Greece was lovely, all my fears about travelling alone unfounded. Given huge confidence boost about doing it again.
Met usual amount of oddballs and got into odd situations - how many people can get locked into a bank, meet people who firmly believe in David Icke and watch "The Voice" with Greek Grandparents who don't speak any English?
Athens was fairly rough looking everywhere I went, not like Rome where you're just falling over old shit, there it seemed to be more located in one part of it.
Andros - arrived too late in the end to do anything - apart watch telly with the grandparents!
Mykonos, pretty and fun loving.
Santorini - drop dead beautiful at sunset. It had been a plan of Welshy and mine's to go for ages and i'm glad I went.

Now to live carefully a few months and resort out the finances.

Going to a party in Whitstable this weekend, and do have another dog show in wood green to sort out.

My lollypopkin is still very poorly in hospital. I mentioned last post that they were doing tests to investigate his stomach pain. I'm told they found a tumour and removed part of his bowel along with the growth. Fucking Cancer. Will go see him tomorrow.


Suddenly remembered TP and her own cancer battle and diverted to the flower website. I've been sending her secret flowers every month, she doesn't know they're from me! But I hope its giving her something cheery to think about and it makes me feel better as I can't be there as much as I'd like to help her out.

Reeling.

Am meant to fly out to Greece in a few hours. Not organised at all. Gonna run out of funds before its over.

My Lolly had a stroke last Saturday. One of my old NMM friends, the guy I went to Rome with earlier this year. I had a message on Wednesday from G another mutual friend, he had a message from an unknown number saying that Lolly was in the hospital in intensive care.
Tried to text Lolly, no answer, suddenly remembered that he'd not contacted me after I wished him happy birthday which is most unlike him.
Messaged a few friends, just casual. "hey have you seen Lolly, he's ignoring me!"
Found out in intensive care after a suspected stroke. Not expected to make it. No one knew where he was and no one had run around to find out.
I rang the QE, tried QM and then remembered that they don't have A and E, told another friend that it was a suspected stroke. He suggested the Kings College as they have specialist care there for stroke victims.
Rang through, such a drama as I couldn't remember his birthday or address but we got there. I rang back after work to check permission had been given to visit.

He was awful. Huge swollen closed eye, half his head shaved, other half hair sticky with sweat, hooked up to all the beepy machines and drips you see in movies. I was prepared for bad but that was awful. G held it together until we left before he broke down. I rang around everyone I could think of. No he doesn't want visitors to see him like this. Yes he was talking ok, but drowsy.
We went back the next day. Pretty similar. We didn't stay long as he's clearly very tired.

Went back up Saturday as paragliding was cancelled yet again. Moved out of critical care ward. Met his Mum for the first time! He's short and quiet, we were probably overwhelming him, mocking the hospital food that he was trying to eat.
He cannot yet move one side of his body but his eye was open and he looked less swollen. I'm still not sure of timeframe, but the latest one is that he was ill Friday (his birthday) got out of bed, fell. possibly had a stroke as he fell. They thought anaemia first of all. Went to one hospital, then another. Then ended up in Kings. Had another seizure/stroke there Saturday night.
The pressure on his skull was growing. They operated Tuesday to remove part of his skull to help combat this.

Now he's dry heaving constantly, vomiting. They're doing  CAT scans and endoscopies to see what the cause is.

Heartbroken for him. He's like a brother to me as they all are. Just holding on to all the improvements I saw in 4 days and hoping that in 2 weeks he will be alright.

In the end it went right down to Monday Morning for the Physio to give me the all clear.
I was under strict instructions not to run ANY of it, to use common sense about what obstacles to tackle and what ones to avoid and be tactical and rest at each stop.

Mrs Spaniel also was instructed not to pull me over (she ignored this - twice). and to take it easy as she has lost a bit of fitness as we've not been able to go out and about as normal.

It was incredibly muddy!! Some of the challenges the mud was up to my waist and dogs were given to the volunteers for their own safety.

My cunning plan of putting my contacts in, failed when I reached the venue and realised that - yes I did still have my glasses on. I weighed up the options of losing them/breaking them/adding blindness to my list of injuries and blindness won out.

This had the the added problem of not really being able to see where was safe to put my feet. My team mates were awesome and kept pace with me and another friend who suffers from back problems all the way around.

Mrs Spaniel (now that I have recovered from the pulling me over incidents) has been getting a lot of praise today - and allowed to sleep on the bed last night! She was an absolute star!
She did get a bit of separation anxiety when left with the stewards and fretted (noisily) about my safety as I attempted challenges.

Two challenges she was clearly quite frightened of. 
This tunnel was quite long, dark and pretty deep for a Spaniel (it wasn't that bad all the way through, just at the exit!) I asked her if she wanted to come, she considered it and then decided it was too much for her. She hovered at the end of the tunnel whining at me as I started to crawl through and I said to the steward to let her go as she would follow my teammates and their dogs. 
I'm told that she started to do this, then hesitated again, headed back to the tunnel start. Took a deep breath and tentatively followed me.

For the other again she was offered the opportunity to come into the large inflatable pool and go over the trampolines, into the water and back out again but once she saw the water she changed her mind. Again I handed her to the steward and started to scramble over.
I'm guessing she must have fretted, pulled and then the steward at the other end who was helping me out asked if that was my dog.

She'd got herself so far and then courage let her down and she was unable to get down and out the other end - naturally I carried her over and out and another big cuddle and lots of praise. 

Lots of love for my little dog. She had a whale of a time with her dog friends, getting lots of pats and cuddles from the stewards and a long exciting walk. Tail wagging all the way around. She's not the bravest dog in the world so to see her attempt everything, even if she just didnt want to be separated from me is really touching!

She's been absolutely shattered since. I've still got mud on me, I'm bruised, mystery scrapes all over my boobs, nettle stings up my arms and feeling very stiff and sore today but I'm so glad we did it. Very well organised with lots of water for dogs and people to support us all the way through with poo bag handovers, looking after dogs and taking photos. 

Now one week to go until my holiday that I cant really afford!