I have not been blogging for a bit, apologies but here is the story:

Ippy dippy dation my operation

There follows an attempt to pull the last three weeks together, quite my most traumatic for a while. :

It all started with a blood test at the beginning of December which started alarms bells ringing. From the results, with raised PSA levels my GP packed me off to the Urologist; Dr S. for a prostate exam. He examined the prostate and said it was clear, but grossly oversized, I told him I was delighted because two of my older brothers had been diagnosed with prostate cancers in the recent past. This set his alarms off and so he sent me for a full scan to be sure to be sure and then get back to him.
This also proved clear and so I was quite positive when I went back to see him.
“So how are things with the waterworks?” He asked me.
“Fine” said I.
He then gave me a fairly close quiz on the workings of my waterworks, suddenly making me realise that they weren’t working at all that well.
He then looked at me with some exasperation and said ” You call that fine ?”I can see at least half a dozen different reasons why you should have already consulted me about your bladder functions , Your prostate is so oversized that your bladder is now overworked and I fear for its future functioning. You need a prostate reduction operation to get it back in shape”. It was not, I felt for me to argue so I agreed to come back at the end of January to get this done. (It’ll take about a five day stay” he told me)

So dutifully, on Monday 29th January I arrived at St. Privat Clinic to get the job done the following day- It did begin to strike me at that stage that I’d hardly be home by the week end.
Job done, the following afternoon I ended up in the bed in my room fitted with a catheter ( so the peeing was automatic) and with various other tubes hanging from my person. And, post a general anaesthetic, feeling fairly ropey.
I was inserted with two tubes, one pumping saline into my insides and the other, the catheter, flushing it away.This went on for some days as we taught the reduced prostate to work again.
Finally on Monday I was detubed, it was established that I could remember how to pass water sans catheter and I went home.
First thing on Tuesday morning my troubles started.
A sudden excruciating pain in the passing water department which then persisted.
It seemed that some clots from the prostate were blocking the urethera.
Sile rushed me back to the hospital, as I howled in pain, rigid on the seat, there I was soon fed morphine until I returned to something approaching human.
I wasn’t back there long before Dr. S was by my elbow, soothing and reassuring. Plainly I was causing some concern.
I then went back to my hospital bed into the double tubing flushing routine for another week.
The following Monday I made my second break for the border and went home.
This time I lasted until the following day when I was feeling seriously unwell and could no longer take my self to the toilet unaided.
There was a fear that some clots had found their way to my brain so I was packed off for tests into the general hospital in Beziers.
There I was tested extensively and it was established that my brain was still OK so my troubles were physical rather than neurological and they packed me back ( in a fully sirened ambulance) to St. Privat. Again I was hugely reassured when D. S appeared like a ministering angel at my elbow shortly as I got in there.
Here I went through another gamut of tests and scans. It was established that my staggers was caused by chronic low blood pressure and low blood salt and eventually we were able to trace the cause of this to an infection in one of my kidneys caused by further clots which had happened while the prostate surgery was on.
Dr S then came to tell me that I was going to need another operation this time to drain the infected kidney. “ This is most unusual “ he told me “ But it will make you better I promise.”
And so to general anaesthetic number two and back into recovery mode.
I then lay in the bed for about four days being fed salt on a drip and iron on another while my kidney was drained through another tube through my back.
All in efforts to get me back to shape.
They worked.
I began to feel stronger.
Dr. S was a constant visitor, always gentle, always caring, always reassuring.
Gradually I was detubed over last weekend and by Tuesday I was deemed fit to go home again.
I still have one tube on board in my kidney and that comes out in April in Dr. S’s surgery.
So that’s me and that’s the story of my operation. I will keep you informed as I progress.

Chefs in whites fill the pews in Lyon Cathedral for Paul Bocuse’s funeral.

This picture (courtesy of Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe via Ruth Hegarty, and possibly taken by Gerry Galvin of Drimcong House) was taken near Dromoland House in 1994.
Ireland were that year hosting the Euro-Toques AGM and this was a side party having a picnic during a shoot.
It shows:
Michael Ryan from Arbutus Lodge in Cork later Isaacs in Cork , Paul Bocuse with possibly his wife, Daniel Rameau from Luxembourg, Pierre Romeyer from Belgium and John Howard from the Coq Hardi in Dublin.
It was before my time in Euro Toques, I think I joined the following year, but I met most of those photographed except the great Bocuse himself.

“And then the dawn, with silver sandalled feet
Crept like a frightened girl”

Oscar Wilde nails winter sunrises.

I am fascinated by the word Courbature- at the moment it comes up constantly in ads on the TV here in France, it is, it appears a symptom of ‘flu.

The best dictionary translation seems to be ache- but this is complicated by by the same word also referring to a disease in horses.

The Good Larousse gives a short etymology saying it is a joining of court (short) and battu (beaten) which would ( to me) indicate feeling like one had been briefly beaten- good description for the aches you get at the onset of ‘flu- but somehow- it doesn’t convince.

Since we came to Le Presbytere for the first time our one constant on Rue Lentheric has been Monsieur Gramage who lives just three doors down the street from us.
It is very sad to see the condolance book outside the door this morning which tells us that he died last night. He was, his daughter tells us, 92 since October.
He was the most wonderful gentle man and to us he was Thezan, always a greeting, a handshake and a smile.
On hot days in summer he would sit on his little stone bench at the top of Rue del Catet- “to catch any breeze” he told me.
The last time I talked to him he was walking up from the Super U with his groceries, I stopped and asked would he like a lift “No” he grimaced” they have said I have to walk”
I love that when Olivier Costa painted the Trompe l’Oeil in Del Catet they showed M. Gramage puffing up the stairs in the background.
It is certainly no coincidence that just this morning I have discovered that his christian name was “Angel”
We will miss him.

It was a long time before we moved to France and we were buying wine to take home to Ireland.
Having looked at the bottles in a vineyard in Burgundy I asked the proprietor if he had it in BIB’s
” Vous avez des bag-in-box ?
” Mais Oui !” he said ” Mais qu’est-ce que c’est, bag-in-box en Anglais ?”

Living in an old presbytery right next to the church makes one very aware of the bells, especially the funeral bells, they have such a sonorous and steady rhythm which, unlike the ringing of the hours,cuts into your life.
This is probably exactly what they were designed to do, sounding a momento mori with each stroke.
Over the years we have noticed that January is the most popular month for funerals and this year , 2018, is no exception.

Nearly every day in the last seven we have heard the bells toll warning us of a death in the village- today they are tolling again.
But today’s death was a little special, he must have been once a fireman as the coffin was carried into the church by firemen in their full uniform.

There are a lot of mourners today, firemen; Les Sappeurs Pompiers, are held in huge esteem here, where it is often only their skill and courage which protects us from the lightning fast fires which can rip through the undergrowth in the height of an arid summer.

I’ve just been Murmurated.

I was standing on the terrace this morning, not particularly admiring the dull weather when a swarm of starlings flew in wonderful cloud formation between me and the Pech, the little hill across the valley from our house, and then disappeared to the east. While I was still marvelling at their incredible flying ability I was engulfed with a breathless whoosh of air as they flew over the house from the north and skimmed the terrace flying south. I ducked in momentary terror as they seemed to flow like a wave just over my head but of course I had nothing to fear, their formation work was, as ever impeccable and within nano seconds they had flowed over the Pech and off to the south.
Awesome display.