Getting Smaller But With A Joyous Heart

How wonderful the weather has been here in the UK recently. Several wonderful sunlit days and temperatures on Saturday reaching 28c and a weekend that was hotter than Corfu! It was a real social weekend for us, with youngest Son Yousef(Jo) arriving on Saturday evening just as I was finishing a lovely Safari Supper in the village. I'm sure you know the type of thing, you all start together in one house and then informed where you will have your starters, after you have enjoyed that, you are told where to go for your main course and then every group ends up together in the final house for the desserts, cheese, biscuits and coffee. It was a warm balmy evening and so lovely to walk the lanes of our pretty little village, everyone going in different directions and passing each other again as we changed scenes. The organizer cleverly selected the houses I would attend, close by to our home, so for me on my walks to the next part of the meal, I was able to check in on Hamada. He is not well enough to attend this type of social occasion, so he chose to stay at home with very special supper tray. We could also kept in touch by mobile throughout the evening and we also have the wonderful 'Link-Line' alarm system fitted, so he wears the special pendant that will call anyone on his list immediately, should he feel unwell or need help. A wonderful system which allows me to relax some.
On Sunday which was again a very warm day, we had a lovely roast beef lunch at our village pub. Jo driving Hamada the little way, in his rather sporty car with the roof down, which Hamada so enjoyed (see Photo).
The other photo was taken during our meal and it saddens me very much to see how small Hamada has become. Of course I realized that before and am aware it's the nature of this beastly illness that has robbed him of 6" in height but recently he has become so much smaller in stature and seeing it clearly in this photo has confirmed these changes for me. After our rather good roast beef, we had a very lovely date to keep. One of the stalwarts of our village reached the grand age of ninety and we attended a garden party in her honour. Hamada made a supreme effort to be at this occasion as he is very fond of this particular rather marvellous lady.
The hosts of this wonderful event found Hamada a good seat under the shade of a large umbrella and with Jo's help he settled in very comfortably and managed a good time catching-up with all his old friends that through this long winter and last exhausting round of chemo, he had not been able to chat with in quite a while. What a change this lovely weather brings, we forget how important it is to those who are unwell. How it brought a sparkle to his eyes and such joy to his heart as each and everyone came to chat with him, almost as much a celebrity as the marvellous lady to whom Hamada had been so anxious to pay his birthday respects to.