We're home again

We stayed last night at UJ's house nearer to Papworth, and early this morning, I snapped some photos of some of his plants on my phone, so the quality of the pictures isn't the best, but you get the ideas!

This is a bed of Lenten roses which has been in this position for many years, and has just got bigger and bigger!

This is one of a pair of beautiful plants he has in the conservatory.  His neighbour gave him them as cuttings and he did tell me what they are called, but I have forgotten [sorry!] and I think you will agree that they are quite stunning.

This is the other of the pair.

This shows you a little more of the plant and how its leaves fall out from a central stem.

A bed of early primroses just outside the back door.  I think the woody stem above them is a japonica and it has the most glorious flowers a little later in the season.

Another clump of primroses near a stone planter.

The beauty of the house's situation is that it backs onto fields and we sat up in bed early this morning [from 5.30am!] watching an owl and some ducks flying over in the early light, and then we could see the lights of cars on a distant road, and the clouds scuttling across the sky as it got light.  There are some stables in one of the fields and we watched as the stablehands came to work, three in separate cars and then one on a bike!  It is a very quiet and peaceful place, and the FH calls it the "country lodge"!

The hospital visit was a long, drawn out affair, as it involved a lot of investigations today - BP, weight, blood tests, chest x-ray, ECG and then an echo [like an ultrasound] on his heart, and then we eventually saw the cardiologist, who is lovely!  He explained that once the warfarin is producing stable results, which he hopes will be mid-May, the electric shock [cardioversion] to put the heart back in to the right rhythm, can go ahead, so we will be getting a letter shortly with a date for that operation - it will be a day case.

The heart is enlarged on one side, and has a leaky valve, but the other side is pumping well.  The cardioversion will not address those problems, but it may help with the overall outcomes, and improve the water flow problem.  In the meantime, the FH remains on the water tablets, and hopes to see some improvement in that situation soon - at least, we hope that the current dosage will ensure he doesn't start to fill up again.

It was a very pleasant day to be driving about the countryside, and it was great to get the FH out of the house and enjoying the sunshine.  We arrived home here to find UJ doing a spot of gardening for me, and he has planted pea and broad bean seeds for me this afternoon.  Tonight I have put 25 GPO eggs in the incubator, so I am hoping for new life to spring forth everywhere in a few weeks!