tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34866461511609713192024-03-05T07:52:17.868+00:00Slices of LifeDonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.comBlogger212125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-61832173062805935332021-12-05T14:38:00.003+00:002021-12-06T05:27:38.019+00:00The boy whose suffering touched a nation.<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> Like most people, I suspect, I've become a little bit immune to the daily dose of mindless violence which besmirches our newspapers and TV screens. On the other hand, like most people who've read or heard about it, I find the cruelty inflicted upon poor six-year old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes almost defies belief. How <i>anyone</i> could do something like that - least of all his parents - is certainly beyond my comprehension: it's so far outside the range of normal human behaviour that you couldn't make it up (not that anyone would <i>want</i> to make something like up, although the wicked stepmother apparently tried to claim during her trial that people were making chunks of it up). It made depressing, harrowing reading , raising the question "What the hell were those people thinking of??" To which, of course the answer is "Themselves!" They certainly weren't at any point thinking of poor Arthur, that's for sure. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> In a lovely tribute to his short life, football fans up and down the country yesterday broke into applause and wore T-shirts with "<b>We </b>love you, Arthur" in reference to his plaintive cry of "No-one loves me", captured on video during the last day of his life. Less convincing is the government's announcement of a "no stone unturned" review of what went so tragically wrong, because clearly something did and although this is certainly the worst case of child cruelty that I can remember reading about, it sadly isn't the first, and they keep happening despite officialdom's attempts to stop them from happening again. Will this time be any different? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At least the jail terms of 29 and 21 years apiece will have got justice of a sort for Arthur, so props to the West Midlands Police for building such a strong case and securing the conviction of two such determined and manipulative liars. I don't believe they thought they were going to get caught. I'm quite sure neither of them envisaged they were gonna be put on trial for murder, found guilty and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in jail for what they'd done! R.I.P Arthur.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0t9f6e2SDyRDsMct4knY_qQ8XQFur353EWg-DWypoT6Hp1ALIyyhdrnJJUXbPBcf0Cg4j4VgHfckjx_WqO27qVJyjbXZDJTZHTzwumpQiomFu9j7vUDNID3ryyxOwBhk6vFi8a0Yhec/s520/Arthur-2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0t9f6e2SDyRDsMct4knY_qQ8XQFur353EWg-DWypoT6Hp1ALIyyhdrnJJUXbPBcf0Cg4j4VgHfckjx_WqO27qVJyjbXZDJTZHTzwumpQiomFu9j7vUDNID3ryyxOwBhk6vFi8a0Yhec/s320/Arthur-2.jpeg" width="289" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFNdBmvM8y1dupj4os1Pbz3jH4PrgRV7s_lwsa7kIJnZqy9n84hFch-DLDYYO7MhGZ8fywCUM26HfiVQrirgEnS0tDMMVzb2-waBoBf3wVdcV1JE9qdx7fni0bhu-D8hG7l553llOmToo/s1170/Arthur-1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1170" data-original-width="962" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFNdBmvM8y1dupj4os1Pbz3jH4PrgRV7s_lwsa7kIJnZqy9n84hFch-DLDYYO7MhGZ8fywCUM26HfiVQrirgEnS0tDMMVzb2-waBoBf3wVdcV1JE9qdx7fni0bhu-D8hG7l553llOmToo/s320/Arthur-1.jpeg" width="263" /></a></div><p></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0V6VQ+F8 Lumeah WA, Australia-34.1063454 117.2383253-34.1063454 117.2383253 -34.1063454 117.2383253tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-46116557263448382152021-11-17T04:57:00.002+00:002021-11-17T05:35:53.769+00:00Grieving at last<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The year since Carol died has on the whole passed more peacefully than I thought it would. So much so, in fact, that I started to worry that I wasn't grieving properly. I miss her, of course, but on the whole I've come to accept reality in a way which might seem a bit cold and matter-of-fact to an outsider. Or maybe I just don't show it much. It all hit me yesterday, though, somewhat unexpectedly, and I'm not sure what brought it on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When we were given the news of the cancer diagnosis in December 2018 it came as a huge shock. Carol took it in her stride far more so than I did: she said she wasn't afraid of dying. I suppose the way she looked at it, she'd had the proverbial three score years and ten and a good few more besides. We didn't know how long she'd got, and I'm not sure I'd have wanted to know: they can't predict things like that with any degree of certainty anyway. But we were both determined to make the very best of however long it might turn out to be. She was adamant she wasn't ever going back into hospital come what may, and we got one of those Living Will "advance decision" things drawn up for her to say so.I knew, of course that I just had to let nature take its course and I was powerless to influence that, but at the same time I wanted more than anything else in the world to be able to look back afterwards with pride, knowing that I'd looked after her to the very best of my ability right through to the end - as I'd vowed before God that I would do when we got married.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But I reckoned without the truly atrocious treatment meted out to me/us by a combination of Coventry District Nurses and West Midlands Ambulance Service, who both made no bones about the lousy way<i> they</i> thought I was doing the job. Fortunately it didn't cut any ice with the Social Worker we had who was superlatively supportive and went well beyond the bounds of what she was actually obliged to do. But I had to endure some diabolically hurtful criticisms: they just didn't care about <i>my</i> feelings at all. They did their referrals, ticked their boxes and that was all that seemed to matter to either of them. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It became obvious at the beginning of October last year that the end wasn't far off. I could do little more than just sit and keep Carol company, saying the occasional prayer and watching her life ebb away before my eyes. It was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do, and I never in any of my worst nightmares envisaged that I'd one day have to do it. But I did it,. and I was glad I was able to able to be with her, by her side, through to the very end. I'm wiping away the tears now, but I am immensely proud of the way I looked after her through thick and thin, and grateful for all the happy years we spent together - more then I deserved, possibly, but I'm content to let the good Lord be the judge of that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe in time I can find it in my heart to forgive the District Nurses and WMAS: I'm not normally one to bear grudges and it's not going to bring her back. But for now, if I never have to have dealings with either of them ever again it'll be too soon. </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-28295077005097071132021-10-16T19:06:00.003+01:002021-10-16T19:08:49.795+01:00First anniversary.<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yesterday marked the first anniversary of Carol's death - 15th October 2020. Perhaps understandably I didn't feel much like writing about it, and today I have more of a sense that I <i>ought</i> to mark the occasion than I particularly <i>want</i> to. On Sunday at Communion, the priest had read out Carol's name among the list of parishioners on the anniversaries of their deaths as he always does: I'd remembered when it was, so I wasn't taken by surprise, rather, I suppose comforted by a feeling that she was now in a better place than the one she'd left. Looking back, which I try not to do too often, the last couple of weeks were altogether pretty grisly and it was with a definite sense of relief that I realized her time had finally come.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The post year hasn't really been much like I'd expected it was going to be - although truth to tell I didn't have much of a clear idea of what to expect. I didn't go to all pieces (or at least, I haven't done yet) and I dealt with all the practicalities early on quite calmly and efficiently. I shed a tear or two at the crematorium but mostly at home it's just been learning to accept reality... remembering the good times and all the happy years we spent together, and nothing's ever going to take those away.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> One thing I've still got to tackle is the legacy of all the stuff Carol left behind: the tons of craft material, her books and DVDs, which are still all as she left them. It's because I simply don't know what to do with them rather than I can't bear to touch them or anything like that. Eventually I know I'll be galvanized into action and come up with a plan of some sort, but I don't sense any great urgency at the moment. I've dealt with everything that <i>was</i> urgent in order to maker the place habitable for me, and the stuff that isn't can wait a while longer.</span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-6947743829370738672021-10-11T21:56:00.001+01:002021-10-11T22:01:30.241+01:00Best birthday present ever<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> I went for my ultrasound scan this afternoon. I elected to go privately: University Hospital Coventry were supposed to have been sending me an appointment through, but such is the massive backlog of work that Covid has caused, nothing had materialized despite my GP having marked the referral as 'urgent' and I really wasn't prepared to wait any longer. The NHS are very good at some things, but appallingly bad at others, and I was glad I could afford to pay for it myself. I was, as befitted my status, treated like a valued paying customer, and my arrival at the BMI Meriden hospital was just like checking in to a posh hotel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> An extremely nice doctor talked me through what was going to happen (I was expecting to radiologist to do it) and it was pretty much like the Abdominal Aorta Aneurism scan I'd had done five or six years ago. I was instructed to take deep breaths and hold them, and there were a couple of times when it was a little bit painful as he pressed down quite hard with the little transponder (is that the right word for it?). About twenty minutes I think (I wasn't really keeping tabs on the time), and it was all done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The result? It turns out I have gallstones which have been causing my gall bladder to become inflamed. I said we'd suspected I had liver trouble, but he said no - there's nothing wrong with my liver. So all that worrying for nothing! Well, not quite <i>nothing</i>, I've still got to decide what to do about the gall bladder, but that's going to pale into insignificance compared to the prospect of something a liver transplant. I can't easily express how relieved I feel: it's a tremendous weight off my shoulders, and worth every penny of the £320 I'm shelling out to have it done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I mentioned that my mother had had gallstones: they're apparently quite common and while they're not hereditary as such, they do run in families. She had hers removed: I can't remember whether she had the gall bladder itself removed as well or not, but I daresay I knew at the time.</span> <br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-48857011827041430442021-09-26T19:17:00.002+01:002021-09-26T19:19:14.997+01:00What does it all mean?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> Earlier in the year - June, I think it was - I suffered a bout of severe indigestion culminating in my being violently sick and ringing 111 for advice (it was a weekend). The person on the phone was really nice and was going to do me a prescription for some Omeprazole (they're a sort of anti-acid reflux capsules. As luck would have it, I had some left over from when Carol used to take them regularly and they were still in date. The out-of-hours people sent a report through to my GP telling him what had happened and we didn't think much more about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Until Saturday a fortnight ago, when I had a repetition, very considerably worse than the first one. This time I had a severe pain in the stomach and back and I couldn't sit or lie down comfortably: I couldn't even sit long enough to hold on on the phone waiting for someone from 111 to answer. I tried three times before giving up. I somehow must've managed to doze off as when I woke up it was Sunday morning and the back pain had thankfully gone. I made it down to the walk-in centre on the Monday and got a fresh supply of the capsules and a bottle of Gaviscon. I'd never had it before but apart from being a little on the sickly side it's quite palatable - and effective, which is the main thing. A doctor there felt around and pronounced my stomach to be feeling a bit tender and advised me to get some blood tests done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> Fast forward to the end of that week, when I got the results back. Apparently I have abnormal levels of alkaline phosphatase and bilirubin, which are indicative of trouble with my liver and/or gall bladder. I remember my mother having to have gallstones removed: she kept a little pot of them on the mantelpiece until we persuaded her that they weren't quite the thing to display to visitors. I never have, though. Despite my usual tendency to adopt a 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' approach to medical treatment, an occasional bout of indigestion I can cope with, but this was something else again and I'm keen to avoid a possible recurrence. I've got a second round of blood tests booked to have done on Wednesday (the Doc didn't really explain what these might show up that the first ones didn't) and then a liver scan to be arranged. We should then know more, hopefully. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm a little jittery in case it turns out to be something really serious, but on the other hand at the moment I have no way of knowing and so fearing the worst isn't a particularly productive line to follow. I'm just glad it happened when it did, so I no longer have Carol to consider, although I miss having no-one to talk to about it. The waiting and not knowing is always the worst part of something like this: your mind wanders and conjures up all sorts of grim outcomes which probably/hopefully won't happen.</span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-73738484689542727442021-07-07T07:24:00.002+01:002021-07-07T07:26:38.260+01:00To mask or not to mask... that is the question.<p><span style="font-family: arial;">As part of the 'roadmap' setting out the easing of Coronavirus restrictions, the PM has indicated that the wearing of face masks will no longer be a legal requirement in England - or it won't be a Government 'diktat' as he put it. It's not <i>quite</i> as simple as that, for despite it being the intention to allow people to take responsibility for their own decision as to whether to wear one or not, a number of businesses have already announced their intention to make them compulsory for customers. All well and good up to a point: businesses have an implicit right to choose who they do or don't want to serve, as long as it doesn't amount to illegal discrimination, who's going to enforce this? To have some train companies, for example, requiring them and others not, is a recipe for confusion: how are passengers supposed to know? And shop assistants have been reporting a massive increase in assaults on staff, so to have something which isn't a <i>legal </i>requirement any more is asking for trouble. The police aren't going to want to get involved if it's no longer against the law, and you might as well not bother having something that relies on voluntary co-operation if the majority of people don't agree with it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> I'm very happy to see the back of mine: they're a pain in the backside for those of us who wear glasses, and the evidence is far from cut-and-dried as to how effective they are anyway. It's unfortunately somewhat symptomatic of a lot of the muddled thinking and make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach which has characterised the govenment's response to Covid all along. </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-45397615644664877522021-06-26T02:14:00.002+01:002021-06-26T02:14:25.751+01:00<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> So.. that odious smug Matt Hancock may be about to get his come-uppance, I see.</span> <span style="font-family: arial;"> Being caught with the proverbial trousers down was pretty careless to say the least, and a half-baked 'sorry' for being caught in flagrante delicto boesn't quite cut it. I feel sorry for his wife and kids: being 'exposed' by the gutter press can't be pleasant, even when you're the innocent party.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> The question now is... where's JVT when you need him? I quote his memorable response from this time last year "In my opinion, the rules are clear and they have always been clear. In my opinion, they are for the benefit of all, and in my opinion, they apply to all." Well said, that man! Pity Boris doesn't appear to agree, but the weight of public opinion may yet force his hand.</span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-67034580040481810722021-03-15T23:40:00.004+00:002021-03-15T23:40:49.234+00:00The wedding that never was<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Dubbed by Good Morning Britain presenter (or ex-presenter, since he fell on his sword and reportedly refused to apologize) Piers Morgan <i>"a two-hour trashathon of our Royal Family", </i>the interview given by Prince Harry and Meghan to Oprah Winfrey continues to be in the news. I didn't watch it,: the 'edited highlights' were more than enough for me. I was always brought up to firmly believe that you don't wash your dirty linen in public and to do it in circumstances where those in the firing line are effectively not in a position to respond seems to me to be particularly reprehensible. Morality aside, though, the question being raised is how much of it was true.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> One thing which is relatively easy to check is the claim that the couple had a 'secret' wedding before the official one, with just the two of them and the Archbishop. He, wisely, has declined to comment on what in fact took place, but an article in <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9363159/Vicar-says-Church-told-Meghan-Harrys-garden-wedding-conversation-Archbishop.html">today's Daily Mail</a> makes it fairly clear that he could not legally have married them. The marriage ceremony in England requires the presence of two witnesses and although I don't know what stipulations exist on who you can have (when Carol and I got married we had our respective fathers), they have to sign the entry in the register. There has been no evidence produced as far as I'm aware to establish that this actually happened, so the obvious inference is that it didn't - or at least, not in the form that the couple have claimed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Once you expose a hole in someone's account of something, it does of course open the door to the possibility that there may be others: "</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="aCOpRe"><span>recollections may vary</span></span>" as the Palace have said in a statement, is a polite way of putting it.</span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-42250637391335484532021-02-23T20:01:00.002+00:002021-02-23T20:10:38.525+00:00Damp squib<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> Well... the long awaited lockdown-exit "road map" was unveiled yesterday. No great surprises: most of it had been leaked with a fair degree of accuracy in the couple of weeks leading up to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> "Buccaneer Boris" he isn't: I can understand his decision to tread carefully, the last thing we want at this stage is yet another panic-reversal of easements, caused by not knowing which of them has caused another spread of infections. On the other hand, the lives of every man, woman and child in the country have been disrupted - in some cases tragically - for almost a whole year now and Doctors Doom and Gloom need to understand that people will only put up with so much for so long before the proverbial worm starts turning. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At the present rate of progress it won't be long before half the adult population has been vaccinated and while I'm not suggesting we throw the other half to the wolves and let them take their chances, making <i>everyone</i> wait until 21st June for a complete return to normality is beginning to look increasingly unsustainable as a policy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Rumours are emerging, too, of dissent among Sage members who have been apparently publicising to the media their own predictions and conclusions, often conflicting with the official "scientific data" being touted around as the basis for decision making. Who was it who coined the phrase <i>"Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad"</i> ?</span> </p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-44315949000677093852021-01-19T14:30:00.003+00:002021-01-19T14:30:20.524+00:00Schadenfreude<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I suspect I'm not the only person who saw a delicious irony in <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9162669/Matt-Hancock-reveals-isolating-pinged-NHS-app.html">today's news story</a> about our esteemed Health Secretary Matt Hancock being required to self-isolate after apparently coming into close contact with an infected Covid-19 person. No-one knows who he or she is, nor when or where it happened, but there's been no suggestion as far as I'm aware that the 'alert message' he was sent is a hoax or malicious. So it rather begs the question as to how he, who passes up no opportunity to drive home the message about social distancing and avoiding close contact with anyone, has apparently come a cropper by letting someone get close enough to him to perhaps pass it on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Don't get me wrong, I don't wish him any physical harm, but I hope I may be forgiven for making the observation that for him to have gone footballing in a crowded public park at the weekend, thereby <i>possibly</i> passing it on if it turns out he <i>is</i> infected, was hardly setting the shining example to the rest of us. But then again, since when have politicians bothered particularly about what the rest of us think of them? <i>(/end cynicism).</i></span> <br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-86036591803228816912021-01-12T17:57:00.002+00:002021-02-23T20:07:54.151+00:00Ups and downs<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Today has been eerily quiet: I haven't seen a soul all day. I didn't go out because I didn't need to, but usually I can look out of the window and see the neighbours pottering about, or somebody delivering something, but today... nothing. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Maybe they're all taking the Government's advice or perhaps that latest TV ad has got them all scared s***less. Talking of which, whose bright idea was that, I wonder. I haven't bothered with it. Poor old <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/christopher-whitty">Chris Whitty</a> earning his nickname of Doctor Doom: he may be a brilliant scientist but a charismatic persuasive presenter he isn't. I suppose I shouldn't judge too harshly, given the material they gave him to work with, but did it not occur to anyone that if you want to sell a proposition of some sort to millions of people, you've got to make them want to "buy" it? Evidently not. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I also contacted the <a href="https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support">Macmillan Cancer Support</a> people to tell them about Carol's death. I'd registered with them two years ago when Carol first got the diagnosis and they'd been a veritable treasure trove of information and help. However to the best of my knowledge I shan't be needing their services any longer - although I don't know what lies ahead for me, of course. But if I do, then I'll know where to find them. <br /></span></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-28434753802568298162021-01-09T00:06:00.004+00:002021-01-09T06:32:16.849+00:00Picking up pieces<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Prompted today by getting in my inbox an email newsletter from <a href="https://www.carerstrusthofe.org.uk/">Carers' Trust</a>, I realized that following Carol's death I was no longer going to need their services: I have no surviving relatives apart from distant cousins and have no intention of acting as carer for anyone else. I never needed or wanted the 'therapy groups' or courses they offered, but during the course of the sixteen years since Carol's stroke in 2005, I'd come to rely on the availability of unbiased help and support in navigating through the bureaucratic maze which being a full-time (unpaid) carer involves, and occasional battling against officialdom. I don't know what I'd have done without having the occasional drop-in session to call on whenever I needed advice (or even just a friendly ear to bend). So I sent them an email saying I was 'de-registering' but thanking them for their services, and got a lovely email in return.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I had no inkling, of course, of what lay ahead on that fateful night in February 2005 when Carol had the fall from which she realized she couldn't get up and got whisked off to hospital. We later found out that the first few hours after a stroke has occurred are crucial, and in that respect Carol was lucky. Ten days in hospital followed by a month in a place called Youell Court (in those days an 'Intermediate Care Centre' - I'd no idea such places even existed). I remember us sitting waiting eagerly for the transport which was going to be bringing her home, and then full of optimism for the future, as she walked up the stairs with the aid of a pair of crutches.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Fate, however, had other ideas. The first six months were enough to convince me that to carry on working full-time was not a viable option, and in the September of that year the County Council agreed to let me take early retirement to look after her. I carried on just doing Sundays for a further three years, but by that time what I suspect was a weakened immune system was resulting in gastric and other infections entailing hospital treatment, and each time she was coming home just a little bit less mobile than when she'd gone in. One particularly bad spell in 2009 ended with a fortnight spent over at Rugby and I remember one Friday coming home on the bus after visiting her, in tears looking through the window as the scenery passed by and I thought back, triggering memories of all the things I imagined she'd never see again. The following week she decided she'd been there long enough, so I hired a car and brought her home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It was some time after that, as I remember, that I succumbed to the idea of having care visits to help me look after her. I'd resisted at first: she was my responsibility and it was my role as her husband to look after her - the good old 'for better and for worse' and all that. She told me once that she thought I'd got a pretty raw deal out of that contract: we both laughed. But practicality intervened and I realized she'd fare better if I had some help. In the summer of 2014 we agreed to have daily morning visits - from an agency who turned out to be unreliable to the point of being virtually useless, but we fared much better when I had to have someone to look after Carol while I had my hip replacements done, and those visits continued right up to the morning she died. Props to Yo, my regular "assistant" for doing everything that was needed with a cheerful can-do which lifted Carol's spirits up more than she'll ever know.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So what now? An eerie sensation of being at a loose end. After spending most of the last ten years, certainly all of the last five, looking after Carol as a full-time job it's odd not having that to do anymore. Don't get me wrong - I never for one second <i>minded</i> doing it, and I'm proud I can look back and boast that I made a good job of it, too. Just another facet of losing someone close to you, I guess: they're suddenly not there anymore and a number of things - tasks and routines - associated with them are suddenly not there, either. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-56517326438265108732021-01-06T14:11:00.000+00:002021-01-06T14:11:06.289+00:00Twelfth Night<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've just been busying myself taking the decorations down (well, putting the little tree back in its box for another year) and taking the cards down. I shed a tear or two re-reading the kind messages people had sent me: I did reply to the emails people had sent, but I haven't to what people had written in the cards. I don't really think people really expect it: or at least we never used to when the positions were reversed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Carol, who was an Anglo-Catholic, used to want to everything left up until <a href="https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/whenchristmasiscelebrated.shtml">Candlemas.</a> This wasn't something I'd ever come across anyone else doing, and whatever the theology of it, this year I reverted back to the way I'd always been brought up to do it (with the exception of that one year when I was dead lazy and left them all kicking around until Easter!). </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-87757594803261359582021-01-05T23:45:00.001+00:002021-01-05T23:45:58.141+00:00Plus ça change... plus c'est la même chose!<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Five days into the new year and we're already in lockdown... again! The mix is as before: don't leave home, and protect the NHS. And there's me naïvely thinking the NHS was supposed to be protecting <i>us! </i>Hollow promises from our illustrious PM, just as before: when was it? ... last March, if I remember right. And as before, he doesn't know how long it's going to last for. So over the course of the last nine months, he's learned precious little, attempting to combat a virus seemingly intent on outsmarting him at every turn. Pinning your hopes on a vaccination programme as the panacea cure for this is all very well, but if you don't know and can't say how long it's actually going to take to vaccinate everybody it's hardly either reassuring or convincing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And yet again, the schools have been ordered to close. Despite the heavy fines levied in the past by councils against parents daring to take their children out on holiday during term-time without permission, on the grounds of the lasting harm the disruption causes to their education? And that's only, in most cases, ten days max. Some poor kids have had next to no proper schooling for the thick end of a whole year now.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">And don't get me started on the lies, damned lies and statistics theme! </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-32069409273657562882021-01-02T21:39:00.002+00:002021-01-02T21:40:30.150+00:00Un peu de tristesse<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Some sad news to start 2021 with: I came across a message posted online just a couple of days ago, saying that Mr Marshall, my old form master and French teacher had died "recently". The details are a bit sparse and I've only been able to find out so far that his death wasn't Covid-related, and neither was it protracted. My best guess at working out how old he would have been is around 90.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">French was far and away my best subject at school: I got a Grade 1 O-level and a Grade A A-level as well as a Distinction in one of the long-since defunct S-levels. The fact that I can still write, speak and understand French with a tolerable degree of accuracy is in no small measure down to the quality of the teaching I received, in particular the encouragement to aim for perfection. I'd have liked to have re-established some sort of contact with him, as I'd wondered periodically, on and off over the years, about what might have become of him, but I never succeeded in finding out anything and now it's too late, of course.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKF3ijLCXd93SOYwRr5stHewwdzBNn_McgnRZqtPJSlrD9u7FuzWFEwFj6kol7cAmg9m7yuCJD0HW65xmJ864CxehyHSawMHaMXP-obari1jVHo8rt59Ngsc6HL434GxwGOfGg6AdBZo8/s836/Taffy+Marshall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="393" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKF3ijLCXd93SOYwRr5stHewwdzBNn_McgnRZqtPJSlrD9u7FuzWFEwFj6kol7cAmg9m7yuCJD0HW65xmJ864CxehyHSawMHaMXP-obari1jVHo8rt59Ngsc6HL434GxwGOfGg6AdBZo8/s320/Taffy+Marshall.jpg" /></a></div><br /> <br /><p></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-6850340661597958652020-12-31T23:30:00.006+00:002020-12-31T23:32:31.679+00:00Adieu, L'Europe!<p> <span style="font-family: arial;">We're out! As of 23:00 GMT tonight, we're officially no longer in the EU. 58 years after General de Gaulle declared he didn't want us in what was then the Common Market, because he didn't look upon us as 'properly committed' Europeans, we've more or less proved him right after all. After the referendum result which proved to the the undoing of two Prime Ministers, BoJo pulled a deal off at the last minute and got us a result. The butter mountain, the wine lake and associated other lunacies are now consigned to the dustbin of history, at least as far as the UK is concerned. I will confess to being a little wistful at the end of something which could have been a lot better than it was, and that, I can't help feeling, was a sentiment which enough people shared to produce the 52-48% majority vote - a result which took a number of people by surprise, so much so that the the politicians were largely unprepared for it! But, for better or for worse, Brexit is now a reality, and I suspect quite a few eyes will be peeled looking to see what happens next in case any of the 27 others want to jump ship. Interesting times ahead, perhaps.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've been hearing sounds of intermittent fireworks this evening, although somewhat muted and distant, an indication perhaps that people will be observing the 'Stay at Home' edict this year. When I was a teenager, living in Kenilwoth, we got some new Scottish next-door neighbours who invited us round for a drink with them at Hogmanay. And it was actually at a New Year's Eve party in 1971 that Carol and I became an 'item' and started going out together. Since then, we'd always stayed up to see the New Year in, drinking a toast as Big Ben struck midnight. I gather they're intending to ring it as usual this year, although the renovation work is not fully finished yet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I might even make a New Year's Resolution or two. Some years I do, some years I don't but the result is the same both ways, I don't usually keep them. This year I've got rather more incentive than usual, however, so I'm minded to at least try and make the effort. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Happy New Year! </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-87541677692270165642020-12-30T21:56:00.001+00:002020-12-30T21:58:45.512+00:00Jam tomorrow<p><span style="font-family: arial;">The much-heralded official approval of the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca Covid-19 vaccine was announced today, and we were treated to the spectacle of that sanctimonious prat Matt Hancock all over our TV screens crowing about it. Don't get me wrong, I hope for all our sakes it proves effective in stemming what looks like it's fast becoming an uncontrollable tide of infection threatening to swamp us all. But given his abysmal track record of promising things he can't deliver, I can't help feeling that if it <i>does</i> prove to be the answer to all our prayers, it'll be in spite of his efforts rather than because of them. Later on, our illustrious PM BoJo in a televised press conference did a passable imitation of a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights, trying to sell everyone the idea of an extended Tier 4 pseudo-lockdown as a necessary evil (And don't even <i>think</i> of having a New Year party!). It was left to the ever-sensible Jonathan Van-Tam to save the day in his inimitable 'tell it like it is' style - the only person who actually gives you the impression that he knows what he's talking about and isn't afraid to say it in words everyone can understand.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I have slightly more than a passing interest in all this, as for the last five or six months I've been suffering from what turned out to be a leg ulcer. I know all about these (well, quite a bit, anyway) because Carol had developed some extensive ones on both legs and for a good couple of years I used to have the task of changing her dressings for her and re-bandaging them after she got cheesed off with the District Nurses and told them she wanted me to take over the job. She put her foot down over this, and they were not happy bunnies! Anyway, mine appeared following the development of some hard skin scales which started itching and then cracking apart and secreting lymph fluid. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At first I did nothing, but it was becoming both unsightly and painful so I went to the walk-in centre where a very nice doctor told me it was infected and gave me a course of antibiotics. However a couple of friends who'd seen it suggested to me that I really ought to get it properly treated. This proved easier said than done, given Carol's condition at the time, and I cancelled an appointment and possible two because I felt I couldn't leave her. However, I bit the bullet after she died and arranged with our GP to get the Practice Nurse to have a proper look at it. She's one of the old-school who don't really go in much for the concept of bedside manner: she'd make a good School Nurse if they still have such things. If I could've gone somewhere else, I would have done: I went every week, but had no confidence in her knowledge or ability: she kept changing the dressing type without telling me why and progress was slow. One of my friends even advised me to ask for a referral for a second opinion. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">However, it did <i>eventually</i> start to respond, and it's now shrunk to not much more than just a small epientre - the size of something you put an elastoplast on. After washing it, applying emollient and a new dressing myself this morning, I emailed the surgery telling them that I felt it made no sense to expose myself to the risk of catching the virus by making a journey that wasn't essential and that if the pressure on the NHS was half as bad as it's being made out to be, I was sure they'd appreciate having the appointment time for another patient who needs it more than I do. So I've basically signed myself off. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't come back and bite me! </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-71424996605855880112020-12-29T22:02:00.005+00:002020-12-29T22:51:27.223+00:00À la recherche du temps perdu<p><span style="font-family: arial;">After my success in re-creating a Christmas Day to match the ones from the past, my attempt to do the same with Boxing Day was a failure. When we got married in 1972, we let it be known that henceforth we were going to spend Christmas Day by ourselves as a "family" in our own right. My mother didn't take at all kindly to this but our minds were made up and we reached a compromise whereby my parents, my sister and her husband (they'd got married three months before us, in September) and us would take it in turns to host a Boxing Day get-together. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We kept the tradition going all through the 70s if I remember right, but my sister's marriage was soon heading for the rocks (it ended in divorce in the mid-80s) and it was that as much as anything which caused the arrangement to come to an end. Now, of course, I've no-one left to share a family Boxing Day meal with. I did wonder if any of the neighbours, who have all been extremely supportive and sympathetic, might invite me in for a drink or something, but I guess the spectre of Covid-19 and its associated restrictions made that an unlikely possibility and I'm not sure I'd have felt very comfortable about accepting, in fact. I also briefly considered the idea of eating out at a pub or somewhere but I wasn't sure whether it was worth bothering to find out if anywhere would be open, it was something I don't think we'd ever done and eating alone to conceal the fact that you've got no-one to eat with may appeal to some but I can't say it does to me. So without a leftover turkey to contend with, I had a roast lamb dinner instead.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">For a number or years in the late 80s and early 90s, Carol and I used to go to the Boxing Day sale at Currys/PC World. We didn't always buy anything and when we did it was often something we didn't actually need, so I decided to save my money and give that a miss. I got a phone call from one of Carol's friends from Church who'd read the note I'd sent out with the cards. I didn't know her well, but did remember her. I was also conscious of the fact that Carol had found her a bit odd, and I'd never been entirely sure why she was on the Christmas card list, but she was.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In the evening, I watched a film. The one I chose (I came across it while I was looking for something else, in fact) was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chorus_(2004_film)">"Les Choristes"</a> Billed as a musical drama, it's the story set in a French boys' boarding school of a new music teacher who tries to improve the children's lot by forming a chorus or choir. It was something of an odd choice for me, as I don't as a rule like musicals much: they were always very much Carol's choice of genre. It turned out somewhat to my surprise to be a bit of a "weepie" although I'm not sure whether it was really meant to be. Some aspects of it reminded me a bit of my schooldays, although in all fairness, mine were nowhere near as unhappy as theirs were portrayed as being. Nonetheless, the feeling of melancholy was something that got on top of me, resulting in that weird inconsolable feeling of loss which overwhelms you, when you're not even entirely sure what it is you've lost. It was just the cumulative effect of all sorts of pent-up emotions generated I daresay by the events of the last few weeks but it had me crying myself to sleep that night. </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-48317109345093110582020-12-28T21:41:00.004+00:002020-12-28T23:52:45.120+00:00New beginnings... or just a new era?<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> It's been ten years since I started this diary-cum-blog-cum-whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and three years since I last wrote anything in it. There's probably a reason for that but since I can't honestly think of what it might be, I don't see a whole lot of point in indulging in fruitless speculation. I'm not sure I could explain it anyway... let's just say things happen, and not always the way we plan them to, and leave it that. So why the sudden urge to write again?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> The catalyst for this is the fact that amid what for most people, I suspect, has been a pretty grisly year, my wife Carol died on 15th October. I won't go into the details now, but I may do later: for the moment I'll just say that it wasn't unexpected and in some ways a blessing for her, but after 47 happy years together (it would've been 48 last week) a reality that's been difficult to adjust to, and I'm hoping that writing about it may help. I don't see that it can do any harm, anyway. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When I started this blog in the heady optimistic days of 2010, and indeed when I kept its predecessor, she asked me not to mention her in it, and I gave her my word that I wouldn't. I'm not altogether sure why she didn't want to be in it, but at the time we had we had a more 'vanilla' now-defunct website which she compiled and maintained, and maybe she didn't want to be associated with some of my more 'eclectic' material? Yeah, I think that was probably it. Whatever the reason, I don't feel it's breaking the promise I made then to say that the situation has changed sufficiently unexpectedly for it to be unreasonable for me to be expected to keep it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So... Christmas. Traditionally a time of joy and thanksgiving, but tinged this year with sadness. I tried to give it some veneer of normality by sticking to things I'd always done right from when I was a child, and that started with getting an Advent Calendar. We were living out in Germany at the time and I remember as a small boy being enchanted with these magical things (and getting major grief off my mother for mischievously opening the little windows for a sneak peep before the appointed day). Whether it's a particularly German tradition (I don't think it is) it was one which it was nice to revive. I put a little tree up on the window-sill and decorated it and on Christmas Eve I put the cards up. For some years we'd been accustomed to finding little notes to say that somebody we knew had died during the year, and this year it had been my turn to write one. I got some nice messages of commiseration.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd have been in my teens, I think, when my father and sister decided one year they were going to go to Midnight Mass. I remember being somewhat intrigued by this - not least because neither of them were churchgoers - but whether I didn't ask if I could go too, or whether I asked and they said no, I can't now remember. However it's a custom which I eagerly adopted when we got engaged in 1971 and have been keeping up, with a few lapses in recent years, more or less ever since. This year I couldn't discover whether there were any being held locally, so I settled for watching a televised one from Clifton Cathedral. They put the words of the two carols up on the screen so people could sing along at home, and I amazed myself by being able to remember most of the words to "O come all ye faithful" and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" pretty much from my schooldays.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Christmas Day, then. I didn't bother with a turkey. When there were the two of us we used to get a mini-roast which lasted through Boxing Day and the day after but I didn't fancy the idea of that dragging on through into the New Year! One year quite recently I got us some turkey dinners-for-one which were really nice, much better than things like that usually are, but that was the one and only year I've ever seen them. So it was a Duck in Plum sauce, preceded by Prawn Cocktail and a bottle of Asti to wash it down with. There were no presents to open, of course, but an unexpected treat in the form of a phone call from, Paul, my best friend at school. We'd kept in touch on and off for over fifty years: divorced with two grown-up daughters now living abroad, he like me was spending Christmas on his own. And Christmas Day wouldn't be Christmas Day without the Queen's Speech. There's been no Christmas Top of the Pops just before it for many years now, but at least we're spared the ghastly compendium of 'Christmas Special' episodes of top comedy shows that used to grace out TV screens on Christmas night at one time. Ugh! </span><br /></p>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-80757007847021055322017-10-11T05:05:00.000+01:002017-10-11T05:05:33.862+01:00Process of ageing<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It's my birthday!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No longer, admittedly, the occasion for celebration and excitement that it once was. In fact I can only once remember when I was at Junior school my mother offering to do me a birthday party, when she gave me the chance of having a party or an extra-special (i.e. expensive) present, and I somewhat anti-socially chose the present! Needless to say I've long since forgotten what it was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One thing I do remember, doing a bit of reminiscing, is how apprehensive we all all were back in the year 2000 being at the mercy of the so-called 'millennium bug'. Would it mark the end of life as we knew it? It didn't: life carried on just the same despite all the prophets of doom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I don't know about anyone else, but the last seventeen years haven't been particularly eventful ones for me, not compared, say, to the first seventeen years of my life. I survived my childhood, and free of the pervasive creeping influence of the nanny-state, those years were by and large happy, carefree ones - although I'm pretty sure I didn't think so at the time. On the other hand despite the intrinsic curiosity value I certainly wouldn't want to back and relive them, or at least certainly not in a modern setting. There's a well-known natural tendency to remember things from long ago as being better than they actually were, of course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And what of the last seventeen? They've been marked by the major event of leaving work and while I'm tempted to say that my retirement hasn't been anything like I thought it was going to be, I don't honestly think I'd given that much thought to what it was going to be like. I've always tended to go for the <i>make-it-up-as-you-go-along</i> approach.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One thing which has marked the last 17 years was my decision in the year 2000 to start an online diary, of which this this blog is the latest incarnation. I've only very occasionally trawled back to see what I was thinking about and writing about - and most of it I suspect was fairly trivial. But it is/was an insight into how I was feeling at the time, and I've never deleted or altered anything. And while I don't blog as frequently or consistently as I did when I first started, I keep it going because I want to. It's just for me, and not, God forbid, for future generations of schoolboys à la Pepys! </span>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-36805857906839143002017-10-06T14:53:00.000+01:002017-10-07T15:30:51.977+01:00All looking good<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seven weeks on from my hip replacements, I went to the Hospital this morning to get them checked over. The physio looked at the scars, got me to do a few test exercises, and then invited me to have a look at my X-Rays. I'm not really a connoisseur of X-Rays, but the 'before' ones definitely looked to me like a mass of solid bone which had seized up virtually solid, in contrast to the one they took the following day, with the metal joints showing up just like they do in a medical textbook. What also showed up quite clearly and distinctly, being metal, were my PA and foreskin piercings!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Being the exhibitionist that I am, I couldn't resist saying, "Ooh look..." simply because it hadn't occurred to me they would be visible, but how you could take an X-Ray of the pelvic area without something like that showing visibly is of course almost impossible if you think about it. Perhaps a bit strange that nobody wondered what they <i>were</i>, but then again I daresay radiographers at least must have seen them before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I asked how long it would be before I could bend and tie my bootlaces myself, and he said it was just a matter of time and practice, and that it was as much a muscular exercise as anything else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pleased as Punch, I left my crutches behind for use of the next patient, and made my way home on the bus, no longer having to sit in the seats at the front specially reserved for those with 'impaired mobility'. Get as much exercise as you can, he'd said, so I even toyed briefly with the idea of getting another dog. </span> Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-63522984493287564482017-09-24T20:46:00.000+01:002017-09-25T05:37:24.154+01:00And back for more!<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Part One - last year...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, I survived the Hernia repair, and looking back on it now, and re-reading what I wrote in anticipation I have to say I worried totally unnecessarily: everything was fine. The only hitch was that the surgeon couldn't do the laproscopy which he'd planned - he told me afterwards that when he put the little camera in, everything was so tightly compacted he couldn't see what he was doing and so had to go for for an open mesh job instead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had a slight panic a couple of days after the operation when an accumulation of fluid made my poor little boy equipment swell up to elephantine proportions, completely burying my PA and foreskin rings under a massive balloon. I'd never seen anything like it and sat there wondering what was going to happen if it sealed up the urethra underneath this coccoon-like thing, blocking my ability to pee. Fortunately I discovered it didn't, and in a couple of days it had subsided as suddenly as it had come: if only someone had forewarned me, as I found out afterwards it's not <i>that</i> uncommon as a side-effect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The waterproof dressings came off after about twelve days, exposing two rows of stitches which were actually rows of metal staples called 'clips', looking a bit like teeth braces. I wish now I'd taken a photo: thinking back to my body piercing days, my mates would surely have been insanely jealous of this pair of awesome metal contraptions adorning my pubic area! But they had to come out, and a year on, I just have two faint scars as little souvenirs of it all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Part two - this year...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But while that problem had been solved, another had developed in its place. I was experiencing very troublesome arthritis in my hip joints culminating in my not being able to sit down to lace my boots up or pick anything up of the floor, and more significantly forcing me to give up my fortnightly trips to my Italian classes. I was by this time walking painfully (or more accurately, hobbling) with the aid of a stick, and people who knew me were commenting on how much difficulty I was having: I was petrified of losing my balance and having a fall. I really couldn't face the prospect of having to spend the rest of my life indoors, and so went on the waiting list for a hip replacement. Despite hearing that something almost akin to rationing was in force in the NHS, I in fact got an appointment surprisingly quickly. I was gobsmacked when the surgeon asked me, unusually, if I'd like to have both hips done at the same time, which I hadn't thought was actually technically possible, but I replied straightaway: "Yeah, I'd be up for that".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And so that's what I had done. All pretty hardcore: everyone I've told about it has been amazed! But it's gone like a dream and five weeks later I've almost dispensed with the crutches and with just a few residual aches (and plenty of rest), I'm otherwise recovering fast and will soon be up and running.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A very nice touch, incidentally, was the chance to pay for a <a href="https://www.swft.nhs.uk/our-hospitals/warwick-hospital/beauchamp-suite">private room</a> for the duration of my hospital stay. With a price tag of several grand, there's no way I could've afforded to have the whole operation done privately - and fortunately I didn't need to. But it was a nice 'extra' touch of individual care and the staff couldn't have been more attentive - just like staying in a hotel, in fact. So all in all,,props to Warwick Hospital for a grand job!</span>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-76077483061476255802016-07-05T02:15:00.000+01:002016-07-05T02:18:12.122+01:00Preparedness<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So... somewhere around a year after they were first diagnosed, I'm due to have my hernias operated on later today. Having had to pop out yesterday and get a couple of spare front door keys cut and in the process experiencing a groin pain almost at times akin to bing stabbed, I don't need much more convincing of the necessity of getting it done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Hospital have done their best to cover all the angles to ensure I'm physically prepared, and friends have all rallied round offering emotional support. And I've been making myself busy trying to make sure I've got everything in place to make things easy to manage on my return - which I guess is some sort of psychological testament to my confidence there there will in fact <u>be</u> a return! So for the moment at least, I'm somewhat calmer and don't<i> think </i>I shall panic and run at the last minute.<i> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And just to reinforce all that, I'm going to finish with a quote from an online novel I've been reading and re-reading recently. Although I've taken it out of context, It nevertheless strikes a chord with me in my present situation. It goes like this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>She also said without words that worrying would do no good, that the
universe would do what was right, that all I had to do was trust it. She
told me that no one is ever in total control and sometimes you need to
give others the gift of allowing them to care for you."</i> </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://theboysofsunset.wordpress.com/0099-chapter-ninety-nine/">[from "All in a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">R</span>ow<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (</span>the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">B</span>oys of Sunset)" - a novel by T.S.</a>] </span></i>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-55407787929424237142016-07-02T07:17:00.002+01:002016-07-02T07:18:21.313+01:00Self-doubt<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The date for my hernia repair operation approaches, and re-reading what I wrote on here in the entry-before-last I'm just as unsettled about it all now as I was then. Maybe it's just the feeling of being trapped - coerced into doing something I don't really want to because there's no realistic alternative. No, it's not quite that simple: irt's more a case of constantly weighing up unknowns and trying to predict the likely outcomes. And that's something I've never been very good at: I think I'd say I've always been more of a suck-it-and-see person, content to accept whatever result materializes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And maybe that's the problem. I'm pretty sure, trying to analyse my feelings now, that I'm overthinking what might go wrong. I'm concentrating on the risks and possible problems of what is a very common routinely performed operation and speaking as one who rarely reads the little leaflets inserterd into packets of tablets detailing all the possible side-effects I'm somehow become fixated with the idea that I'm going to be the one in ten, one in a hundred or whatever.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The worst part is that I don't know why I'm doing it. Everyone else in the family had to have an operation: my mother had what I didn't know at the time and only found out after she died was a hysterectomy, and my father had a prostate operation when he was younger than I am now. And they both lived to tell the tale without as far as I remember making too much of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think back to my childhood, which I once described in one word in one of those idiotic online survey-things as "carefree". Because that's how I remember it. On the other hand I'm sure there were an endless number of things that seemed a big deal at the time but which I just no longer have any recollection of because they ceased to have any importance after the event: life went on. My mother was a worryer, and would spend endless nights awake, tossing and turning, unlike my father who seemed unfazed and slept soundly - or maybe he didn't show it. On the other hand my mother was always 'there' for me and while I wasn't really in the habit of confiding all my innermost dark worries in her, I just felt her presence was reassuring: nothing bad was going to happen while she was around. Maybe she would just worry about whatever it was it for both of us, so I didn't have to. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I wonder what she'd make of all this now? She'd probably tell me to pull myself together and stop being so silly. Maybe she'd be more fatalistic and take the "Que sera sera" line: she often had this idea that things were or weren't "meant to be/happen". She'd be right, of course: she always was. So maybe I just need to cling on to the idea that my innate Libran optimism will see me though, come what may.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486646151160971319.post-54448860704185478792016-06-27T15:21:00.004+01:002016-06-27T15:21:55.210+01:00The die is cast<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And so - the fall-out from surprise result of last Thursday's referendum continues in the wake of the vote for "Brexit". 17.4 million Britons, or 51.9% voted that they no longer want to remain in the EU. Six weeks of campaigning produced a close result, which was expected, but an overall vote to leave, which wasn't. There is apparently a petition currently attracting signatories - many of them allegedly fraudulent - demanding a re-run. But seriously: the question was simple enough: in or out and it produced a majority in a free vote. That's how democracy works in action. You can't have endless re-runs using slightly different rules until you get the result you want.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm old enough to remember Britain's first attempts to join what was then known as the 'Common Market', twice frustrated in the 1960s by the veto of French President de Gaulle. Over the years since then the face of Europe has changed beyond recognition with the virtual end of the Cold War, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the enlargement of the EU into a sprawling union encompassing virtually every country in Europe. The character of the union has changed too, from a simple trading area to a more of a political union raising in turn questions of national sovereignty. So the pressure which gave rise to the demand for the referendum in the first place I think was inevitable. What has tipped the balance seems to have been the migration/refugee crisis, Europe's collective failure to deal with it, and the resulting pressure on the UK public services and facilities. A relevant question to my mind is why, with open borders and 25 other countries to choose from, do so many migrants want to come here?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much of the scaremongering which marked the campaigning was just that - scaremongering. The plain fact is that no-one actually knows what's going to happen to jobs, prices, and trading in the future. Gone will be the loathsome petty diktats which regulated amongst other things the curvature of bananas. Perhaps too we shall see the end of the 5% VAT on gas and electricity which was a Brussels imposition. But I've no doubt whatever happens we shall survive. Better off in some respects and worse off in others. However the feeling of having <i>chosen</i> to do something as opposed to having it <i>imposed</i> against your wishes is in my view a price worth paying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Allons-y! </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Donhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556981409721070854noreply@blogger.com0