Yet more cats in the garden pictures

Yet more cats in the garden pictures, a set on Flickr.

I apologise for the repetitive nature of my photos lately but the weather has been nothing but rain, hail and storms. When we do get a break it's often in the evening and I don't have time to go out, so I have to use what I have to hand, which is the garden and the cats!

Today our first cherry blossoms flowered. As leaves had already begun to unfurl I had thought we wouldn't get blossom this year. We've only had the tree a year so I wasn't disappointed if it it didn't flower. But there are tiny white buds all over the tree and the most delicate blossom emerging from them.

I'm going to walk along the river soon - weather permitting with my camera to hopefully get photos of the swans, ducks and geese.

It was Jason's birthday today. Sadly he had to work and then had a horrendous journey home tonight. When h got in Id made him a birthday cake and peanut butter cookies which hopefully made up for his difficult day.

Theatre weekend

My parents came to stay on Saturday so we could all go to see Noises Off at the theatre on Saturday afternoon for Jason's birthday. Noises Off has just moved to the Novello theatre but has kept most of it's cast including Celia Imrie. I haven't laughed so much in ages, it was a truly magnificent performance. There's a review here from the Guardian from 4th April. We also managed to fit in a lovely lunch at Cafe Rouge and a dinner at the Stratton Hotel in Biggleswade.

Yesterday was a rather quiet day at home, my parents left fairly early so missed the hail and thunder storms that we had in the afternoon. The cats did not like the thunder one bit, poor things. We spent most of the day watching DVDs and TV. A real lazy Sunday.

Today I caught up with the latest dark Scandinavian BBC4 drama The Bridge on the iPlayer. It's not quite the first season of the Killing but it's up there as one of the best opening episodes to a crime drama I've seen.

Friday photos

Happy Salmon's photostream on Flickr.

Its been a tough week. Since my visit to Moorfields I've been taking my eye drops and trying to find ways to cope with my new vision problems. The good news is I think the eyedrops are working as some of the blurriness seems to be going.

As there's been nothing but rain all week I've been stuck indoors and not able to take as many photos as I'd like. But tonight I went out to take some pictures in the garden and of the stormy skies.

My parents are coming to stay tomorrow so I've been getting the spare room aired and even put some lovely flowers in there. I'm a good daughter :-)

April showers

April showers, a set on Flickr.

The photos I uploaded below straight to my blog didn't come out very well. So here is a link to them on Flickr

Back to Moorfields hospital and April showers

I ended up back at Moorfields eye hospital again yesterday. Those of you who follow my blog regularly know that since 2 lots of eye surgery last summer I've had some problems with inflammation in my left eye, double vision and pain. I've been taking steroid eye drops for a while now to control it.

Recently I noticed a blurriness in my central vision in my left eye. But it went away after a few days. Then yesterday suddenly the blurry blob in my central vision came back and was joined by another blurry blob. The effect is quite disorientating. When I was waiting to cross the road yesterday approaching cars would disappear into my blurry blind spot - very scary.

As always the hospital staff were great. The Dr I saw spent a long time examining my eye and even took a special 3d image of my retina with some fancy imaging machine. It showed that I have Cystoid Macula Oedema - swellings within my retina. It's painless, probably caused by inflammation from the op last year but it can cause permanent sight loss if not treated or if it's complicated in some way.

Treatment is steroid & anti-inflammatory eyedrops to begin with 2 types 4x a day. Hopefully that will do the trick but if not there is other treatments like steroid injections. Hopefully the eyedrops will work and the blurry blob blind spots in my central vision will go too. But it can take several months.

It's all been a lot to take in and I'm trying to get used to my new blurry blob vision! Close to stuff is easier but distance is harder as the blobs can blank out more stuff in the distance. If you know what I mean?

On a brighter note after some heavy rain I popped out into the garden to take some photos which are below. Tried a different lens which really worked well.