I'm baaaack

Hello my friends, I have MISSED you. I have had a bit of access to the internet over the last couple of weeks and I've tried to check in and see how ya'all are doing, but I'm waaay behind.

I love England. What a beautiful country, even when the weather is grayer and wetter than I care for. The air was so clean and I could read all the street signs and the advertising. It was so easy to get around by walking and taking the underground. People watching was a great activity - fashion victims left and right. Looked like the return of Abba with pleather and fake fur. Lots of pointy toes and spike heels. And knitted boob holders? Can't believe women do this to themselves voluntarily.

I saw several doctors and while waiting for various test results to come in had free time to go visiting museums (my favorite far and away - the British Library) and see movies ("Serenity," which just made me overwhelmingly sad that it went by so quickly - this should have been hours and hours of quality tv - and "Wallace and Gromit - Curse of the Were-Rabbit" which was fun, but "Wrong Trousers" is still my favorite) and eat some excellent food. I loaded up on the salads, which have come a long way since my first trip to England in 1982 when all you could get was iceberg lettuce with something called "salad creme" but which seemed to be mayo.

I didn't work on any of the needlework I took with me, but I did read a lot. I finished Ian Rankin's "Fleshmarket Close," another excellent Inspector Rebus mystery set in Edinburgh Scotland, and "Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell" about 19th century English magicians. The writing style fits the period and I expected it to be a harder read than it actually was; I wouldn't say I loved it, but it was enjoyable.

We were all set to come back home last week but then the radiologist giving a second opinion on my MRIs said he thought I had a certain kind of arthritis that can only be taken care of surgically. D'oh. I ended up having arthroscopic surgery on Wednesday. They did some biopsies as well as scraping out some of that pesky synovium (the knee lining that is causing me all the trouble). The results haven't come back in. Here's hoping I do have Ankylosing Spondylitis (the tentative diagnosis the rheumatologist gave me and which is treated with meds) and not the icky kind of arthritis that has to be removed surgically over and over again. Anyway, the doctors and nurses took excellent care of me and I'm recovering much quicker than I expected to. I managed to get around the airport just fine yesterday tho I was thankful my sweetie was there to help me.

Now I have loads and loads of laundry to do and kitties to be loved on. And lots of blogging to catch up on.