Hard times...

Yesterday my car died on me, it was fine, absolutely fine to drive to the hospital for my midwife appointment and back, and then to Waitrose and back. I unloaded the shopping and made up a picnic intending to take mum and Ben and meet J for lunch by the sea. We got into the car. I started the engine.
It chugged and died, I tried again, same thing and a warning "Emissions Workshop!"
I called J, then the AA, then a local SEAT garage.
The AA came and took it away.
I'm waiting to hear what it will cost to repair, it won't be pretty...

Meanwhile FIL is in Harefield Hospital and very ill.

There have been days of waiting for results etc but we're beginning to get a clearer picture. His heart's in a bad way. They can't do a bypass as there is too much dead tissue already. So tomorrow they'll operate to put in 3 stents, as a "holding measure". 

J can't get there, even if I weren't about to have the twins, the airport is fog bound. And anyway, things get worse...

I had a phone call last night to tell me that an old friend from Salisbury had died. 

Dene was only 51, and had everything to live for, great children, a wonderful wife, a community who adored him and lovely faith in God.  He died suddenly on Sunday morning and the world will be a poorer place without him. My world certainly will, and that of the twins, as we would have asked him to be their Godfather. I'm so thankful that he and Bev, his wife, came to stay with us last summer and the children got to know him. He was a Group Scout leader and had led the cubs along with Bev while I was a youth worker in Salisbury.  He will be so missed and so many lives were the richer for knowing him, young men and women the country over owe him a debt for the things he taught them and inspired them to do.

And then this morning I've had an anaesthetist appointment, and as ever I'm not straightforward.  My iron levels have now dropped to 7.7, I will need a transfusion. In fact they're talking about giving me 2 units on Friday, to give it chance to oxygenate before the caesarian, and then more during the op itself.

It never rains but it pours eh?