There is better news on the Oscar front today.

After yesterday’s stress, I woke at 4am this morning and found it difficult to settle again. I’m starting to feel a bit abandoned by the world outside as it continues with its daily life.

In any case it’s not long before the Oncologist calls with the good news that Oscar’s fever has abated and he’s looking back to normal. They have ruled out pneumonia and she thinks it’s a case of his body reacting to secretions by his splenic tumour. 

The ultrasound scan they performed on him yesterday was useful: the growth on his liver has not enlarged in the last year and the splenic tumour has grown only a little. I try to stop myself worrying about the MAST tumour on his shoulder or the fact that even the tiniest splenic tumour could burst and precipitate internal bleeding at any time. I’ve lived with these realities for a year now and he’s not getting any younger. Every new day is a bonus. At any rate, he’ll soon be on his way home. Thanking all the vets involved in his care and friends who have sent their warm wishes takes most of the rest of the morning.

Today’s Time to Walk is Dr Sanjay Gupta, a health policy adviser to CNN, who is interesting in that his heritage and the issues he faced growing up in predominantly white USA are familiar though, of course, he’s hugely successful. I muse further on the idiosyncratic musical taste of these successful people who aren’t musicians. They are usually based on family memories rather than memorable music.

I am becoming more familiar with the intricacies of the Bach, which is reassuring. A big effort for the next couple of weeks and I should be able to crack it in time for the concert. The fear lurks, however, that I’m going to be asked to audition to see whether, after all of this time away, I’m able to perform. I can understand why that’s the case: I just hope that it’s later rather than sooner.

I crochet the last row of the blanket that I’m able to finish for the time being. I have run out of the yarn I was using in this colourway and have had to order another skein from London just to complete the final two rows. The postage is almost as much as the price of this one skein of yarn. Everything has to be sent by courier, you see, because the once quick and reliable airmail post no longer exists because of the lack of cargo flights due to our strict quarantine rules. 

Time, then, for another couple of episodes of Friends, which I’m watching from the beginning, episodes I’ve never seen. I can see why my woke offspring find it horrifyingly dated: some of the attitudes to diversity and sex are incredibly old-fashioned. But people really did think like that in those days. It’s still quite funny, though.