Assuming that the frequency of hospital appointments remains reduced we can start planning for the future. So far there is no “show stopper” for the pencilled in total hip replacement surgery in late autumn. There are two major appointments for which we do not yet have dates: a pre-op anaesthesia assessment and a CT cardio-angiogram. The latter is due.

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The cardiologist suggested that this would probably be ok, but nobody has imaged me thus, yet. Given they operate on frail old nannas I should be good to go. But it may advise on my increased risk. I also need a full dental 360 degree check.

It seems a long way off but when you have a big garden, scale can eat time. I have to think about doing the heavy donkey work before the operation because I will be very incapacitated for 6 weeks or so, through Christmas. No driving for me…We live alone and have to hope that the wife’s health holds. If that starts to fail we are in deep shit.

I am not a fan of last minute dot com.

Chores:

1. Sewerage check – lift the inspection covers and use plumber’s rods to clear the 30 metres to the cess pit. Should last 3-6 months.
2. Wood – we need to order some oven dried wood. There is probably about 1 tonne of wood left over to be sorted and sized. I may need to split the pine left over from Tempest Ciaran. Perhaps another tonne or so. I will need to break and clear two wooden pallets. These can be sized for kindling. Two palettes is about 3 months. They may need to be cut to fire-stick ready size. Perhaps I need a new splitting axe.
3. I need to move some more earth to shore up the side of the pond which has a slow leak. A couple of loads of 250kg of dirt should help it cope with the full pond. The pond always fills to overflow with the autumn rain.
4. Need to clean and power wash the external hallway. The swallows who nested there will head off for Africa and leave the guano behind.
5. We need to secure someone to help out in the gardening. The maintenance pruning needs to be put on hold
6. The pink rambler rose at 2 metres  high needs dead heading.
7. I have strimming and mole trapping to be done. There will be one or two full property boundary strims to do at 8000 metres squared that is a bit of strimming frenzy.

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• Indoors we need to sugar soap wash the room near the wood oven. This will provoke painting of much of the downstairs. That is a big job.
• The downstairs floor needs to be solvent cleaned with acetone to remove dirt accumulation from excess glue. I will need to use my favourite product Mr Propre floor cleaner with a mop.
• The upstairs kitchen needs to be floored. It is the only remaining room which we have not done already. We have floored in excess of 200 square metres.
• It may need a lick of paint too.
• The repaired volet boxes need cleaned and filled, painted to bring back up to standard.
• There is one room with loose wallpaper which needs removed and new paper perhaps glued in place.

We need to figure out if I need a downstairs hospital bed. The spiral staircase looks to be a bit tricky. The loo and shower are already disabled enabled downstairs.

Do we need a bigger freezer and for me to prepare spicey foods?

Knowing the way things work here I will need a yellow bio-hazard sharps box for the used anti-coagulant syringes, which I will be self-darting.

This seems to be what the next few months looks like heading into year end.

That is probably the scope of it…

I can already use a Zimmer frame and peg about on crutches.

Where can I get a black eye patch and a parrot?