Medical Interlude

A whole week lost to norovirus. Appointments cancelled, jobs left undone, blogs unread and posts unwritten.  I didn’t even feel good enough to enjoy the enforced idleness. The dog pined, not getting his usual walks, the cleaning help refused to set foot in the house, dirty laundry piled up.

Beloved brought the virus home first; he was done with it in three days, after having generously donated it to me.

With me it liked to linger longer; I am one of those unfortunate people whose heart sometimes plays silly-buggers. 98% of the time it ticks and tocks along nicely but under the strain of a viral infection and the havoc this wreaks, one minute it can be playing jungle drums, the next withdraw from the scene like a Victorian lady having the vapours. Letting it go on for any length of time is usually not a good idea.

So the trusty GP arrived, my sweet and gentle friend Dr. J.; next, a couple of burly chaps in blue were bundling me into their evil-smelling ambulance, in spite of saying ‘yes, boss’ when I swore at them to leave me where I was.

Once on the ward - where my heart soon assumed normal service  - pretty little nurslings, otherwise known as auxiliaries, in pale pastel uniforms, with very little nursing training, were flitting about occasionally, sending vague smiles in my direction, but probably too scared to enter the personal space of a leper.  Full-grown nurses were very few and far between, doctors nowhere to be seen.

As I was no longer an emergency, that didn’t matter and I settled back to observe.

Nurses generally seem to be of the opinion that anybody in the vicinity of 60 and over must be deaf, half-blind and definitely gaga, in need of incontinence pads, hearing aids and receptacles for false teeth.  Very often they are right. Unless you, the patient, lay down the ground rules and set boundaries the minute you arrive, you become part of the great shadowy body of invisible, pitiable, demoralized, patronized, and mostly elderly occupants of NHS hospital wards. Nobody is actually deliberately unkind or abusive but you are certainly meant to keep quiet,  take your meds and don’t bother anyone. God help you if you can’t move under your own steam! The picture is not a pretty one. Ringing your bell is a waste of time.

For 20 years I have held a season ticket to the show, I know what I am talking about.

In spite of all of the above and perhaps because of having learned the hard way to

negotiate terms and conditions,  I am usually treated courteously.

When the Polish doctor finally arrived at three in the morning, eight hours after I had arrived, I recognized him for an old friend I had met before and we were soon chatting away, comparing notes about health services in our respective countries.  Both of us being NHS insiders, as doctor and patient, we are allowed to do that; neither of us would allow an outsider to do so. Polish doctor will be leaving the UK eventually to return to Poland, where he will be a “better doctor” than his Polish colleagues because UK training is more rigorous than training in his own country; he turned down Germany because there the final exams “are harder”.

Strange world.  To me that reasoning is somehow not quite logical, medicine being medicine? Maybe not.

Polish doctor checked me over, hooked me up to a saline drip, filled in a few reams of paper and we parted the best of friends, me to stay in my bed, finally allowed a few hours sleep and he to continue on his rounds.

In the morning I was discharged.

norovirus, a most unwelcome visitor!

norovirus, such a pretty name for this minute, yet beastly winter virus!
Looks harmless, doesn't he?
You wouldn't recognize him in the street, he is definitely not pavement pizza.

We had a visit from him - or one of his many kith and kin - and we are not grateful!

norovirus sneaks in while your attention is elsewhere and he hits you with the force of a sledgehammer coming down on you from a great height.

You are felled instantly.
There is absolutely nothing you can do.
Except grin and bear it.
And leak.

I didn't know you could leak from that many directions at the same time. Not to mention orifices.

Sorry, if you are one of those suffering from a nervous disposition. Or delicate sensibilities.

I am poorly and feeling very sorry for myself. And therefore not overly bothered about your sensibilities.
Any sense of humour I have ever had has been flushed down various pans.

Sorry folks, I'll see you when I see you.

Toodeloo, almost literally.

Kitchen Sink Drama

Blogger misled me.

No expense spared,

Fireworks and a Brass Band.

A Parade of

Horses, Donkeys, 

and at least one Unicorn,

Free  and Gratis,

That Was The Plan For

 My 200th Post. 

Blogger Misled Me.

Blogger tells me that this is my 202nd Post.

And All I Could Come Up With Was The Lousy

Kitchen Sink.

Eva's Tale

Eva Goes On Holiday  # 5

The story so far: Eva is little girl living in post-war Germany. Because she might be in danger of contracting TBC she is sent to a children's home, which is also used as a sanatorium, on the island of Norderney in the North Sea.  She is away from home, on her own,  for the first time in her life. 

the sand dunes on Norderney

We went to the beach today because it’s warm enough now and we are all much better, Miss Manfred says. Nobody had to stay behind, which was really nice. 

I knew it must be the sea because the other children had told me what it looked like when they came back from the beach. The beach was really just sand, with sandhills and grass behind, which Miss Manfred said were dunes, but the sea was huge, lots and lots of water, as far as you could see, which was a sort of greeny-blue colour and sparkly and the water kept coming on to the beach, and you had to run backwards quickly if you didn’t want to get your skirt wet. Once I nearly fell over. Miss Manfred would have been really cross with me.

First the waves came rolling up and they had white foam on the top, like egg-snow, and then they tipped over and when they reached the beach they were like little foamy ripples, just like when Mum chucks a bucket of soap water over the stones in the backyard.  And when I stood on the wet sand, it sort of shrank away from under my feet and made a hole and my feet got sucked into it.

It was brilliant.

I have never been to the sea before and I just stared and stared at it. Where the sun and the sea meet, far, far away, a kind of path appears, like a ribbon,  golden and shimmering, and it came all the way up to me, as if it was meant just for me, and I really wanted to run into the sea and walk on the path, into the sun. But I knew I couldn’t, because it was really just water and I would have sunk and maybe drowned.

When I am grown-up and when I can go where I want, I will come back to the sea and I will try to walk on the path and if I can’t walk, then I will learn to swim in the golden path.

I saw other people in the water and they were splashing and waving their arms about and throwing a big ball with lots of colours on it.   Lots of people were playing on the beach, in the sand, children and grown-ups too. Some people had spades and they were digging holes and making big heaps of sand. I didn’t know what they were doing with the sand but Miss Manfred said they were building sandcastles and would we like to build one too. She had spades and a ball for us in a big sack, so we could choose what we wanted to do, if we promised to stay away from the water and didn’t get lost or run too far.

Birgie and Marianne wanted to play with the ball and Susie and Gisela and I asked for a spade. But it was silly to dig a hole and end up with a pile of sand. We were supposed to pour water over it and sort of make it into a wall. Miss Manfred gave us a bucket and we poured the water over the sand but it kept cracking and collapsed all the time.

I watched the other people who were building sandcastles, they were much better at it, because they had big boys and grown-ups to help.

I didn’t want to play; I wanted to sit in the sand and let the sun shine on me and watch the golden path.

the North Sea at Sunset

What I Really Think About Pre-Lunch Drinks Parties

To paraphrase Wendy Cope, ‘bloody parties are like bloody buses, you wait forever and then three come along at once’.  There’s been one on each of the last three Sundays. Drinks parties, not buses, silly.

Much though I’d hate not being invited, pre-lunch drinks parties are not a good idea, as far as I am concerned.

For one thing, I like to mix my alcohol with food. My capacity is limited at the best of times. Besides, by 12 o’clock I am usually faint with hunger, so drinking on an empty stomach is bound to cause problems. Even the most generous hostess is not going to provide more than prettily arranged, colourful bits of airy nonsense, dainty appetizers, otherwise known as an outbreak of nibbles, not substantial enough to fill the holes in my teeth, much less the chasm in my stomach.

“Red or white”, the host calls out gaily. “There’s also some juice here somewhere”.

As I am not pregnant, ill or teetotal, wine it is. “You’ll be fine, a glass won’t hurt you.  Luckily, you won’t have far to go”, he says. Whatever does he mean by ‘far to go’?  Until I fall over?  Start dancing on the table? Proposition the vicar?  It’s always the host who pours the drinks and little does he know how wine, in the morning, on an empty stomach, affects my judgment. A distance of no more than 50 m can become a frightening obstacle course; add a hill, a few parked cars, a gate or two, a muddy track, a cattle grid, all readily available in Valley’s End, and perfectly easy to negotiate when I am sober, when I’m even slightly inebriated you’d best take me home in a wheelbarrow.

However, for the moment I am still a party-guest, sparkling and witty and sophisticated, engaging in gay and lively banter. 

Well, what else would I tell you?

That I am standing in a crush of people, balancing a glass in one hand and the nibbles plate plus napkin in the other, straining to understand what my current partner is saying and shouting a reply back; hoping that I’ve understood his side of the conversation and that my reply has made sense to him and I won’t have to repeat it; it really wasn’t interesting in the first place and repeating it would make that so pitifully obvious and an ass of me.

Eating, drinking and shouting all at the same time can play havoc with one’s social graces, spitting crumbs and droplets of wine are not unusual and a furtive wipe with the napkin to mop up dribbles on the chin, trying not to pour the contents of your glass down your front, while laughing gaily at what you think was a joke you didn’t quite catch are part of the ritual. As is playing  musical chairs, a graceful waltz from group to group, partner to partner, each time picking up on the last sentence of the pre-you conversation and adding the perfect follow-on. 

But even the nicest party has to come to an end.  Once the exodus has started, everybody else leaves very quickly and after many more shouted good-byes, see you soon,  we all go our separate ways.

“Lovely party”, we say, “wasn’t it nice to see old Jack again” and "poor Fiona isn’t looking too good, do you think she misses him?” I’ve probably managed to make my one glass of wine last and the usual post-party headache is bearable.

At least I won’t be drunk in charge of the dog, who is at home, waiting to be taken for his morning walk. Lunch will have to wait. Alas.

I Give You An Onion

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion,

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light

like the careful undressing of love.

Here.

It will blind you with tears

like a lover.

It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful

as we are,

for as long as we are.

Take it.

Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,

if you like.

Lethal.

Its scent will cling to your fingers,

cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy

Poet Laureate

Happiness is . . . . .

. . . being out and about on a day when the theatrical spectacle nature provides free of charge is grander than anything even the greatest set designer can equal.. . . . .

Today I want the sky,

The tops of the high hill,

Above the last man's house, 

his hedges and his cows.

Where, if I will, I look

Down even on sheep and rook,

And of all things that move,

See buzzards only above.

Often and often it came back again

To mind, the day I passed the horizon ridge

To a new country, the path I had to find

By half-gaps that were stiles once in the hedge.

Catkins showing golden on a stand of hazel.

A hay wagon waiting for the arrival of cattle

from their winter quarters.

Clouds. . . . .

now scurrying close overhead, 

wild ink-hued random racers that fling sheeted rain

gustily, and with garish boughs overarch the land:

Or, if the spirit of storm be abroad, huge molten glooms

mount on the horizon stealthily, and gathering as they climb

deep-freighted with live lightning, thunder and drenching flood

rebuff the winds and with black purpling terror impend

til they be driven away . .  . . .

extracts of poems by Edward Thomas and Robert Bridges

February in the Garden

Bullfinches (pyrrhula pyrrhula) return to the garden in February and, although timid half 
the year, are now fearless and persevering. The bullfinches’ usual habitat is woodlands, hedgerows and orchards, where they will feed voraciously on the flower buds of fruit trees in spring. In spite of their bright beauty and sad and mournful call, fruit farmers still see a flock of bullfinches appear with some trepidation.

 Photo RSPB

One of the most popular February-flowering shrubs is Daphne Mezereum. Stiff, upright stems are clothed with purplish-red flowers in February and March. The variety Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata’ grows to 4ft x 5ft, has evergreen leaves prettily edged with a thin gold margin and smells divine, hence its full name. The starry flowers are followed by poisonous berries. Beware! The harsh winter here in Shropshire has caused the leaves to turn slightly dryish-brown, but the plant will soon recover when the days are warmer.

Another early flowerer is Lonicera fragrantissima; it has fragrant creamy-white flowers throughout winter, often on bare stems. This Lonicera is a variety of shrubby honeysuckle; I have planted mine in a slightly sheltered spot by the back door. On sunny days the gorgeous smell meets me every time I leave the house.

The Plant Directory UK

If you have a large space, then Hamamelis, the Witch Hazel, is the shrub you want at this time of year. The showy, spidery flowers appear on the leafless branches for many weeks in winter and the sweet fragrance is a bonus; you can cut a branch or two and bring them indoors. Although rather unexciting in summer, in autumn the leaves take on attractive tints. Mine grows in a space under trees, in summer I can use the shrub as a backdrop for hostas and ferns.

Annette Hoeggemeier

Ruhr Universitaet Bochum

The one harbinger of spring that no garden should be without, is the humble snowdrop. Ubiquitous they may be, easy to grow, and slow to die;  but I would no more wish to be without them at this time of year than I would wish to forego the birds and the bees. There has a clump of them growing somewhere in my garden since Christmas and this particular spot of snowdrops amongst the leaves of heuchera is my favourite.

For those of you who are still in the merciless grip of deep winter, here is a bit of advice:

Avoid travelling by Night in Snowy Weather.

For she was all froze in with frost

Eight days and nights, poor soul

But when they gave her up for lost

They found her down the hole.

On this day in 1799 a passing farmer, noticing a handkerchief hanging on a bush, rescued Elizabeth Woodcock of Impington in Cambridgeshire from the snow hole in which she had taken refuge from a blizzard on the night of February the second. Drifting snow had subsequently covered her to a depth of six feet, and she had become too weak to climb out. During her confinement her only sustenance was two pinches of snuff.  (Snuff = tobacco for sniffing).

Walk fast in snow

In frost walk slow

When frost and snow are both together

Sit by the fire and save shoe leather.

anonymous

Words Words Words

Words

Base words are uttered only by the base

And can for such at once be understood,

But noble platitudes: ah, that’s a case

Where the most careful scrutiny is needed

To tell a voice that’s genuinely good

From one that’s base but merely has succeeded.

W.H.Auden

city of words, lithograph by Vito Acconci 1999

In the beginning was the word.

I have always had a passion for words, playing with them, making up words, finding the one word which expresses exactly what I want to say. It must be quite exasperating for others sometimes, waiting for me to finish my convoluted sentences, allowing me to go off into side alleys and dead ends, getting lost in clauses and sub clauses.  Translations often took me longer than they should have done, even when I was simply working on a technical specification.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed it. Still do.

Communication is such a hugely important part of living and interacting; the lucky ones, who have speech, use predominantly words to do so, as well as body language and facial expression. Nowadays, of course, many of us sit in front of computers, typing words on a word-processor, words we hope make sense to others.

“I have something to tell you”.

I have something to tell you. These words. Dread words. Chill-words. Words no middle-aged wife wishes to hear uttered numbly, yet with a ghastly hopeful smile, by her middle-aged husband.

When I read this paragraph in Joyce Carol Oates’ novel  ‘Middle Age’,

recently, I thought of the many ways the word ‘WORD’ itself, as in, word, n. a unit of spoken language, (etc.), can convey many different meanings, depending on how it is used and the phrase in which it appears.

You can be word-perfect, you can paint a word-picture, set a word-puzzle and enjoy word-play. You can produce a word-salad or be a word-splitter. You can also be a word-smith.

And then there are the many phrases, My Word, there are a lot of them!

Believe me, I give you my word on that! My word is my bond whereas his word cannot be taken for gospel; he hasn’t a good word to say for anybody. The word is that he puts words into your mouth before he takes the words right out of it again. I’ve been having words with him about this. I said “ I want a word with you,” which he didn’t like very much. But I carried on, “a word to the wise”, I said, “ a word in your ear”.  “Fair words butter no parsnips”, I said, “that’s not the word for it”; “You may be a man of many words, but I will never take your word for it”, I said. “I simply cannot take you at your word, in fact, I can hardly get a word in edgeways with you”.

“In a word”, I said, “you break your word”.  At which he became very angry and said “ One day I will make you eat your words”!

Let a poet have the last word:

Envoi

Goodbye, words.

I never liked you,

Liking things and places, and

Liking people best when their mouths are shut.

Go out and lose yourself in a jabbering world,

Be less than nothing, a vacuum

Of which words will beware

Lest by suction, your only assertion, you pull them in.

For that I like you, words,

Self-destroyed, self-dissolved

You grow true.

To what? You tell me, words.

Run and I’ll follow,

Never to catch you up.

Turn back, and I’ll run.

So goodbye. 

Michael Hamburger

A Good Day for a Walk

I'm ready, are you?










Where do we start?
In the garden, shall we? Let's see
how the aconites and snowdrops are doing.
       

        

                                      

The Unk is calm again after the floods. but there is little life in the hedge apart from the brilliant green of the lichen on the hawthorn stumps.

Hello sheep!

You're clean?

There's Manor Farm just over the hill. Perhaps we had better turn round here.

The shadows of the trees in the field by the river are getting longer; soon the day will turn cold again.

The Scraper's Diary, Friday, April 4th, 1947, Itzehoe

No. 22

There have been so many enquiries as to who the Scraper was, that, even at this late stage, I should tell you a bit more about him. He was a young conscript, serving in the British Army after WW II. He was a trained classical musician, who was sent on a tour of duty, lasting six weeks, to BAOR (British Army of the Rhine) with an RA band, to perform for British troops stationed in Germany, as well as in Church and concert halls,


His diary has very little to do with the music they played, it is much more a first-hand account of the situation he found himself in.  






Good Friday,

only there's nothing specially good about it.

True, the pub is good, but the table-cloth is patched. The water is hot but the waste-pipe doesn't run well,  and the chambermaids don't talk English. Oh well, I expect we'll get over it.

I won six shillings at solo on the journey here, these bus trips are quite a useful source of income to me.

Tea was hilarious, The four at our table,  Mike, Len, Derek and me,  indulged in a lengthy bit of horseplay with a small dish of sugar. I put all into my cup and then Len seized it and divided it unequally between us. The matter was forgotten until tea was poured out. We tasted it.

"What is it", said Derek, "Bicarb?"
"Persil, I think," I said.

The waitress explained that the little dish had held salt. We wont forget in a hurry.

We went into a German pub, in order to test the pulse of the Black Market over a glass of unmentionable beer. A very low dive. On one table a game of expletive-riddled poker was in progress. At another, a huddle of old men were deeply into serious, hissed, discussion, while, at a third, Bill and Ray were trying to drink enough to forget the girls they were with. Several more tarts were lounging about, bored.

We sat at a table with two unshaven road sweepers, and soon got down to business. I changed sixty cigarettes into three hundred marks and made an appointment for tomorrow.

Quite a Hemingway set-up. Real honky-tonk. Real low.

o-o-o-o-o-o

Easter Saturday, April 5th

I kept thinking about those two girls, the ones with Bill and Ray last night. I mean, they were so young and yet they seemed to have no youth. They weren't common tarts, as I have since found out, but they will be soon. They're only novices, they just sat there, drinking, saying very little, and understanding the loud, self-conscious conversation of their pick-ups only in gesture, not words. Apparently, they had seen Bill and Ray and said "Kaffee?" and that was all that was needed.

They left the inn before us, but the lads didn't get in until the small hours.

We went to the inn again this afternoon, to meet some stockings, watches and a case. I bought a case and we sat drinking until the stockings arrived.

When they turned up, half an hour later, we were surprised at the scale of operations. We were ushered into a back room and the two salesmen set up shop. They unpacked their cases and laid plastic raincoats and stockings over chairs and tables. Raincoats 200 cigarettes, stockings 60 cigarettes and ladies underwear (sets)  150 cigarettes; they were no amateur black marketeers, but fully-fledged professionals.
They would not barter or lower their prices. They told me that the raincoats were made for them at a special factory, and that they could get me any number of them. The stockings, apart from some Parisian ones of Rayon were all fully-fashioned silk, smuggled from the Russian zone. I was asked whether there were many troops at our next halt, - Kiel - , so that they could tell if it would be worthwhile to visit the place on business.

The episode had one amusing sidelight; they were discussing some coffee and chicory I had, in German,
and I managed to understand one sentence: "these Englishmen can't tell vinegar from coffee". I could make remarks about German tea.

Things had ben conducted with so much guile on both sides, and with such intensity, that I leant against the doorpost for a minute when I got outside and felt quite dizzy. The street still lay in the quiet sunshine and the kids still played in the gutter and on the hard old cobblestones. I could hardly believe that I was within ten feet of a very squalid section of commerce.

I shrugged and walked on to the Y.M.C.A. That's how things are here. Very fair of face but with a real sickness at heart. The black market and the prostitutes aren't an illness in themselves, but a symptom of a very real national disease. There have been occasional eruptions of this illness while we have been here.
Riots in Dusseldorf a fortnight after we left. Razor gangs on one side and rape on the other in Osnabruck, two days before we arrived. More razor gangs and theft in Oldenburg.

And yet the air is peaceful and fresh. Spring is abroad, and the land itself smiles; but somehow there is something.........
It's as vague as that.

I buy a tablet of soap in the Y.M.C.A. for fivepence. I walk round to the pub and the innkeeper's brother gives me twenty five marks for the piece of soap that cost me fivepence. A mark equals sixpence at current exchange, but I can't exchange it. I can only buy twopence worth of goods with it.

ATTENTION; FRIDGE SOUP

The Kitchen is open.


Whether you like it or not, I've started cooking, the pot is on the stove.

Will all those who have expressed an interest in adding a bone, a herb or two, some soup vegetables or even just a stock cube, and whose email address is not on their blog, please get in touch. My email is on my profile page.

Fridge Soup is where you find the first signs of simmering.

If you'd rather not become a member just yet, that's fine too. If you decide to go with 'Miscellany' on your own blog and you want me to refer to your post, you can leave a comment on Fridge Soup.

Depending on how it goes, Fridge Soup may become a site for members only in due course. Or it may not. (I wish I could stop dithering)

Anyway, let's start peeling carrots.