"Take time to smell the roses"

I had such a horrible day yesterday, I have been struggling with a bad cough for weeks and it caused me to have an asthma attack at work. It left me feeling dreadful, struggling to breathe and very shaky and scared. When I got home it was clear that Robbie was in so much pain that he was struggling to cope, it make me feel so useless because I can't make it better for him. I think we both had a bad night and I was less than enthusiastic this morning when the alarm clock insisted that it was time to face another day. When I walked out to the car, I noticed that our roses are out, there is a mass of yellow buds on the rose bush near the front door and there are deep pink flowers on the climbing rose at the side of the garage. They must have been in flower for several days but I hadn't noticed. I expect today will still be challenging but taking a few moments to enjoy the roses really brightened my morning.

The Doc Shop

Robbie has been pestering me to take him to Wollaston  for for months, but I have been putting off the inevitable  because I knew that it would prove expensive and once he knew how near it was he would want to go every week! The cause of all this excitement is the Doc shop and everyone who knows Robbie will know about his passion for Dr Marten's, so Tuesday found us heading to the Doc Shop.


Robbie is a man of many passions (some would say too many!) and even more obsessions. In order to accommodate his interest in old railway architecture and to enable him to spot traces of long lost railway lines we took a contorted but attractive route to Wollaston. It also took us past Dunkley's Resturant a unique (and very good) restaurant with a railway theme built on the site of the old Castle Ashby station. 

When we got to the Doc Shop there was a nice large car park and a not very promising looking building. What looked like a side entrance was in fact the entrance to the shop and we made a rather doubtful entrance. We found that we had walked into a 'tardis', a large shop packed with Dr Martens of every possible colour and design. Robbie was bouncing around like Tigger when suddenly a bright yellow pair of boots caught his eye. I was so grateful when he found out that they didn't have his size! 

The next hour or so was taken up with Robbie trying on shoes and boots and falling in love with every pair he tried. In the end he settled for a very smart pair of black Chelsea boots, a purple pair of 1461 shoes and a pair of absolutely unspeakable shoes that he has forbidden me to discuss. I love him very much and I want him to have footwear that makes him feel good, it is not easy for him coping with pain and 'disobedient' legs, but I must have been mad to let him buy those - my only defence is that love is blind!! I am doing my best to persuade him that he should keep them in the box in mint condition as a collectors item, but that may be an uphill struggle! Anyway we left the shop having paid less than the price of one normal priced pair of Dr Martens and Robbie had a big grin on his face all the way home!

You Can't Be Serious!

Last week Robbie insisted that I had lost his favourite yellow top, allegedly he had searched everywhere and he couldn't find it. I hadn't touched his T-shirt, and I knew that it wouldn't be far away so I didn't take much notice of Robbie. The next thing I knew he arrived home from work with a new seriously yellow top, it was so yellow it almost knocked you over! He claimed that everyone at work loved it - maybe they are all colourblind! I didn't like it, it gave me a headache just looking at it, and anyway after all the drivel emanating from the Liberal Democrat conference this week I don't want to see anything yellow for a very long time. Surprisingly as soon as he had replaced his 'lost' top the original reappeared, I have my own conspiracy theory about that!

Robbie has been in a serious strop recently, and in the process of acknowledging that he had said some deeply unpleasant things he offered to have his mouth sewn up, it will not happen of course, but it is such a tempting thought! Unfortunately Robbie and silence are strangers to each other.