Sailing by

 Today should have been the first day of our ridiculously extravagant holiday. It was only a cruise round the UK but we really did push the boat out (no pun intended). On Monday, when it became clear that P’s health was declining quite rapidly, rather than being a downward blip, I had to cancel it. 

Of course, the cruise (Fred Olsen) was entirely unsympathetic and charged us the full cost, right down to trips we had had to book only the week before  to get ashore. We could have gone anyway and risked P needing medical attention, being taken to hospital or even air lifted out, but it seemed very selfish and unfair on other passengers and the crew. Not something that was taken into account when deciding not to reimburse us any money, not any compassion shown for a pretty difficult situation . So to anyone else, I’d say cause as much disruption as you like - or don’t book with Fred Olsen at all. I certainly won’t. 

It would have been lovely to get away but P has suddenly and shockingly deteriorated. He has been very positive and optimistic throughout the last two years, but he says he feels like he’s dying now. He is not so angry but he is grief stricken and worried about me. Any strong emotion brings the onset of tears - and if one of us goes, the other one does too. And he has become quite thin and frail. I’ve had to work from home as he has needed me. For little things but also getting past the receptionists to get the GP to call and issue prescriptions. It was my birthday on Friday and quite apart from spending that week cancelling a whole range of nice plans, it was a really rotten day: somehow it being a day that should have been happy, made it all that much harder.