WATCHING MY P's AND Q's

The middle finger on my left hand has a medical dressing on it. It is amazing how frugal you can become in the use of words when it is necessary to skirt around an obstacle.  Most times, this afternoon, I have managed a word or three in reply to emails and posts, or, just a couple of brief sentences. I am also very much watching my typed P’s and Q’s.

Dressed finger 

 

TRAVELLING FAR AND WIDE

On the 8th April this year I sent a package to Vienna, Austria.  The address, country and post code were all clearly typed in a large font on to a very large label, (half of an A4 sheet of paper) which was securely taped to the correspondence with clear wide sellotape, from top to bottom and side to side.  The package was sent with proof of posting, not that it means much after leaving these shores.  It just  gives me a piece of paper to wave about proving that I am not out of my mind, if, or, when, I have to try and retrieve anything: it confirms that I did pay postage for sending something through the postal system. 

The package should have arrived between five and seven days after posting.  Several enquiries of "have you received the package we sent?" from week two, on, elicited a negative reply. There's only so long you can keep asking, so, we stopped.

A text arrived on the 8th May, (a month later) telling us the package had arrived at last.  Not only had it got to its destination.....it had been sent via Jakarta!!!!! 

THE WORLD OF WORDS

A way with words:   meddle a bit with that phrase- just a bit- this is what you get, and this is how I feel.  Away with words!

I have been writing; I have been writing to people who, I want to take on board my justified concerns and do something positive.  It is a challenge accessing basic services in a remote place, it is also challenge for providers to provide.  In this day an age of internet technology, it is risky not to use it to best advantage for them and us, but this is exactly what is not happening.

After all my efforts I hope I do not get a chew and spew response.   This where you find out who thinks they have the power and who really has it; with whom they use the power, and how they use it.  

It has taken a lot of time, thought, care and effort to put all those words together,   It's  like I have been working up an thesis, or, at least a detailed abstract of one.  It has been a relief to send it off.  Even so, I am still thinking about words, its words.

In parallel, I have been acting as secretary to hubby, formatting and designing, making words look professionally presentable for him.   You end up feeling drained from constantly producing words, and you feel emptied out of words.

But here is the rub, I have to use words to say how I feel, to describe here, what is going on......  it's all words, words, words.

THE DAILY SHUFFLE OF SENSITIVE LEAFY PLANTS

I had not intended it, the temperatures have been just too cold. My gardening hand was forced though, when I received a gift of six very healthy-looking herb plants, a clay planter and a large bag of compost.  Separately, I was also the lucky recipient of a psychedelic salad box.  The box is not psychedelic, what is in it, in packets of seed, is supposed to be. They are staying firmly closed.  Anyway, I'll have to negotiate the corner of someone's green house to cultivate the cucumbers that are part of the psychedelic mix.

As I said, my hand was forced.  This afternoon in-between heavy gobs of freezing rain  and hailstones - they were truly mini ice balls-I ran in and out of the cellar, where opened bags of compost are stored, to grab a bag of the stuff to fill the planter.  To allow spread, I could only place two of the hardier herb plants in it.  The planter has depth and not too much length. I found a space against a wall, (actually, a few inches forward of it) to plant the Borage, having first been assured that it would be okay and  as a bonus, appear annually, (hmm).  Chives grow anywhere and don't seem to mind what type of climate they are faced with, within reason.  I stuffed the chive into a pot and left it near the other plants.

The remaining two herb plants are too tender to grow outside here, even in our warmer periods of the year.  I say that advisedly, as, yes, I agree it is all relative, but, to my mind and body thermostat, we do not have, as a rule, what I would call a summer, at least not with any continuity. According to gardening advice on one of the herb species, my own sixth sense about our warmth levels seems to be right. .........."it is sensitive to the cold".  It isn't the only one, I thought.

My two Aloe Vera plants are happy souls and easy to please.  Joining them on my kitchen window sill, are two new pots of green leafy things. There's every risk of sunburn there in the mornings for those tender leaves.  You can see it can't you, it will become the daily shuffle dance of the new plant pots from one side of the house to the other. 

FIRST AID

During this fortnight, I have had two day - case operations, the second being an emergency one, to deal with the failure of the first one.  To top it all, I got a running cold and a cough. 

The first surgical procedure was planned for one day early in April, and off we went for the 120 miles drive to the hospital.  Just in case there were any after-effects, we booked into bed and breakfast not too far away from the hospital. It felt safer to do this, as we do not have the clinical expertise for my case, near home.   Everything seemed fine, and the stopover became more of a mini-break.

I was due to have stitches removed at the local G.P surgery on the Monday. However,  the fates took over at the weekend,  (why couldn't it have been a weekday) which, about four o' clock  on a Saturday afternoon saw us racing twenty miles to the county hospital Emergency Department.  There, I saw a friendly nurse.

Having done her bit of triage she went in search of a doctor, who was a sweet young lady, likely to have been in her first post-qualifying year.   After carefully telling her the whole story again, she went off to make a phone call to the regional hospital out of hours specialist to get advice on what to do.    

The advice given;  I was to cancel the appointment with my GP, the stitches remaining in situ must not be moved.  I was to wait two weeks till my own surgeon came to consult at the out-patient clinic at the county hospital. Yes - I was told, he definitely will have a clinic and the nurses will arrange for an appointment to be sent to you. I was to take some prescribed medication for the two weeks.  Oops... there wasn't any in the department and the hospital pharmacy was closed.  Neither the hospital nor the community had an out of hours rota.  Brilliant!

The nurses eventually found medication in surgical packaging in the minor surgery room. Everyone was trying so hard for me, yet it all felt like a Hobson's choice, which, was confirmed, when the young doctor asked me what dose would I normally be prescribed for the prescription.

Starting out very early on Monday morning, we travelled 120 miles down the road, and arrived to find a very crowded specialist morning clinic at the regional hospital. My luck was in, my surgeon was there.  Have you an appointment ? asked the receptionist.  "No - I said -no time for that, look".  Oh! and she dashed off and quickly returned, saying - he will see you. 

To cut a long story short, I was triaged by the clinic nurses, who, when I thanked them for their concern, replied,  'it was an honour'.  Without any hesitation, the surgeon asked me to stay overnight near the hospital so I could be fitted into his morning surgery list the next day,  "to get 'it' sorted out and fixed".  His secretary arranged some accommodation for us, and we rushed around town to buy a toothbrush each, toothpaste, toiletries and some nightwear.

By the way,  the surgeon told me he did not take outreach clinics at our county hospital, other doctors did that.  

As I was departing from the operating theatre, the doctor asked.... Would you mind returning to clinic have the stitches removed......... ( would I mind!) I'd be delighted, I said.


 

BIKES, HATS, HELMETS AND FAGS

We were ever so good doing what we should, stopped still at red traffic lights, and I was looking after hubby's camera.  It was mine once, he likes getting my hand-me downs; cameras I mean.   It helps that I know how to use the camera when the unexpected happens. I gazed out through the windscreen and to my astonishment I saw this sight crossing the road in front of us; I just had to get a shot of it: click.....

Peering at the camera screen I looked at the picture I had managed to get.  Could that white mark on the rider's mouth be a dirty mark on the windscreen?  Hoping upon hope it was not, I checked out the photo at a larger viewing on the computer screen.  I saw more than I had bargained for.

Talk about being cavalier; not only had the rider got his helmet jauntily protecting the upright of his pillion seat, on his own head he wore a soft beanie hat, and had two cigarettes sticking out of his mouth.  I wonder if he would have carried ten -a small packet number - in the same way?

This guy was from the 'grandad brigade' sailing close to the wind  in his second youth, with no apparent care for the law of the land, including one law that requires motorcycle riders to wear helmets. There are one or two exemptions, such as for religious Sikhs who wear turbans. He was definitely not wearing a turban, not even under that beanie.  

It set me thinking.  Could the rider have been a more-or-less well-behaved law abiding youngster in his day, who, in his looming dotage was suffering a male menopause and breaking down his inhibitions,  or, was he  a tearaway youth in his time who had become an immature hedonistic adult, still testing the boundaries.

Perhaps, away from all the macho shiny machinery,  the guy might be an upstanding compliant member of the community, and as soft as a lamb. 

THINKING ABOUT WAYS OF SAYING GOODBYE

I haven't felt much like writing this last week, though I have been reading a bit.  On two consecutive days, I have heard of the untimely death of a 41 year old I knew, a lovely man; and now, there is news of a younger man we know, who has been posted missing while walking last weekend in the Scottish hills.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a funeral of a 41 year old woman. I first met her about the time she left school.  She had cancer of the liver.  Her son is about the age she was when she gave me her first bright smile, and, when I was almost a new person on the block.  Her very long awaited second child, is nearly four years old.  the Humanist service the woman chose, was personal, inclusive, and it comforted me a great deal.  The family mourners commented on how it was helping them too.

It got me thinking about other farewell services and rituals I had participated in locally in recent years.  Of the many Christian funeral services I have been to, only three of them, I am sad to say, were non-divisive.

One minister could have started  a religious world war with his words.  He was offensive.  There was a lot of embarrassment, and people personally apologised for what had been said to  a couple of mourners who were not Christians. That minister seemed to have a habit of upsetting people with his style of funeral sermons. My neighbours commented after their mother's funeral service, with screwed up faces,  how 'strange' the minister was.

Another minister always bluntly told all assembled that they could not expect salvation [of any kind?] if they did not believe in the way he believed, if they did not attend his church, notwithstanding, there were, and are, other churches in the community.

One Easter we paid our respects to a work colleague on the other side of town.  I had never heard of the presiding minister; there were some mumbles about him being new, and the mumblers hoped he would be alright.  The man of the cloth had been in situ about five years! How long do you have to serve in a place not to be 'new,' I wondered.  I settled down to wait for the expected uncomfortable fire and brimstone, but it never came.  The minister spoke of the departed man, then, thoughtfully and kindly addressed the family and the assembled mourners. 

Another gentle service was given by a locum minister from the Antipodes, who was so unprepared, he stumbled all the way through the 'words' devised for him, at his request, by the family.  'Crochet' (which the departed lady was good at) brought the man to a stuttered halt. With a stage whisper I put him out of his misery, and he successfully verbally stumbled on to the end.

The third memorable and welcoming service, was given by a young American Church minister to a packed house. He warmly greeted everyone. His sermon linked into readings from the Old and New Testaments, but, somehow he seemed to  loose the threads between the two readings.  I have never worked out what he was trying to convey.