,powder and paint played its part in that, plus a good heart scan.I have had first chemo T (hell)C.So you see all that has plunged me into Insomnia again,hence my nocturnal visit to the woods.Your JM bar is just up my street,i have been a camper for the past fifty years,ok the last 40 in a caravan,so no problem there.Perhaps I could be the little bent old lady who gathers sticks and grants wishes to kind helpers??in the 60s and70s I taught Wigmaking to Hairdressing students and part of the syllabus was "how to knot a Merkin"in those days students could be shocked!!To sit in a bar named for a Merkin would appeal to my bizarre sense of humour.Well thats my long CV,Please can I come in???Mavis
Hi Mavis, I think you are in … welcome… have a coffee, some cake, a chat, a sing, whatever
Look what’s over there —> JM
or there <— patisserie yurt
And who’s waving from here… <waves></waves>
Hello All
Big welcome to Cackles and Mavis. Merkin knotting! I know that someone has started a ‘Craft’ thread, but this sounds like something we need as a special activity in the Woods - can you do a demo?
Ninja - glad you are doing so well. Don’t rush - make the most of room service.
Thinking of Jo C - I expect she’s still on the table.
I went comando down to theatre. I was told that I could wear my knickers but, since I would be catheterised, they would take them off anyway. Why was the idea of having my knickers taken off while I was sleeping so disturbing?!
I’m back from a morning at W.O.R.K., time for a snooze by the lagoon to prepare for an evening in the JM. Can someone get NE to fetch me some tea in a couple of hours time?
Dx
Hello to Cackles and Mavis and welcome to the madhouse.
I’m an “old” woodie now - frollicking in the sunlit fields beyond, but I pay a nightly visit to Tamoxifen Towers and am often to be found propping up the bar in the JM or stocking up the patisserie yurt with something lemony and sticky bottomed.
We’ve had knitted merkins in the woods before, with lots of sparkles and glitzy bits, and even one that plays the Star Spangled Banner, but not knotted ones - Mavis, I think you’re our new merkin expert!
Here’s a particularly pretty one if anyone’s looking for inspiration… theanticraft.com/archive/beltane09/mermaidkin.htm
Jane xxx