Mostly Younger Son

Off I went to the hairdresser yesterday morning. It was a lovely sunny day, and seeing I had wakened reasonably early, I thought I might just as well get going. The hairdresser I go to is on the outskirts of big city and I have being going here for years; even when I lived in the South of England and couldn't find someone there who could cope with my baby fine hair, I used to ask my sister to make an appointment for me for every time I came to visit her. One occasion after I had moved away from the big city I tried a local hairdresser, but it was no good so I returned to the one I liked.

As I was so early I did my shopping first, going initially to the only accessible supermarket who stocks the stuff to lay in a bottle or two of Noilly Prat, then went round to the other end of the shopping mall and bought one or two things in Marks and Spencer (no clothes, honest!) before having a good look through most of the mall. Mall is perhaps exaggerating a bit as it is not actually huge and I can manage it in small doses on foot.

Back again to Marks by which time I was too late to have a sit down with a cup of tea and something to eat and so I picked up a BLT sandwich and a bottle of water and headed off to the car park at the hairdresser where I ate my sandwich (and could not open the bottle!!!) At least I always get a cup of Earl Gray tea while the colour is being "set".

When Iain (the hairdresser) came over to greet me and to have a look at how the last cut had gone, he suggested that perhaps we could leave it longer next time. My hair is short now and the growth has slowed down a bit so my next appointment is now 8 weeks away.

When I arrived home the sun was still shining and I caught up with my blogs only to find one from my daughter in law to say that younger son was in a great deal of pain and she was so worried about him. I immediately phoned him and he was putting a brave face on things. He had gout in one big toe and then in both and now a knee is affected. He cannot walk and has to bottom shuffle the poor dear. He has been prescribed morphine tablets which help but take a long time to kick in after the morning dose. I wonder if this is anything to do with the fact that he has a kidney transplant, but if things are no better by the end of the week he is going to phone his renal consultant. Other doctors are reluctant to prescribe anything due to the cocktail of medications he is already on, and he trusts the renal consultant whom he has obviously come to know quite well.