It is almost a week since my last report on the progress that Kitty is making following her operation and return home.

You will be pleased to hear that things are moving in the right direction and every day sees another small step to return to something like normality. Kitty manages to go on her exercise cycle every morning for half an hour and also does exercises with her rubber bands to strengthen her arms and upper body. She is determined to get fit that is for sure. Using an electric toothbrush was major milestone, as was using the hoover.

The nurse comes in every morning at 7.30am to take her off her feed/water drip and to dress her wounds and again at 6.30 pm to put her back onto the feed trolly and to check on her general well being. So you can rest assured that she is being looked after well.

During the week, we visited her speech therapist at Roquebrune who tried to find out from Kitty all the details of her operation. A series of appointments for the rest of the month were made for her, with next one being tomorrow evening.

A visit to her hairdresser yesterday morning went down very well especially the head massage she was given by him while Kitty was having her hair done, Ann and I went to the supermarket for our weekly shop and had an awful trip back as the traffic was simply terrible. Poor Kitty was kept waiting and she was nor too happy about that.

The week included a few visits to the chemist and Kitty and I even went to a Jazz concert held at a church in the centre of Menton. It was quite boring, so we left early and Kitty bought me a coffee at the Hotel Balmoral.

On Tuesday morning, Kitty had an appointment at the Hospital in Nice for a general check up on all her many wounds. The one on her arm had the dressing removed and it is not a very pretty sight. She now needs to keep it open but dressed with Vaseline. The dressing on her neck was reduced in size which revealed two large scars down both sides of her neck. I can’t imagine what poor Kitty has gone through this past month. The dressing on her leg was enlarged as the old one was far too small. The nurses were very pleased with the progress that her wounds were making to heal, so very positive news there. We had to make another visit to the Chemist in the afternoon to collect further dressings for the home nurses to use.

The weather has changed here towards the later part of the week with a lot of rain this morning. I did quite a lot of work in the garden during the week trimming the very many trees and bushes. Cutting down trees, raking the ground of the thousand of leaves and reshaping the flower beds. A couple of falls on the steps and a sore shoulder was what I had to show for my efforts. I was going to do more work in the garden this morning but was prevented from doing so because of the rain.

Nico was back from his 13 day holiday in Columbia and came to see Kitty last evening. She was really very pleased to see her son. The love that they have for each other is very easy and a pleasure to see. Nico is going to try to see if he can get a visa for us to stay on here for at least an extra couple of weeks, so that we can continue to look after Kitty. He appears to have some contacts who may be able to help us with this. Here’s keeping our fingers crossed.

Kitty has some big milestones to still get over - seeing her Consultant and then a dietician to get her to learn to swallow and what food to eat first without the drips.

Here’s hoping that this Blog on Kitty finds you all in good health and not too traumatised on the Conservative party leadership contest, the cost of living crisis and the illegal boat immigrants. Have a good day?!