Miles

The news was mixed when mum went to the hospital. They had removed all the cancer during the surgery, but there was an "instability", which means that they have recommended that she has a mastectomy. Understandably, mum is not thrilled by this prospect. She seems to be in a phase where she is trying to find a source of information that suggests a mastectomy is not the only course of action, so that she at least feels like she has a choice - even though she will then choose to have the mastectomy. I went to the hospital with mum on Tuesday and we looked at photos post reconstructive surgery etc and that was helpful. Mum is still taking time to make up her mind though.

G and I went away on Thursday for the weekend. We decided to walk 20 miles along the canal from Bath to Caen Hill Locks in Devizes. We did this over two days, and my sister joined us for the second day. She was meant to be there for both days, but couldn't get the time off from work.

We had a really good time, and the walk was enjoyable, despite torrential rain on Friday afternoon that even my waterproof coat and waterproof trousers could not withstand, and blisters bursting on one of my feet as I started the very gentle gradient at Caen Hill Locks. A very satisfying thing to do with a weekend though. We are now thinking about attempting a thirty mile walk (over three days) along the canal from Birmingham to Worcestor. I like walking long distances, but without having to deal with going up and down hills and so forth. Canal walks are the ideal solution. We did, however, struggle to find the car at the end of the walk. We had dropped my sister's car off in the morning and then driven back to the start of the walk. We hadn't checked exactly where the canal was in relation to the car park, and so trying to find the car as the sun was rapidly going down was not the kind of challenge we needed having walked 10 miles to get there. We made it though, and did finally find the car.