20/07/20 grass carp, and normality

Not much today, except for temperature back to normal and no indication of any other problem. Did the weekly cat drinking fountain maintenance and clean-up (should have been Saturday but I forgot) and the pump died for some reason I haven't figured out and probably never will. Searching suggested the only way to get a replacement pump was from Amazon in the USA, so I ordered a complete new cat fountain from Amazon UK. The old one had lasted three years...

Yesterday Sue found one of our two new grass carp in the small pond dead. No obvious sign of disease or heron attack. That left us with just one small grass carp to tackle the blanket weed, and it's clearly too much for him on his own (you may remember that a couple of weeks ago we moved our big grass carp down to the bigger pond because he had outgrown his first home). So I've ordered a new bigger one and a small yellow goldfish - because of the complications of minimum orders and delivery charges that actually worked out cheaper than just the grass carp) and they should be here on Wednesday. I hope that will get the blanket weed as well under control as it was before we moved the big fish out.

So, in the middle of all this, "normal" life goes on. After a fashion. I had an email from Fleece Jazz at Stoke-by-Nayland asking if I would be interested in going to an outdoors gig with all the best social distancing and etc.. Well, I am interested but I've made a decision that there'll be no more live music for me until we have a vaccine that works for the immune-compromised and at least one effective treatment for COVID-9, however long that takes. I don't like it but that's the way it has to be. Quite a change after being out two or three times most weeks for the last several years.

We got out for a walk round the nature reserve (i.e. landscaped ex-dump) near Moreton, and after that I made some butter then did an early dinner before our regular online Sunday quiz. 56/60 this time, with a good deal of luck involved.

So yes, normality - or as close to it as one can get during these Plague Years - continues, but always with something of a dark cloud overhead even on the best of days. "Fighting" myeloma is largely a matter of learning to live - and, I suppose, eventually learning to die - with it. And a very large part of that is keeping involved with what used to be normal life. If I spent every hour of every day thinking and worrying about my cancer I'd go crazy - you have to believe that life holds more than that. For several years yet, at the least.

Last night was the first of BBC4's run of old Proms concerts. We saw the start of it and I'll catch up on the rest later. There was nostalgia for all those Proms we've been to over the years, fears for the future of the orchestras and conductors and soloists - not to mention the venues and the audiences for top quality live music - and a realisation of just how delicate and vulnerable is the whole structure that used to keep the system going. Not just for international touring orchestras and soloists, but for the venues all the way from the Albert Hall down to provincial jazz clubs. I used to be just a small cog in that huge machine, helping to keep it going by occupying seats and paying my tickets. It doesn't feel right to be outside it all at this critical stage.

Later today, a 'phone consultation with Dr.Ch. I expect I'll report.