Tests and Repairs

This is not our house. It's just a cool doorway that I saw on my way to work yesterday. It seems to be in the middle of some kind of renovation. It's a shame whoever installed the now-removed entrance canopy had to cut through that terra cotta panel (from 1892!) to do it.

Speaking of renovations, our property managers were supposed to send someone yesterday to look at the roof of our garden shed and estimate the repair costs. But if anyone was here they left no trace, and left my note attached to the shed door (explaining what I thought needed to be done) apparently untouched. So who knows what's going on there.

Today I have to hustle myself over to the hospital for some blood tests. I am not looking forward to it, mostly because the hospital isn't incredibly easy to get to from where we live. It's not far distance-wise, but it's up a hill toward the Heath and there are no direct buses (probably because people who live in rarified Hampstead don't want buses on their residential streets). The only bus I could take goes all the way down to Swiss Cottage, over to Belsize Park and back up to Hampstead -- essentially a big U-shape that involves a lot of extra travel. I could take the overground, but by the time I walk to and from the stations at both ends I may as well just climb the darn hill.

So, yeah. Medicine. I'm enduring some medical drama here, and I don't want to say much about it, because I don't really know what to say yet. I'm still having tests. I have a telephone consultation with a specialist on Thursday. This is all related to my long-standing stomach issues, and the acid reflux that has in the past also affected my breathing. As I said the other day, I've made some diet modifications but I have not been feeling great and I am worried something could be seriously amiss.

Remember when I was going to have that endoscopy in early 2021, and I didn't go through with it because my symptoms got better and the doctors didn't seem concerned, and then we had a massive Covid surge and I didn't want to go to a medical facility, blah blah blah? Well, now I wish I'd had it. Shoulda coulda woulda.

Anyway, at the moment there is nothing to report -- only the phantoms in my own mind, which I am trying hard not to allow to run rampant. Last week I was barely sleeping, but this week my panic has subsided enough that I'm feeling better. If and when I know more, we'll go from there. I will be seriously bummed if some medical issue gets in the way of our South America trip at the end of June (not to mention the rest of my life).

Remember the library tiger? It disappeared for a while, but now it's back. Perhaps it was living behind some books, hiding out -- or hibernating, maybe. Yesterday someone positioned it on the shelf as if to read the spines of our big cat books. I thought that was pretty clever.

Oh, I finished the library inventory. We have lost track of 40 books over the past year. That sounds like a lot, but I suspect some of them aren't truly lost -- they were probably spirited away in the short-term by absent-minded kids who simply forgot to check them out. I imagine they'll be back within the next few weeks. Others, however, seem well and truly gone. If it hasn't been seen by the computer in the past year, that's a pretty good sign it may be lost and/or stolen. If it's not back by June, it's probably gone for good.