SPARING A THOUGHT FOR EGYPT

I can’t claim to have any political insight, and in fact, even by writing this today, all I’m likely to achieve is to show off how truly ignorant I am, but it’s very difficult to watch a country that you mostly only associate with only the fondest of memories going through such terrible difficulties as Egypt seems to be going through at present.

It’s difficult, of course, to focus my attentions on just this one country, because so many other countries - Australia and Tunisia to name but two - are also going through their own difficult times, but having recently visited Egypt I feel a sort of “bond” with it at the moment, and would hate to think that those of us who visited last year were amongst the last who felt safe enough to do so. It is, by the very nature of its place in the history of civilisation, the most astonishing of countries, and it would be awful if the Egyptian experience were to become unavailable to everyone.

I only went to Egypt for the first time just under a year ago and even then only as a tourist. For two weeks I existed in a kind of tourism “bubble” that probably protected me from much of the reality of life out there in the real world on a day-to-day basis for the citizens of that great country, but there were moments every now and again when their true lives collided with our own, and on occasion, it truly was an eye-opener.

No matter how cosseted you might be as a visitor to the country, you cannot avoid seeing the things you see from your air-conditioned coaches as you speed along the highways from ancient site to ancient site. Children playing in the canals, men and women toiling in the fields and on the river using the most basic of tools. Some homes that looked very basic, other buildings that looked half-completed but in which families were living. At the time I was reading a book about life in medieval England and one or two of the descriptions in it were bought vividly to life by some of the scenes I saw then, in the 21st century.

The ancient wonders of the pyramids juxtapose
majestically with the roads and the apartment blocks

That is not to suggest that I thought that Egypt was primitive. Far from it, but Egypt does come across as being a country of great extremes. The ancient wonders of the pyramids juxtapose majestically with the roads and the apartment blocks. Some of the engineering and architecture I saw was truly awe-inspiring, but some of the more impoverished areas showed us people living in the most basic of circumstances. I can’t tell you whether that range of experience from the “haves” and the “have nots” is playing any part in the current struggles, as we got no sense of any of those sorts of underlying tensions when we were there, but I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me if it had.

Before we went, I’m not really sure now what we actually expected of Egypt. Of course we’d read the guide books and the brochures and had the vaccinations and listened to all the advice, and, having lived fairly sheltered lives when it came to these things, we did approach our holiday with some trepidation, and yet, when I look back on it now, I genuinely believe that during our trip I experienced probably the most relaxing week of my life, and I can only hope that other people will have the opportunity in the very near future to experience some of that for themselves. After all, we all know how very important tourism is to the Egyptian economy and how many families are living better lives because of that industry, and depend upon it for their survival.

There were of course difficulties. No country is perfect to an outsider, and some things, like some of our encounters with traders did sometimes leave the occasional bitter taste in the mouth. There was a fair amount of begging and hustling going on, but that should be expected due to the general poverty we witnessed. There was also the almost permanent need for the discreet but omnipresent police protection which gave the occasional pause for thought, but I imagine that some of the things that visitors to Great Britain have to see seem equally strange and disturbing to them.

Only hope that things will sort themselves out fairly soon and that the rather brilliant inclusive philosophy and culture which meant that you felt safe as a visitor to one of the great nations of the world remains after whatever changes might occur. The political stability that the world viewed as being one of the better things about the country may not have been so widely enjoyed by the people who lived under it, so we can only hope that when the dust settles, there comes out of it a better Egypt for them, as well as for the rest of us.

I was very saddened to hear of the damage done to the artifacts and the monuments by the rioters. For a lot of people, of course, a bit of damage to a few ancient relics won't be all that important, and the bigger picture is the fight for regime change, but I still feel terribly sad that unique and priceless objects that have survived for thousands of years are being destroyed in my lifetime, and that people will look back on these years and wonder what sort of philistines we were. There are few enough things of beauty in this world, and for some people do their very best to preserve them only for others to come along and destroy them seems to be to be one of the sadder little stories to come out of these events.

During our visit, we met many people who live and work in Egypt and we can only hope that they do not suffer too appallingly from any government attempts to restore “order” or, indeed, at the hands of some of the less principled amongst the rioters and looters who might possibly take it upon themselves to take advantage of the situation and redress the imbalances they might see as being in their lives. Equally we hope that others we met who have family and friends over there know that they are all safe and well, and our thoughts are with them at this very difficult time.

EVER SO SLIGHTLY P.O.ED

Really, really not important in the great scheme of things, but, well...
Oh, you know...

Regular visitors to me here in Lesser Blogfordshire (and there are at least two of you) will know of my continuing mild irritation at the minor frustrations that home shopping can bring out of the woodwork, and sadly, I’m here tapping out another slight tale of woe for you today.

You may want to look away now, put your face into your palm or scream “Oh no! Not again!” at this point depending on preference.

During a recent lunchbreak, I took it upon myself to take advantage of a slight gap between the downpours to open up my front door and take a breath of fresh air before returning to my duties and toils in the pursuit of that crust I try to earn.

As I opened the door, there was a slight fluttering sensation in the corner of my eye as a piece of red and white cardboard took flight from the door jamb that had it held feebly in its grip and span ever so elegantly towards the doorstep at my feet.

I bent down to examine it, knowing fully well already what it would be, and I was right. It was a Post Office “Sorry you were out when we tried to deliver your parcel” card. Of course, the assumption behind this statement is that I was actually out, which of course, being dedicated to my desire of crust earning, I was not, but I know very well from past experience that this is something I must learn to live with.

The part of the house I converted into my office space is about as far from the front door as it is possible to be in such a tiny space and so sometimes the feeble tappings that come from our solid metal brass effect door-knocker fail to penetrate the vast distances required and I don’t hear them.

The other issue is of course the lack of a letterbox.

Having suffered the howling gales of far too many winters hereabouts, when we decided to buy new doors and windows from the lovely double glazing people a few years ago, we chose not to have one on that door because of the draughts that used to scream through the old door, aiming to pass straight through us on their way to the chimney and out of our lives. Most of our legitimate postal deliveries came through the back door anyway, so we decided such an opening was unnecessary.

It doesn’t half confuse those lovely people delivering pizza flyers, though.

For some reason, though, some of our parcel delivery couriers prefer to use that door to not deliver their packages to, whilst others use the other one, but there’s seldom any consistency to this and, like a lot of things these days, we’re learning to live with it. Meanwhile they hide their cards under and behind plant pots or sometimes just put them on the step where they’re sure to blow away or, as in this case, attempt to jam them into the slight gap around the door frame and the door itself. I don’t know, but I like to think that if it was me, I might just go and look if there was another letterbox somewhere, not least because there is bound to be one somewhere on most houses I would have thought, but I think my expectations are way too high generally.

Anyway, I picked the card up and read that they tried to deliver this mystery object at 11.00AM (at which time I can assure you, I was very much in) but because I am not psychic enough to have known this beforehand, said package would be returned to the Post Office where I could collect it later.

Now, since the local Post Office that was a short hoppity-skip away was closed due to lack of interest a couple of years ago, at about the same time they took the morning bus away (on the very day that Greater Blogfordshire announced its new exciting plans for better public transport I might add), I now have a five mile round trip to make if I need to make these collections. Interestingly, at a bureaucratic stroke of a pen or two, two of the reasons that made this house so ideal when I chose to buy it, i.e. good transport links and a local Post Office, were suddenly removed without me having any influence at all over the matter. The bus service that was so vital to the few to whom it was essential was “no longer viable” and the Post Office probably would have still closed even if I personally had gone in every single day because, unless everyone else did as well, little old me would not viability have made.

Strangely, of course, for many people now to be able to get to the nearest available Post Office, that redundant bus route would have proved ideal.

Dear old anonymous Postie had helpfully written a number 2 in the blank spot on the card which said that I should leave it a (blank) number of hours before trying to collect it.

“Oh goody!” thunk I, “’tis a quarter to two. That’s nearly three hours!” so I decided to forsake my little lunchtime tea-break/breath-of-fresh-air combo and grabbed the car keys and dragged myself to the Post Office to collect this still mysterious delight from them.

Sadly, the Postie had lied to me. Their “2” was, at best, a vague guesstimate and they were still out and about on the streets of Lesser Blogfordshire writing their little cards and failing to deliver their consignment of wonders to their eager future owners, and I had to return home empty-handed with the mocking laughter of the counter staff still ringing in my ears.

“Ho! Ho! Ho! They had laughed, “You don’t expect them to be able to tell the time as well, do you?”

Frankly, when it’s my time they’re wasting, then, yes, I darned well do! Why on Earth would you write a “2” if you didn’t mean a “2”? It’s not as if I wouldn’t have been quite content if they’d written a “6” to head over there after 5.00PM, is it?

Anyway, I had to go back later, and braved their inevitable mocking tones once more, and I didn’t completely grind my teeth to a pulp in an effort to keep myself calm and not cause a scene when they did.

After all, it’s not as if customer service is something important or worth getting worked up about, is it?

DEAD BLOGS’ SOCIETY

What happens to a blog when it dies? I only ask, not because I’m expecting an earthquake to swallow up Lesser Blogfordshire into the ground any time soon, although it has become somewhat “all-consuming” recently and not necessarily to its benefit, so perhaps I should start to consider the philosophy of “less is more” and reduce the output (and that’s really a thought for another day), but because I genuinely wonder how many of them are sitting out there unloved and unmourned. A hundred million ideas, notions and thoughts that are just lurking out there in cyberspace waiting to be noticed, hoping for their moment in the sun and desperate for that happy moment when one idea meets another and forms a blessed union of synchronicity and understanding and mutual agreement, but somehow they got forgotten or fell between the cracks in the pavements at the edge of the information superhighway.

A zillion half-started (or half-hearted) projects abandoned through lack of time or commitment or reaction or response. All those souls thinking that they’d like to give this blogging lark a go, only to find that they fall a couple of hurdles along the track. But then, their initial thoughts and ideas, their first tentative steps into this brave new and virtual world are still there, taunting them, waiting for them to return to the fray, hoping that they’ll get some more attention from their creator in a possibly slightly (but not completely) “Star Trek-y” kind of a way.

No doubt every blog that has its loyal followers will still annoy some of those people on some days who may very well vow never to return. Some blogs eventually go “virally stratospheric” (or whatever today’s term might be) in their notoriety, and good luck to them,  whilst others merely plod along pleasing the loyal few, doing the job they were designed for, for the group they were intended for, and not bothering anyone else very much as they fulfil their destiny, but for every one of these, how many others fall unnoticed by the wayside? How many just sit down and say “I can’t do this any more” or have their Captain Oates moment and leave us behind with a noble gesture implying a subsequent return that we all know they’ll never manage?

How many blogs just lie down and die?

How does a blog die anyway? I’m told by those in the know that you should be very careful what you write because once you have, then it’s “out there” forever. I’m not so sure. If I look back on one of my rants and find that it no longer fits in with the general world view that I would wish to share I can simply delete it. Granted, if someone’s chosen to copy and paste my pointless meanderings (and in all honestly, why would they?) then that is indeed “out there” but most of my outpourings seem to be so very inconsequential and reach out to so very few of you that I really can’t see how anything I might have thought is going to cause any tremors in the corridors of power or the sewers of the popular press.

Meanwhile, of course, my (Writers’ Group) blog seems to be dying. It’s my fault, of course. I’ve not fed it for months now, instead I’ve concentrated on its more “popular” evil twin, and even fed fiction to it which should really have gone to its weaker sibling.

The dividing line between the two ought to have been “fact” and “fiction”, or possibly “whimsy” and “reality” but the lines have got slightly blurred. For example, should my Christmas tale have really lurked over there rather than smugly unravelling itself across Lesser Blogfordshire? I never can tell, but then many of my musings have been teetering along the borderline and have blurred the edges between those worlds.

Every so often I prepare myself to declare it dead and buried, to admit that Caterina and her ineptly poetic friends are history, and we approach to within a whisker the list of zeroes that would indicate that all hope was lost. But then there is a flicker of interest, a single viewing like an involuntary spasm convinces me that maybe there’s life in the old thing yet, and whilst it’s hard to tell what has been viewed and whether it was only by accident, and the observer scuttled swiftly away in obvious embarrassment at their mistaken intrusion, will never be known to me. Nonetheless, for whatever reason, that tiny monster-of-my-own-making clings desperately on to its continued existence, maybe hoping that one day soon its creator will love it enough to return and give it more sustenance and  perhaps inspire its glorious resurrection.

Or, maybe it is just time to bid it a fond farewell.

Perhaps there is an e-graveyard out there for dead blogs to go to? I wonder about that. Like the fabled “elephant’s graveyard”, maybe a vast pool of latent knowledge and opinion is out there, waiting to be discovered again, waiting to be exploited and mined for the good or ill of humankind.

Or perhaps not.

I could try to artificially breathe some life into its fading body. I could be cynical and drop in phrases about the state of undress of well-known actors and actresses, or imply that my readers could make themselves a fortune if only they would try my secret schemes, which would possibly bring more people in, but I doubt that they’d hang around for long once they’d made to most cursory of inspections.

The truth seems to be that, much like a kettle, from the author’s point of view, a “watched blog” is never viewed anyway. If you go away for a few hours or days the viewings do tend to happen, but if you sit there pathetically watching the thing (and yes, rather tragically, I have been known to do this) the numbers will stay resolutely static. If I just leave it alone it will no doubt find its place in the big wide web-world and the one or two people a month who come across it will deal with it as they will, and there’s not much I can do about it.

So, it still waits there, not least in case the fledgling writers’ group ever decides to reform and begin to exchange opinions. I would say “again” but, well… you know.

Of course, it’s not dead, it’s resting…

It might very well be seriously holed beneath the waterline and sinking fast, but it’s still afloat, still hanging on in there and not yet ready to be consigned to the scrapheap just yet.

Very like its creator, in fact.

THE WHOLE SORRY SAGA (PART TEN)

Another of my continuing diaries chronicling my mother’s current hospitalisation as we plod on through week nine of our little saga that started way back in November. Again I’ll apologise if you are tiring of them, but there are other funkier musings to be found in other parts of Lesser Blogfordshire if you look for them.

We left off with me in the process of redecorating mum’s flat for her suspected imminent release…

JAN 23 2011

Despite the fatigue, I have a lousy night’s sleep and wake up frequently and finally get up stupidly early. I then wake the beloved at 7:30AM on a Sunday morning and, after a brief breakfast, we head on over to mum’s flat again and spend the entire day wallpapering. By 5.30PM it’s all done and tidied and, whilst probably not up to anyone’s professional standards, it looks pretty good, and a heck of a lot better than it did, even if I say so myself.

We head to the beloved’s parents house to drop off some of the borrowed decorating equipment and they spontaneously feed us, and then, as we were passing by that way on our way home, we decide to pay a quick unexpected evening visit to mum.

The conversation is much as yesterday, wanting to know the outcome, worries about home cooking as it’s generally been another dull Sunday on the ward. The snapshots we took of the decorating are at least a distraction even if, when viewed on a tiny screen, I wonder how much can be seen. Still mum seems pleased enough, although it’s sometimes hard to tell whether she’s saying just what she expects we want to hear or not. Anyway, I optimistically set up the TV for another 3 day stint, and hear the tale of how one of the staff today accused mum of acting like a “spoilt child”, which, if true, seems a little unfair (although I can imagine it). Tonight’s tea (salmon and cucumber sandwiches) was apparently more successful as mum could actually taste it for once…

We head home before the hour was really up because we were shattered and forgot to take mum’s washing. Sis rings later on to ask how it went, which was nice, but the call turned a bit ranty as I poured out my fatigued frustrations of my recent experiences with the National Health “Service”.

JAN 24 2011

Mum rings to tell me that the doctor has been round and the latest is that she won’t be released before Wednesday, so the immediate crisis is averted. I call up sis to give her this information and find out from my elder niece that mum has not remembered her birthday, so a swift call to the hospital (with my anonymous pal doing his usual two-minute sales spiel – I got a shockingly huge phone bill last week) reminds mum of this, otherwise she’d have been annoyed about it later.

A short lunchtime call: Bring sweets and tissues tonight.

The beloved’s tales of other’s woes from work helps to put things a little more in perspective. Kind of. Nonetheless, and despite all that, I really didn’t want to go tonight. But we had to, and we did. Taking the pictures of the great-grandchild was possibly one of our better moves, and mum does seem to be starting to engage with people and think about what it might be like to be at home, so that’s an improvement. We started to list foods that she might enjoy eating, so all-in-all it wasn’t the dispiriting experience that I thought it might be.

JAN 25 2011

Business trip to London. Left the house 6:50AM, got home 10:00PM.

JAN 26 2011

Mum rings early to check that I got back safely. Her cough sounds dreadful, but, despite two of her fellow inmates being released yesterday, and she now has new faces to get to know, her own status remains as per usual, with a rumour that she’ll be sent home “early next week”. Meanwhile a trip to the Urologist seems to be on her agenda.

Sis rings mid-morning for a bit of a chat, telling me much the same with added insight from the ward’s nursing sister. Some of it proves laughable. When asked about what my mum should do about her daily requirements if a catheter becomes a permanent fixture, sis is told that mum should see her GP every day. “How should she get there?” sis quite reasonably asks. “How did she used to get there?” came the reply. “Well, she used to walk the half mile…”

We also consider the knotty problem of whether it is still too soon to consider mum selling up and moving into permanent sheltered accommodation. We both believe that she’s still too independent minded to be happy with this, but equally stubborn enough to make a snap decision that she may well live long enough to seriously regret.

The evening visit finds the beloved and I very wearily trudging in again but it’s happy enough. Mum has definitely started taking an interest in the world again, taken notice of things that we have mentioned and has even started writing lists and making plans for her post-hospitalisation home life. There’s a slight ‘bewilderment’ moment when we ask where the idea that they’re letting her home early next week came from, and for once the GMF gets slightly berated for failing to deliver a TV guide again, which we take as a healthy sign. I do set up the TV for a further 6 day stint, however, which might be pessimistic (but is still more value than daily card purchases – I really could have bought my own TV by now) but as she’s actually watching it and talking about the news again, it seems to be worth it.

JAN 27 2011

This morning, the beloved and I were mulling over the fact that, whilst mum’s life has kind of been in limbo for the past couple of months, in many ways so have ours. You can’t really plan for anything because you never know quite what’s going to happen. You can’t book a holiday or arrange any building work. You can’t book theatre tickets or even a night out in a restaurant. Even the odd pizza has gone past its sell-by date before we’ve been able to find any time to actually eat it, and baths are taken at the oddest times.

A short mid-morning telephone call from mum is okay though, with her feeling well enough having had a good night’s sleep due to her sleeping pill and an extra dose of cough medicine during the night.

An hour later another call: “A lady from Intermediate Care has just been and said “You’re not quite ready to go home yet, so we’ll come and see you again on Monday…” although the call is frustratingly cut off…

Our evening visit finds us running late due to train delays, a desire to eat and a need to stop and buy petrol en route. There is news that mum’s former schoolfriend Ann, who recently visited mum in hospital has died, and mum is now trying to get hold of a phone number to express her sympathies. As we consider this matter, mum’s church minister turns up bearing the very number along with him and stays for a chat about things like the law and jury service which rather distracts us from chatting to mum, but we are subtly and expertly put back on track. Those clergy can be quite impressive fellows to watch in action. I am slightly befuddled by the praying, but if it gives mum some comfort, then why ever not? Mum is also engaging with her fellow patients which has brought the added benefit of her being given a gift of some fresh fruit from one of them. I will go as far as to say that mum was so very much her old self tonight that I can finally glimpse some light at the end of this particular tunnel.

JAN 28 2011

Mum’s mid-morning call today is suitably gushing about her granddaughter’s plans, which I suppose should be taken as a positive sign that the old mum is returning. I do, however, resist the urge to point out that saying that “she’s done all right for herself” is a rather old-fashioned way of looking at things, which is what I might have done in the pre-illness world.

A late afternoon call requesting more tissues and telling tales of cherries and cough medicine is interrupted by a nurse bearing a message, and I am hung up on.

A hospital visit on a cold evening and the beloved is working late so we head straight in after I meet her train, and she does the weekly shop as I do the actual visiting. Mum is positively perky and says that she’s “looking forward” to going home. Her meals have been an issue today as somebody “lost” her meal orders, but a chat he had earlier with a junior doctor means that she believes that the consultant will be ringing sis (“Fat chance” I think). Still she manages to find the woes and wails of her fellow patients and their attendant noisy medical equipment irritating, which is a healthier sign of wanting to be out of there and, when talking about her future, is adamant that a nursing home would not be her preferred choice.

We head home and I wonder whether the sudden death of her friend has brought home to her how comparatively lucky she is…?

Which brings us to the end of week nine (and month two) of our sorry little saga, and we are also now seven weeks, several lifetimes and an astonishing amount of cash down the road from the emergency re-admittance of my mother via an ambulance on that dark Saturday evening in December. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun…?

A CHERRY IN THE SUN

Once upon a time, about thirty years or more ago, and for no particular reason that I can think of now (other than that which I am about to impart, obviously...), I went into a sports shop. Now anyone who knows me would find this unusual in itself for I was not known in those days (or for that matter at any time since) for having any particular interest in the noble art of sporting prowess.

I dabbled because I was required to dabble in the educational establishment that I attended, but it was not a thing of joy for me and I sadly underwhelmed at the physical pursuits, although I don’t remember being particularly picked on or bullied for my lack of skills in that area.

I did occasional feel slightly fearful when people told me apocryphal tales of walking home and being set upon by gangs of football supporters who (apparently) would cruise the highways and byways of the town I inhabited and leap upon unsuspecting young coves and demand of them to which of the myriad football teams available they were currently choosing to lend their support. If the reply was a disappointment to them, or was at odds with their own personal beliefs as to whom “the champions” should be, then a “sound kicking” was usually the order of the day for the poor unfortunate who had fallen into their nefarious clutches.

As I had no such allegiances, and knew little even of the names of such organisations, I used to walk the streets fearful that a dreadful drubbing was likely to be coming my way at any time, especially if a vehicle containing a number of testosterone-fuelled young gentlemen happened to pass me by.

Happily I survived my schooldays without such an incident ever befalling my person, and I tottered merrily into adult life unscathed and without any baggage of footballing fanaticism to lower my spirits or raise my ire. International Tournaments of great import would pass me by unnoticed and uncared about. Results and statistics would be mere obstacles delaying the onset of my own greater obsession, the televisual delights of a Saturday evening.

And so, the sporting life escaped me. Later on I would briefly and misguidedly dally with a weekly squash game, but this faltered on the altar of mammon when a desire to earn overtime overwhelmed any scheduling possibilities on those humiliating Saturday mornings.

So why, you might still be wondering after all this prevarication, did I enter into an establishment like the sporting goods emporium which I mentioned during my opening remarks this morning?

Well, I had got the notion into my head that I wished to purchase for myself a Cricket Ball. I have, in previous ruminations from here in Lesser Blogfordshire, regaled you with tales of my burgeoning interest in that particular pastime at around that stage of what we rather amusingly refer to as my “life” and so it came to pass that I imagined that such a splendid object might well be a rather jolly thing to have in my possession. The lovely gleaming polished red leather surface of it would stand rather proudly upon my desktop as I continued with my studies, reminding me of long lazy summer afternoons as I busied myself throughout the winter months.

Consequently, I took a number of my hard earned pennies, which I had been paid during my long Saturdays stoking the cement mixer at the Gnome shop, and, on nothing more than a sudden whim, I headed through the door, keenly looking about me to avoid catching the eye of any leisurewear sporting salespersons who might notice my presence amongst them.

Happily, without any outside assistance, I was able to discover the spot where they chose to store these objects of my desire and I happily assessed the price and selected one before hurrying to the sales counter with my potential purchase, paying for it, and escaping outside and back to civilisation without being signed up for any gymnastics society, physical activity group or footballing club.

For a number of years, this shiny red leather “Cherry” did indeed sit in a prominent spot in my bedchamber as I had intended, getting the occasional juggle as it came in useful as a prototype stress relieving implement. As and when I moved away for my further education, it was one of the precious objects from home that I carried away with me, and it loyally sat upon another desk, in another place as my artistic endeavours were vigorously and occasionally not-quite-so-vigorously pursued.

It never even crossed my mind that I was depriving the sad object of its true purpose, and that, of all the Cricket Balls that had eagerly sat in that box upon that shelf on that fateful day that we had been brought together, only this one had probably never attained its proper destiny.

All that changed of course one bright and glorious afternoon around Whitsuntide in my second year of study. I was in my rooms, busily proceeding at successfully procrastinating with my current projects, although it was a “reading week” and so there was little need to head out much, when there came a rapping upon my door.

I didn’t get that many visitors to be honest, never having been at the centre of things in most people’s lives, so this came as a bit of a surprise, and in later years I might have assumed that everyone else had been out. However, someone had got hold of a cricket bat, and within a few moments, after pausing mere seconds to persuade my neighbour away from his toils, the three of us set out towards the nets that were set up on the far side of the Campus. We had a tennis ball, but, considering only momentarily my own cricket ball’s untouched and virginal shiny loveliness, a facet I believe we both shared back then, I suggested that I might have something better and went back to my study room to collect one of my prized possessions, that lovely, hand-stitched leather ball.

A lovely, lazy, sunny afternoon passed, one of those days I look back on fondly and one of those days when I started to come to the conclusion that the best part of any British summer is usually in April and May, a feeling that seems to have been confirmed (in my experience at least) in more recent years.

So my humble, cosseted little cricket ball got to soar far and high and fly around with giddy joy and fulfil the purpose for which it was originally created.

It was of course never quite the same after that day. My “Cherry” had lost its cherry. Its battered ruby red surface no longer had the shine and unbroken veneer that it used to have, but that didn’t mean that it was now unloved. I still have it, safely tucked away in a shoe box, alongside all my other small treasures and souvenirs from those faraway days.

But it did once have a glorious day in the sun…

THE BIG METROPOLIS

Once or twice a year, I have to head out of my humble hermitage here in Lesser Blogfordshire and go to London for the day on a business trip. It’s for the annual trade show(s) for the business I happen to work in and it is seen as a necessary component of my working life.

Some might consider such a thing to be something of a perk, and many of my friends and colleagues in the industry do tend to stay overnight and involve themselves in the social networking that seems necessary for the wheels of commerce to keep on spinning or, at the very least, turning for a little longer.

Now, living as I do in this rural backwater of Lesser Blogfordshire, the prospect of being in the big city doesn’t fill me with any kind of joy at all, so I tend to slink in like a thief in the night and try to sneak back out again without anyone ever really noticing.

I know a lot of people who live in London rave about how utterly fabulous the city is but every year I spend a few hours there and head home feeling utterly defeated by the old place. It doesn’t help that, no matter how sparklingly fresh and clean my clothes were when I put them on in the morning, by the time I arrive at my destination I just feel filthy, although, to be fair, as part of the travelling is the getting there, not all of that can be down to London itself.

It didn’t get off to the best of starts. Heading into town from Lesser Blogfordshire was pleasant enough, as I got to share my train journey with the beloved for once, and despite my usual timekeeping angst due to the fact that I had to queue up to get a ticket, we had a happy enough journey in.

I had a long wait for the scheduled train journey I held a ticket for and so I popped into the platform’s café for a swift coffee and I ran into a couple of former colleagues from the company I used to work for once, and had a pleasant little chat, catching up and so forth which, as you’ll well know, is not really me at all.

Then the train before mine got cancelled and, when mine came in, this meant that everyone from the previous train was also on it and any previous reservations had been cancelled. I briefly spotted m’colleague surrounded by the folk who had swiftly overwhelmed him and left him unable to save me a seat nearby and headed off to find a seat otherwhere. Before that, of course, there was the slight spat that happened before my very eyes as one commuter with more gumption than me demanded that someone vacated the seat he had reserved and was being terribly emphatic in his insistence, despite being told of the new arrangements. Eventually the chap who had filled the seat stood up angrily and flounced away with an “Oh have it then!” whilst I had a terribly English “Well I’m not trying that” moment.

More mild commuter rage came later from the seat next to the one I eventually found, back in the “quiet coach” so I couldn’t even bring myself to switch on the phone for fear of it beeping with m’colleague’s frantic messaging of his own woeful travel tales. A woman nearby asked the ticket inspector to ring immediately as she needed assistance with disembarking at Euston but she had arranged this from the now cancelled train. Her response to the young lad’s polite enough question “Were you put on the train at Piccadilly?” was met with a frosty “I was assisted onto the train, I am not a piece of luggage!”

Which is fair enough, I suppose.

Mental note made to self on acceptable terminology.

Apart from that, London was achieved easily enough and my paper and my book whiled away the journey. M’colleague and I met up and, after a brief exchange of our tales of adventure, headed off into our nation’s capital with a renewed sense of purpose.

"Welcome to the Pleasuredome"
A theme park ride but without the "fun" part

I know that I’m not seeing it at its best on these trips. Arriving at a railway terminal, descending into a tube station and connecting to a monorail – kind of like a theme park ride but without the “fun” part - to get to an exhibition centre is hardly the brightest and shiniest way to view any city, but the place always seems to be so soulless and uninviting. M’colleague and I work in separate places and are rarely in the same space, but we spent a jolly enough few minutes trying to spot any green amongst the concrete as we chugged along on the DLR system.

I’m not one for glamorising the idea of a place, believing that you have to take it as you find it, but I really find precious little to love in the Urban Jungle and I really fail to see the appeal. Ultimately I really don’t have any “London Pride” or sense of “National Identity” with my nation’s capital and am happy to get out of the place as swiftly as I can once the business that has taken me there is done. Now, I’m sure that, as an international capital city, it serves its purpose terribly well and that those of the population that are bothered by such matters find it suitably admirable, fit for purpose and adequate for the task in hand, but crikey o’riley it’s a grim old place.

I’m not sure that easy access to museums, art galleries, theatres and monuments would ever be enough of a compensation to me having to actually live there. Once upon a long ago I did spend a late Saturday night/early Sunday morning walking around the streets near the monument with some friends, but I do believe that it’s probably my only happy memory of London.

Anyway, with the exhibition viewed, the overpriced luncheon eaten and the necessary chat chatted, I set out alone in the rush hour to head for home, essentially reversing the morning’s journey under cover of darkness and leaving m’colleague to spend his overnight stay socialising in the company of others in the business.

I did allow too much time for my crossing across town after compensating for an endless wait last year for a DLR train to turn up, and so, after braving the horrors of the Northern Line, I spent a soul-destroying hour or so in Euston station trying to decide what to eat and when to eat it.

“When” because I’d managed to actually blag a seat in the concourse and I needed to time it so I didn’t have to stand for too long after I’d relinquished it to go for my food.

Timing in these matters is everything.

“What” was slightly more difficult for there is a multitude of choices to be had to fill the stomachs of the weary traveller as they set about their journey. I queued briefly for an evil burgerzoid before changing my mind when I spotted a “healthy options” type hand-made sandwich shop as I walked off to have a look to see where the toilets were, even though I very quickly decided that things were really not all that desperate and so was able to decline the opportunity for a 30p pee.

A brief and fruitful visit to the newsagents for some supplementary reading materials and after some standing around and attempting to eat whilst obviously somehow managing to get in nearly everybody else’s way, the train was finally called and, with a great deal of relief, I settled myself down on a half-empty train and was soon heading back towards what I think of as civilisation.

So that’s me “Lon-done” for a little while at least, and I’m gratefully back home in my little green and pleasant corner of this land, far away from the hustle and bustle of the big metropolis and its strange people and their odd little metropolitan ways, and I really still can’t see what people see in the wretched place.

To each their own, I guess.

A LITTLE FLASH OF YELLOW

It’s never like it is in the movies, is it?

I was watching the news yesterday morning in the aftermath of the appalling events at Domodedovo airport and the news channel I was viewing had the CCTV images of the moment that the bomb went off, and, unlike the big, dramatic, slo-mo excesses enhanced by the CGI effects departments of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters, this devastating moment managed to look somehow utterly insignificant and understated, as all the camera shows is just the littlest of yellow flashes.

To the generations who have experienced those kinds of movies it looks like not very much at all, just a tiny flash of yellow lasting barely a second on a busy afternoon.

And yet…

After that little flash of yellow, 35 real human beings lie dead or dying.

After that little flash of yellow, another hundred and more living, breathing people like you and me sustain horrific injuries that will change their lives forever if they survive them at all.

After that little flash of yellow, ball bearings and shrapnel flew out on all directions and tore into the flesh and bone of any person that got in its way.

That’s real life for you.

Barely a moment, but 35 lie dead.

Such a tiny moment in time but hundreds of lives will never be the same again.

Just one tiny flash of yellow.

I know that some of you visit Lesser Blogfordshire to get away from the unpleasantness of the daily news, but over the last 24 hours this has been much on my mind. Philosophically, I know that the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise, and that if I let them terrorise me then the battle is lost, but, every day I still feel the slight wobble of uncertainty as I see the beloved depart to head about her day that someone, somewhere might just take it upon themselves to reshape our lives forever, and I’m sure she finds that similar dark thoughts nag at the corners of her mind every time I head out of the door.

By an unhappy coincidence, yesterday was one of the few days of the year upon which I have to poke my little nose out of the boundaries of Lesser Blogfordshire and spend the day in the bright lights of the big city, and so it just happened to be one of those very rare days on which I spend time in public places like railway terminals and tube trains, and so I was probably more aware than usual of how crowded these places are and how random these kinds of attacks can be.

Look around you in any public place and all you will see are ordinary people like you and me just getting on with their lives. Just doing the shopping, or travelling to a meeting or having a day out, with no expectations that anything today is going to make those activities any different to the hundreds of times they’ve done them before. But these are the same types of ordinary people who always suffer the horrific consequences during and after these kinds of terrible, terrible events.

Ordinary people like you and me, with plans and hopes and dreams and commitments and stuff to do, all just trying to get on with their lives and do them. This is why there was more than a little nervousness in my soul as I lurked in those various places yesterday, not because of any “terror” as such – I’m sure we all bulldoze our way through life pretty much assuming that these things won’t actually happen around us – but because of the purely random and arbitrary way that these things happen when they do.

I can’t help but empathise with those ordinary travellers because I’m quite often an ordinary traveller too. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to walk in another person’s shoes than others, and although I can’t possibly really understand what each and every one of those people and their families went through and are still going through as I sit here safely typing my thoughts today, I can at least send some of my sympathies in their direction during these terrible, terrible days.

Meanwhile, to the rest of us who are still able to get on with our lives, have a safe day, people.

Please.

A SOAP STORY

(OR “THE HISTORY OF ME IN RATHER TOO MANY TATTY OBJECTS”)

In some of the darker corners that make up this tatty little outpost in our tiny patch of Lesser Blogfordshire, hidden amongst all the clutter, are small boxes containing magical items from another age.

Someone did once tell me that all the best people kept their cassette tapes in old shoe boxes and I think I rather took it to heart, filling them up with all manner of junk and neatly stacking them on the many shelves that I have had to construct just for that purpose. Work creates work, I guess.

Which came first, the boxes or the shelves?

Every so often I shall rummage around underneath all the detritus that has seismically shifted around the whirlwind of our lives and dig out one of these boxes, usually in the pursuit of some other object that has sprung to mind or become suddenly vital for our continued existence. This is when I am usually diverted by the contents of one of those little boxes and I find myself exploring my own far distant past.

I think I must have been a very odd child.

When I got given gifts I liked to look after them, keep them, and know that the “new thing” I had just been given was liable to remain new for as long as possible. It’s just likely that this is an early manifestation of my desire for things not to change which has led to so many perplexities in my later life. Nevertheless, this does mean that the little boxes contain some items that are incredibly well preserved considering the ephemeral nature of their existence.

Which is why I am able to share with you today an object that by all rights should have been consigned to oblivion more than thirty years ago, my “Muppet Show” Kermit the Frog soap, still preserved in all its green gloriousness and still in it’s outrageously celebratory orange box.

Magnificent!

I wonder how many of these still exist in the world?

Of course it’s never been used. It was much too much admired for that, so it sat on a shelf in my bedroom for a few years, before being transferred to the back of a cupboard and then, inevitably, to one of the shoeboxes.

Or perhaps I have always just been a “soap dodger”.

I believe that this soap was a Christmas present from 1977 or thereabouts. Ah! Simpler times… Simpler gifts. Not a battery in sight… I don’t remember now who it was from, but it was almost certainly a family gift as no one else was buying me anything back in those days.

I don’t truly remember being a huge fan of the show itself, but some of the characters went on to be iconic. Zoot the Saxophonist and Animal the Drummer were favourites amongst my student crowd, although I suspect I grew up to emulate Statler and Waldorf a little more. Miss Piggy had a lot in common with a very fondly remembered friend of mine who would have focussed on and been terribly offended by the swinish connotations without spotting that it was meant in a very complimentary way.

I had enjoyed watching Sesame Street episodes on ITV during the summer holidays when I was probably much, much older than their target demographic, and I particularly enjoyed Kermit as a news reporter and the strange “Odd Couple” existence of Bert and Ernie (names I later happily discovered to be plucked from the character listings of “It’s a Wonderful Life”).

Some of the songs I can still remember. “One of these things is not like the others”; “Lowercase ‘m’”; “One-two-three-four-five… six-seven-eight-nine-ten… eleven, twelve”. Sometimes, as a student the rather funky rhythms of a tune like “Some… Some of us are here! None… None of us are Here! All… All of us are here! etc.” might distract me for days, and I still might even bellow “Seven strawberry cheesecakes!!!” at inappropriate moments every once in a while.

One of the happier side effects of being exposed to the Muppet Show was how ingrained the theme was in my mind, so much so that it used to come in very handy to be lyrically perfect in spontaneous pub singalongs in later years.

Perhaps I DID once know how to enjoy myself…

So, one more time (and hoping that no-one objects):

It’s time to play the music

It’s time to light the lights

It’s time to meet the Muppets

On the Muppet Show tonight!

It’s time to put on make up,

It’s time to dress up right.

It’s time to raise the curtain

On the Muppet Show tonight!

To introduce our guest star

Is what I’m here to do.

It really makes me happy

To introduce to you…

(Insert – with suitable enthusiasm - name of appropriate drinking companion here)

It’s time to get things started

(Why don’t you get things started?)

It’s time to get things started on the

Most sensational, inspirational, celebrational Muppetational

This is what we call the Muppet Show!!!!!*

Collapses from chair into a drunken heap.


*NB "The Muppet Show" Lyrics are the property of the various respective authors, artists and record labels and no copyright infringement is intended.

TO HAVE

Those of you who come here regularly will have noticed a slight tendency to make mountains out of molehills, or perhaps for me to make high dramas out of the most mundane of crises, however, there is a strong literary tradition for over-elaboration of the tiniest events, and I’ve never been one to buck with tradition.

So, with a certain amount of inevitability, it’s time to conclude one of the smaller sagas that have been gnawing away at these humble pages for the last couple of weeks, namely the long-lost  Humphrey Bogart films and how the stupidly complicated story of their disappearance finally resolved itself.

I bet you can hardly wait.

And so it came to pass that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall did indeed pass through the letterbox of MAWH Towers upon a recent Friday lunchtime.

And, as is the way with these things, they must have enjoyed it so much that they did so again whilst I was out on Saturday, so now the inevitable two copies are sitting around the house mocking me, and with the sorry irony that only a disappointment with the much anticipated can muster, I haven’t had a spare minute this weekend to give them even the most cursory of glances.

One will have to go back, of course.

Which leads us into the merry dance of the “returns policy”.

Sigh!

To quote the rather good email – and it was, really, very good and much appreciated especially as he did take the time to re-send the order at a time when it was utterly lost in limbo - from “Customer Services Daniel”:-

“WHAT IF I GET TWO PACKAGES? – If the original package should arrive before the replacement is dispatched…” (actually, due to the strange wibbly wobbly time effects of the postal service the replacement arrived before the original) “…please cancel your replacement order, etc…”

“If the original package should arrive afterwards, please refuse delivery of the parcel so it is returned to us by the carrier.”

Now our postie is an affable enough young chap and I wasn’t sure how he would take too the rejection, but I stirred myself in readiness.

Unfortunately I was out, and when I got home, said parcel was upon the doormat, smiling that cheeky “gotcha” smile up at me.

So then we get to “If you were unable to refuse delivery of the item…” (and really, how could I? If I'd been in, such a rejection might have stung the poor lad or done him considerable emotional harm…) “...we ask that you return it to us” and the usual means of doing this come into play.

Now I don’t mind this. I’ve done it before. Sometimes it’s a bind because I then find all the printer cartridges have run out when I try to print off the returns voucher, so I end up having to order more of them, but that’s probably my fault for not keeping the stocks up enough.

What did annoy me, though, was the fact that this time, the printed returns voucher said those doom laden words “You will have to pay postage” so, instead of just popping it into a postbox over the weekend, I’m now stuck with the chore of finding some time in my busy schedule to trudge over to one of the far distant and few remaining Post Offices around these parts and fork out any savings I may have made on my initial bargain to send the blooming thing back to them.

Still, hopefully that will bring this sad little story to a close, and I shall never speak of it again. Probably. Ultimately it’s not really their fault that their dispatches can get lost in some mysterious void for a fortnight or more, but the almighty amount of irritation and bother involved has been a wearisome and tiring experience.

For all of us.

Ah well, on statistically the most miserable day of the year, I was bound to have a bit of a moan. I guess with me it was kind of inevitable.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you a happy story involving a frog…

THE WHOLE SORRY SAGA (PART NINE)

As we enter week nine of the saga of my mother’s hospitalisation, I’m sure those of you who “follow” these things are as heartily fed up of reading them as I am at having to write them. They do, however, serve a useful purpose in organising my thoughts, so I’m going to continue on with them as we head towards whatever outcome we eventually reach.

We left off with my sister’s imminent departure after a sterling two and a half weeks away from home and mum seeming a lot better than she has in a while, which just goes to show how much difference the simple things like a good night’s sleep can actually make…

JAN 19 2011

Sis is heading home today. I go to the flat first thing and on my way to the dentist’s to get mum’s keys back and have a brief council of war. The farewells were understandably apparently a bit “weepy” last night, but things with mum’s situation are still much improved from when sis first arrived.

Mum rings for a lunchtime chat and we mull over her options and fears about her own prospects for heading home.

The evening visit is chatty, but for me, the lack of my sister’s presence, doing all those little things she did so well, is a slight worry. Mum  and I chat at length (when not drowned out by the six visitors – the notice outside the ward insists on two – at a nearby bed) about looking to the future. Ah well, at least the fruit flavoured Tic Tacs* she asked me to bring are well received, (as she can actually taste the strong flavours) and it’s nice to see mum enthusing over any foodstuff these days, although I do fret when I notice the sugar content, because I really thought that they were sugar-free. (*Other sweets are of course available.)

JAN 20 2011

Already shattered when I wake up today, and sis has only been gone a day. Mum rings 10.00AM-ish convinced that it’s a Monday and I wouldn’t be in (neither of which are good assumptions to make), although there’s no reason I wouldn’t be or why she would want to ring me if she thought I was out. Both of these things tend to have me (and no doubt the GMF who’s now probably got a couple of hundred messages on his phone for daring to go out) wondering whether today’s confusion is a sign of some sort of regression.

However, a lunchtime call to tell me how nice the Tic Tacs are is almost instantly cut off at her end…

Battling through thick fog for the evening visit and another stilted hour, although mum is generally looking a lot better and starting to take an interest again, asking for television privileges once more after nearly a fortnight of not being bothered. Of course setting up the TV again becomes an almighty tricky thing to do as the bed is still set up for the wrong patient, but we manage eventually. All this really does show the value of how simple things like a good night’s sleep and controlling the fluid retention problem can really make a huge difference to someone’s well-being. The social services assessment didn’t happen again today, but the idea of six weeks of respite care seems to have become more of an appealing prospect.

JAN 21 2011

An early morning call around 8.00AM from mum is slightly confusing, but, considering she had woken up coughing at 4.00AM, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I mention the beloved’s suggestion that mum starts to list the things she thinks she may need if the respite care option comes into play, as, at least, it will give her something to think about.

During another confused phone call at lunchtime asking for a new supply of tissues, I manage to also glean the information that the Doctor sees her being sent home Monday or Tuesday (Tuesday being MASSIVELY inconvenient for me professionally…) and with no mention at all of the respite care that was, as far as I was concerned, high on the agenda. No mention of social services assessment either, so it seriously looks like everything’s going to pot again.

Evening visit is massively frustrating as I try to get some information about the ‘plan’ they might have for mum, and the insanity of trying to get any answers at all, after waiting for everyone else in the world to be dealt with as more of a priority (which does seem to have been a pattern) and then trying to get my concerns across as the now very familiar party line of “medically fit to be released” gets spouted again. When I point out that last time they did that, mum was back there in an ambulance five days later, this doesn’t seem to matter, and is a symptom of the general lack of concern for any specific issues that I am constantly feeling. Respite care now doesn’t seem to be on the table any more, experimental removal overnight of the catheter is a prospect that deeply concerns mum, who thinks that she won’t get a good night’s sleep because of it, and all-in-all, all that I have achieved is to leave her feeling agitated and confused and worried.

Well done me.

Head home, thoroughly frustrated and ring sis to rant for an hour.

JAN 22 2011

Got up early and drove to my mum’s flat where the beloved and I spend the day decorating. The dark paint on the hallway walls is not good for her getting about the place, so I’ve taken it upon myself to try and brighten it up, but with the sudden prospect of her being home as early as Monday, it all has to be done this weekend. Mum only rings twice to see how things are coming along.

Home to a slight (but massively irritating) work problem I have no time to deal with this weekend.

Wearily drove to the hospital for a visit. I’m asked about the decorating, but mum just “hopes it’s not a waste of my time”. Mum is starting to get depressed again and I can’t help but feel that she always seems to get worse on “my watch”. She makes some demands of a nurse for additional cough linctus, but the supply is restricted due to its medicinal content. At least it would appear that someone has apparently been to examine her about the mysteriously returning and awful sounding cough. After bloating up on the experimental day off the catheter, it has been reattached, seemingly now looking like it might prove to be a permanent fixture.

Time and again mum is telling me she can’t see herself ever getting home. Time and again she says she wants to know what they’ve decided to do with her. She does it seems accept that a short stay in respite care might not be the worst thing to try. Time and again I try to tell her not to worry and that she has to remain as charming as she can and not worry, that things will unfold at their own pace etc. I talk again about trying to engage her brain by reading etc., but her interest seems to be waning again.

How she’s going to eat seems to be her main concern about going home. The GMF has “helpfully” suggested that she’ll never be able to cook for herself (although I suspect his emphasis was different to mum’s retelling of it). I tell her that things like that have to be taken a day at a time once she’s home. “Today I’ll try to make myself a sandwich, the next day cheese on toast” and so on, but I’m not sure she’s getting it. We actually have big plans (well, plans anyway) in place to solve the food issue as and when she gets home, but again it’s difficult to get her to see beyond the issue of the initial problem.

Drove home exhausted, but the look I was given at suggesting that I might not go tomorrow – it depends how day two of the decorating progresses - means that I'm ultimately unlikely to allow myself that option.

THE WHOLE SORRY SAGA (PART EIGHT)

Another of my continuing diaries chronicling my mother’s current hospitalisation as we unbelievably approach the end of the eighth week, something I could never have imagined when I started writing these back in November, so I’m sorry if you are tiring of them (but then, very little of this stuff seems to get read on the average Saturday, so I think it’s safe enough…)

We left off with my mother facing her own long dark night of the soul, but happily, over the course of the few days included here, she seems to turn a corner…

JAN 12 2011

An early morning call from mum because she can’t get hold of either sis or the GMF (although given the reports of their visit yesterday, I wouldn’t blame them for not answering really). I’m obviously third choice. Sounds like she had a rough night although, with large fires blocking roads near to her flat, maybe she is still better off where she is.

Phoned sis again in the early evening, although she’d had a difficult day we were able to discuss her visit of yesterday evening, which involved her trying to prompt a psych evaluation (and getting a promise of “15 questions” that might lead to happy pills), a conversation with a nurse apologising for how awkward my mum is being (“It’s all part of the job”) and how mum won’t even bother asking for painkillers despite her back pain. My big sister apparently sat in the car and wept after that visit.

Our own evening visit isn’t much anticipated, but mum seemed in better spirits than I had imagined, although both the 15 questions and any physiotherapy have both apparently been deferred. I try my best bedside manner with a pep talk (from “Mr. Happy” – I know!!) – mostly about focussing on what can be done over what can’t - which seems not to be ignored as much as I expected, and I am able to ignore my notes made in anticipation of having to be more stern.

JAN 13 2011

Another “day off” from visiting duties – got to take them while I can – and sis’s “post-visit” report is more encouraging today. She took one of mum’s neighbours along and they had quite an animated chat it would seem. Equally there has been positive progress on the medical front (catheter inserted and seems to reduce leg swelling, physiotherapy started, and mum just seems in a better mood). Interestingly the beloved has had a chat with a colleague who says mum’s symptoms are similar to her aunt’s, who was eventually diagnosed with Parkinson’s…

JAN 14 2011

Mum rings early sounding as if she’s feeling a little brighter. The evening visit is a happier time, despite my slight lateness due to someone doing their weekly shop at the petrol station and using a petrol pump to baby-sit her kids. Mum has been relocated to another bay in the same ward, which looks like the place where they start to prep people for release. She received a couple of letters today which cheered her up and she apparently ate properly at last. The rather brilliant physio has got her using a frame to walk with and we have a slight “moment” when we realise mum’s personal walking stick seems to be missing from the move (although it turns up) and mum is generally in a better mood, whilst I seem to be talking myself into redecoration of the flat…

JAN 15 2011

An afternoon visit with all three of us, and things are generally looking up, even if we’re starting to worry about the possibility of such things as bed sores. Mum starts to get tired and tetchy (a good sign that she’s feeling better) and so we drift away after an hour and a half and head off to eat and make further plans.

JAN 16 2011

Spent the afternoon at the flat with sis, trying to assess what might need to be done to make it more “user friendly” for mum’s return home, although sis’s visit to mum last night had her being given strict instructions not to move anything in the living room, so when we look around and think about it, there are few real options when you consider the shape of the rooms and the furniture mum has. Bit of a waste of time really, but it does give us an opportunity to chat about things and assess the decorating requirements.

Persuaded sis that I wouldn’t visit tonight, taking advantage of her presence to get some time at home before her departure puts me on full time visiting duties again.

Mysterious non-phone calls just before visiting time, but that might just have been mum suffering from some confusion about what time it was. Sis tells me that mum is “pleased” that we didn’t move anything around too much and yet at the same time offering to give her her furniture. On the down side, a visit from the Urologist has confirmed that the catheter is to remain for another 5 days and they are then considering fitting a permanent one because the long term used of laxatives during mum’s stay and the unnecessary use of anti-urinary drugs have now made it “unlikely” she’ll ever be able to pee normally again.

Sis is talking litigation if it means a long term financial need for long-term care which scares me a little.

JAN 17 2011

Another Monday morning, week eight, and I hear nothing all day.

An evening visit. Mum looked a whole lot better tonight than I’ve seen in a long time, sitting up in the chair and being positively chatty and animated, almost her old self. This fades with tiredness, but it’s still a good sign. Another Magnesium drip has to be set up, and she still seems understandably a tad nervous about the prospect of being at home, but things generally are looking up today I feel.

JAN 18 2011

Sis’s last day before heading homewards, so I get my last day off from visiting for a while.

Went to a DIY store for supplies for decorating the flat. I rang sis whilst there to warn her that I was going to drop the stuff off at the flat whilst she was at her visit so that she wouldn’t fall over it or wonder how it got there. She tells me some tales of the discussion of mum having a possible short-term nursing home stay after she’s discharged, but all-in-all it’s a quiet day for the continuing saga.