Cancer 146

We are sitting in the Grand Hotel, Amsterdam, having a cup of tea. Tomorrow we go home to England. Three weeks abroad and I am having my first decent cup of tea (excluding in the rental house where I used my own teabags) since I left home. Real English tea, real milk, made with boiling water so it is properly mashed. Excellent!

We are in the library of the hotel. It is very comfortable and pleasant. The building itself is a reminder of working in Helsinki, Judenstil, similar to so many Helsinki buildings such as the railway station.

I am very tired and a little stressed. Two days of driving wearies me far more than it used to. We are staying in a hotel just outside Amsterdam and I was/am worried about coming into the city. So much can go wrong when you have a stoma (eg leaks, filling and needing changing quickly). My heart drugs mean I need to urinate often and there are not toilets everywhere. My body is intensely aching so I can’t walk far. My operation wound leaked yesterday, wetting my trousers – at the front so it looks like I have wazzed myself. I didn’t, honest. All in all going into a city is very stressful and unpleasant. Fortunately this hotel is relaxing.

I only came in to go to the American Book Centre (sorry, I can’t type US spellings), which looks like it had an eclectic selection of books, a little like the Helsinki Academic Bookshop.

Still, if I give up rising to the challenge of something like entering a city (even though I have never liked entering cities) I might as well give up on life. Keep putting the effort in, even if it is painful. A general rule for life.