Now I am sixty

Well, Blog, it has finally arrived. The dreaded 60 and I am not sure how I feel about this particular milestone.
So much seems to change and yet is it so much? At 59 people still treated me as if I was part of the scene and I didn't feel much different to the way I did at 58.
I am not sure if it's the hype that changes attitudes or not. After all chronology is man made, and 60 is a socio-political border-line created by the state as a means of production control, except that now as everything goes belly up it actually counts for little.
The last three weeks have left me somewhat confused. I can tell that age is exerting an influence on the workings of my body but how much is down to the advance of age or the effects of past exertions is not so clear.
I have to face the fact that I am entering a new phase of my life and, like it or lump it, it is the last phase.
I can jump two ways - sit and wait for decline or embrace the freedom aspects and minimise the negatives.
I know what the answer should be but my humanity is frail and I know enough about myself to realise that without conscious effort I will fall into the former rather than lumber ( no gazelle like leaping for me!) towards the latter.
The constant battle with this recalcitrant and anarchic body of mine has been going on for years. I win the odd skirmish but now I have to work harder and devise more sophisticated strategies just to stay in touch.
What I have found is that at last I may be debt free sooner than I thought now that my student loan has been cancelled due to reaching the magic age, my prescriptions are free and if I can carry on working and collect my state pension (once they've got their act together and decided my entitlement) then for once in my life I might be able to stop always having to make choices and have my cake and eat it, for a while at least!
To the medics I have become a geriatric, possibly to be assessed, on each meeting, for competence if not for crumbling skeleton or lackadaisical bladder. I am constantly listening for the change in the tenor of their approach and questioning. They forget, or are ignorant of, my knowledge and expertise in this area, and I for my part, am anxious they should not make assumptions.
My post war generation should not go quietly into the long goodnight of settling for mediocrity and patronage.
We will want atms and internet access, pasta and sushi, a little eclat rather than inconspicuousness, when the time comes for us to need social care.
Woe betide anyone who makes assumptions about me or talks over my head rather than to me. The proverbial faeces will definitely hit the fan!

Scramble

My mind meanders through lists of words.
I view the grid and while I try to string letters together time ticks by.
How do these people have time to pass messages as the clock slices away
at each three minute slot?
My eyes turn somersaults finding words longer than three letters.
At zero the graphics change - a revised list of scorers pop up plus a list of all the words
in the grid, many of which are incomprehensible.
Are they plucked from some World Dictionary?
I wonder who searches them out.
Are we being duped, victims of a huge joke?
Someone on another part of the planet sniggers as they make up words,
the weirder the better?
Even so, when the clock starts the count down the pulse quickens and you hope
your eyes can pick up the sequences of letters.
Your fingers slide over the keys, illuminating the developing words.
Each word registers points, hopefully rapidly enough to lift a players position and
thereby raise each word I.Q.
My brain/hand/eye co-ordination seem so sluggish in comparison to other players
and then the laptop freezes - exasperation seethes as seconds melt away.
I resent the phone ringing with a minute to go, it equals words/points missed.

There is very little give and take.
Anyone exceeding the maximum room I.Q. is ordered off to higher places.
The Great Glory is the "greenie" - the green highlighted word scored only by
one player.
What exultation!
Eventually, reason surfaces and I take myself in hand.
I return the game to its rightful place and remind myself that in the great scheme of
things it is inconsequential and still second to the Great Solitaire,
the ultimate panacea when stress levels rise.

Dear Blog, you must think I have abandoned you and I admit my guilt in neglecting you but you must realise that there are other dimensions to my life. However, I will try to do better.

The particular story I am about to relate started with my calming two, near tearful, members of staff who were at the end of their tethers with a difficult client. Then onto calming said client who, in floods of tears, couldn't understand why we couldn't just pick all her sixteen stone up, bodily, and place it just where, when, how she wanted, without the use of equipment.
By eight a.m. I ached everywhere and mused that this was just the first hour of the shift. This client is one of several who need lots of our physical and emotional effort plus the two we are nursing in bed, both looking at death at very close quarters. Then I juggled the various dynamics of staff tensions. If I didn't have another agenda, one that is spiritual rather than temporal, would I work this five day week, including evening, weekends, bank holidays, for eighteen thousand a year? I'm pretty sure no man would!
It's hard work and even more so at weekends when we have one less pair of hands and the same amount of work. So, we do more work for the same money. It rankles but I am told this is the way it always was, will, has, to be. Put up and shut up.
Rant over.

Onslaught

I have survived the onslaught of the two youngest grandchildren, one, two and three-quarters, with eyes full of attitude, and the other, one year old, with bi-lateral dimples. One trampolines along the shattered sofa, the other lolls against it leaning on one elbow contemplating the possibility of toddling across the gap to the futon.
Miss Attitude tosses her long, dark, crisp and sumptuous hair that almost, but not quite, overwhelms her elfin features.
Miss Dimples' shorter, light brown hair, like a cap, gently curves around her chubby features with her trade mark extra long tendril trailing beyond the nape of her neck.

There are brief hiatus when their attention is held by Tomliboos and Pontipines. Miss D. lays her head by her sister's feet, flips herself over so that she looks endearingly at her sister upside down. They murmur to each other gently then Dimples, revealing two rows of lethal biters, attempts to fasten her mouth around Attitudes big toe. Not quick enough though! The older one withdraws her tarsals, casually, and recommences bouncing and flinging cushions accompanied by high pitched squeals.

Daddy reappears from his shave and hands out dishes of thinly sliced apple and high tech juice receptacles.
Attitude nibbles delicately, precisely, leaving thin, red arcs of peel while her sister bites fiercely, sucking in large chunks.
Attitude purloins her sister's slices, pretending to feed her, swapping them while diverting us all , from one bowl to another. "All gone!" She presents an empty pink dish to Daddy with innocent eyes.

On the floor they slide past, over, around, each other, interacting as they pass with varying degrees of gentleness and in their own language.
How I wish I had more energy; that I didn't haltingly pull myself up each stair and heave this non- conforming torso onto the landing to the toilet. I want to play with them but despite a willing spirit the flesh is weak and uncooperative.
I hate this getting older and having to accept that many and various bits of me aren't as efficient as I would like.

secrets

I showed a couple around the home a little while ago. An elderly man with a strong German accent and his nervous daughter. Along with all the usual questions about cost, etc., he kept asking me how much forgiveness there might be. I told him that as we all needed it I hoped there would be a lot. And would we need a lot of background information? Enough to make sense of the present situation, I said, but that of course we couldn't make anyone tell us what they didn't want us to know. That seemed to be a relief and he alternated between English and German, translating my answers to himself and their implications. The daughter seemed weighed down, trying hard to keep some sort of calm yet feeling his emotion was running away from her control.
She constantly tried to bring the conversation back to the prosaic in order to enforce some sort of normality but the whirl wind of his anxiety over took her and she gave up.
The tour was proscribed - no going into the lounges where other people were - "Show only to me the room". "Would it be necessary to eat with people?".
"Dad likes to keep to himself, very much." She explained with a nervous laugh.
Suddenly, I wanted to ask him to roll up his sleeves and let me see his arms. Of course I didn't but my mind replayed grainy black and white archive footage of striped clad bodies staring out with dark, hollow, eyes.
I returned to the present. I must have gone to auto-pilot because I seemed to have made the right responses. He was already out of the door, still muttering bi-lingually. The daughter tried to redeem some shreds of social grace and say "Goodbye" as casually as a bag of nerves can.

slacking

I am so cross with myself, in a very British fashion of course, because lack of discipline has meant I have broken my resolve, Dear Blog, to make regular entries into you (take that as you like). No excuses apart from idleness and endless Scramble/Solitaire/Word Challenge games on Facebook, in fact anything rather than concentrate on the task in hand.
Except I don't want you to be a task, I want you to be a galvanising force that opens up some disused synapses and gets my once fertile imagination flowing again.
I used to be capable of enormous imaginary clarity,full of vivid imagery and a group of characters who lived out their lives in independent, glorious living technicolour. They played their scenes across the screen in the frontal lobe of my brain and I simply recorded what I saw, heard, felt as fast as my little fingers could wield the pencil.
Then, as life became increasing complicated and other peoples' needs took precedence, I made the fatal mistake of thinking I could defer recording to a later date. I let other matters deflect my focus.
Fool that I am!
The scenes paled, the characters lost their clarity and now I struggle to maintain any sort of focus and depth. I read my drafts and shudder at their inanity and shallowness. Eyes open or closed, the screen is clouded at best and, at worst,blank.
Perhaps it's age or the combined effects of years of various chemicals meant to calm my fractured emotions, that have not only taken the edge off but blunted my fantasy-life so effectively it gives me no solace,escape or artistic release.
My latest fictional embryo lurches from frenzied scribblings to a slack few lines penned with lethargy. My advice to my daughter to keep her literary efforts honed through regular exercise, independent of a fickle muse, smack me between the eyes.
Take your own advice woman!
And also decide what it is you are trying to achieve - an ego trip based on personal fantasy or something that has a message, something useful. The conundrum is deciding what useful is. Am I deluding myself by believing I might have something to say or even whether anyone could possibly want to listen/read my ramblings. I have some good ideas - I don't thing it's too egotistical to say that - but unfortunately I struggle to make them cohere or maintain a consistent power. They seem like random strands, each interesting in their own right but I am failing to make the connections that would give them substance and staying power.
Someone once told me I was on the cusp of either being effective artistically or falling into the pit of the dilettante - perish the thought - and the terror is I have seen so much wither away through neglect and lack of perseverance that I may have done irreparable damage. I know I have lost some of my physical, tactile agility and so producing a picture or design is an enormous challenge but I have to believe that with "brain training" I can re- connect with an organ that dashes hither and thither and channel it again into acuteness and passion.
Andrew Thorpe and his three sirens may still have a future if I can shake off a few inhibitions and maintain enough anonymity to free myself from the constrictions of the person other people think I am ( or should be).
Perhaps I have the right to indulge myself and my own personal fantasies and at the same time create something other people might enjoy.
Watch this space.

venting

So the man has finally appeared to put in the blessed extractor fan.
It's never a simple job with a man is it?
Just replace the old one for goodness sake, same place for goodness sake!
No, there has to be chin scratching, head wagging and a lot of pacing around and staring at the
roof outside. There has to be serious, almost presidential, mobile phone discussions about where
the external grill might be and where the moisture might go. After all if it just goes into the loft it will
make it wet!
I tentatively try to suggest that the other two homes have had theirs done and they were put in the same
space as the old one - no, this guy has to find the external opening or he can't do the job. Is he hoping against hope?
Right, I'll ring my neighbour - after all, this is the same company even if it's a different workman. Mr Neighbour confirms what I've already told Mr Workman. Infuriatingly enough he recites everything I say back to me. More pacing and discussions. This is a flipping extractor fan installation not a heart operation.

Thankfully, at last, and after a further grovel around the loft, he finds what he's looking for and work can commence.
I got up at the crack of dawn on my day off for this so it had better be worth it!!

TheCrie de Coeur of Age

Our value is not defined by the efficiency (or otherwise) of
Our sphincters.

playing scramble, feelings

My mind meanders through lists of words. I view the grid and while I try to string letters together as time ticks by. How do these people have time to pass messages as the clock slices away at each three minute slot? My eyes turn somersaults finding words longer than three letters.
At zero the graphics change - a revised list of scorers pops up plus the list of all the possible words in the grid, many of which are incomprehensible. Are they plucked from some world dictionary? I wonder who searches them out. Are we being duped? Are we victims of a huge joke? Someone on another part of the planet sniggers as they make up words, the weirder the better.
Even so, when the clock starts the count down the pulse quickens and one hopes one's eyes can pick up the sequences of letters. The fingers slide over the keys, illuminating the developing words and registering their points rapidly enough to lift a player's position and thereby each players word I.Q.
My fingers and brain/hand/eye co-ordination seem so sluggish in comparison, then the laptop freezes and exasperation seethes as seconds melt away. I resent the phone ringing with a minute to go - it equals words/points missed.
There is little give and take. Anyone exceeding the maximum room I.Q. rating is ordered off to higher places. The great grail is the "greenie" - the highlighted word (in green as opposed to blue) scored by only one player. What exultation!

Eventually reason surfaces and I take myself in hand. I return the game to its rightful place and remind myself that in the great scheme of things it is inconsequential and still second to the Great Solitaire - the ultimate panacea when stress levels rise.

hairdressing visit

Today Cecil has mainly been musing on mortality - mainly his own.
Very pale, wan and depressed and it shows in my hair - his depression that is.
At least he used the comb on my hair exclusively, this time, rather than using it on his own hair halfway through the comb-out.

Small, lantern jawed, old women shuffle into the shop; some of them Cecil has picked up on his way in.
He hands out cups of coffee, they collect up damp towels and roller pins. He barks phrases into deaf ears and the women move from shampooing basin to setting chair, to hair dryer, at his nudge, doing small jobs as they go.

Cecil's chatter is endless. The trouble is he ceases work while he recalls an anecdote and I watch the clock move on nearer to the time I should be at home. Edna and Norah nod in the right places, dutifully hand up the pins as required and watch the traffic go by. Other callers pass through to visit the chiropodist and provide yet another distraction and delay.

Cecil is desperate for a ciggy. His feminine "tut" and pout exaggerated by twitchy fingers pulling up his trouser waistband to just below his paunch. Immediately it slides back and his hands stray to his back pocket. He tries to pretend they weren't reaching for the packet.
His mournful voice recites a catalogue of doctor's visits and medical tests, the strain on his marriage because he doesn't feel Sheila is giving him all the sympathy and support he feels entitled to. After all, look how he cared for her through her "dark time" and it's only right he should have his turn.
Then he reveals that none of the test results are through yet - all these ifs and maybes.
He has his grave booked and an appointment with the undertaker on supposition alone!
I have to say something, I really do or I'll still be here at teatime.
"Still working at the home are you Dear?" He's studying his reflection, turning to look at the profile of his gut, not thinking, really, about what he's saying.
"Yes! And I have to be on duty by two."
"Oh you should have said!" He continues back combing Norah's hair with a brush, then choking her with hairspray. There are no refinements like face shields. Norah's medical history is exposed without reference to her. She nods vacantly as he recites the details of her long standing leg ulcer and the vagaries of her digestive system.
Edna, under the dryer, is oblivious as her talks about her without interruption. She sees a stray, wet towel that has missed the linen bin and makes to get up and retrieve it. "Leave it - don't move!" She complies and Norah tuts.

At last! My head is pushed back into the shampoo sink and soft finger tips briefly massage shampoo, in small circles, before tepid water trickles down my neck and into my ears. Cecil continues to speak but now his voice is indistinct and muted because my hearing aids are tucked under the coverall, clasped in sweaty hands. The battery compartment closes, inadvertently, and the aid screams. Cecil prods me. "Yer whistling". Obediently, I fumble under the folds trying to adjust it.
Once he has shaken my head in the towel I can put one aid back in and rejoin the monologue.
"What's the future for me now? High blood pressure, diabetes - it's so depressing." Once again he pauses and the comb waves in the air instead of through my hair. He plugs in implements - clippers, curling tongs and then searches for the blow dry brush, which is a wizened, almost naked, set of spikes that he drags through the hair accompanied by blasts of searing hot air. I am choked by the crystal spray he uses to anchor the style but try not to cough and splutter. He is busy spraying a bigger hole in the ozone layer.

Why do I come here? I constantly ask myself as I look at a decor well past its sell by date. The mobile paraffin heater keeps his feet tepid, the customers need the hair driers to stave off the chill. The corners of the setting area have eons of hair clippings which vapid sweeps of the brush have failed to stir.
Yet customers come from quite a distance, week after week, settling for the same styles for years.

Another regular entered, a tall woman with a short body and disproportionately long legs, a dowager's hump and a beehive worthy or a sixties teenager.
Without a word Cecil left me, washed her hair,put me under the dryer and left me to spectate.
Her hair was spun sugar, an ebony black that accentuated her pallor and heavy, tight, jaw. I felt I had been transported back to an eighteenth century boudoir as he sectioned her hair, rolled each one over a pad and anchored them with squadrons of hairpins that she handed up robotically. As each roll was completed is was sprayed heavily. The final creation was immovable, wisps at the nape of the neck deftly tweaked and tucked under the confection. Her heavily ringed fingers replaced huge button earrings.
Cecil carefully draped a chiffon scarf over the creature - because it did seem to have an independent existence. She, decomposing, sank while her coiffure stayed unchanged like a parody of Dorian Grey.
All her colours were poster blocks, bright, unsubtle, but the frame seemed too fragile to carry the exhibition.
She is the sort of person who beguiles me, holds me fascinated to the point of ogling.

Why are we wasting time?

I listened to Andrew Marr this morning. He is always worth listening to. But he had a bishop of the Church of England, or rather the Anglican communion, talking about the current debates going on in the church.
Now, whatever the rights or wrongs of these debates my problem is a) where is Christ in all this? and b) the world is heading for Armageddon and we are debating sex in various forms! Why? There really are far more important things to worry about and get really het up about.

My concern with a) is that Christ seems to have very little if any say in these matters. They are topics of discussion for those whose first priority is their own self indulgence and gratification. If they really were followers of the Nazarene he would be their first port of call and his reputation would be their first concern.
Instead we see his name and honour dragged through the mud for what? For people who are so consumed with their own ego massaging that the real issues are being overlooked and ignored.
If we are really serious, as Christians, then Christ has to be our one and only concern.
Every thought, word, and action would be referred to him and their consequences for him would motivate the same. My heart grieves for the dishonour to his name and the totally distorted picture presented to none Christians.
Time is running out - that must be obvious to all but those whose minds, souls and consciences have been sealed with a red-hot iron, many of them in prestigious posts in the church - and we must bend our energies and efforts to The Great Commission, not to contemplating our navels and disappearing up our own bottoms!

dream

After a complicated dream that seemed to centre on the Normandy landings (commemoration of D-Day?) with sweeping vistas, close ups and obscure/anachronistic tableaux, in vivid if imprecise detail (oxymoron?), on waking I commenced a conversation with myself - no with the invisible audience if I am honest - about the vicissitudes faced by female fraternizers. The tarred and feathered. My daughter's incandescent fury at their treatment all for trying to protect and feed their children led to the consideration of The Whited Sepulchres who tried to deflect scorn from their own collaboration, who pitched on an easy target.

This led on to "This week I went to Auschwitz..." - imagining my grandson, after a government sponsored school visit, comparing his experience with that of his grandfather's. Jimmy had been part of a Royal Engineers bomb disposal squad sent in to remove booby traps et al before liberation proper could begin. They were warned that things would be bad but who can prepare you for something like that?
"This week I went to Auschwitz."
Anyway, they were led by a young captain. He collapsed and was carried out. Jimmy said he had heard the term "Green at the gills" but that was the one and only time he had ever actually seen anyone that colour. He managed to stay on his feet and finish the job - he was proud of that - but he said that afterwards nothing any human being did to another would surprise him ever again.
"This week I went to Auschwitz."
Will we, at some point, be arranging school trips to Darfur? Just to prove that whatever the horrors we learn little.
Our arrogance in the face of Josef Friezle's revelations - the Pharisaical prayer of "thank god I'm not like that"- and questioning of the Austrian psyche led me to ponder on the nature of abuse/slavery. The two are the same. I smiled wryly at our ability to look without seeing.
"This week I went to Auschwitz."
Abuse, control,slavery, doesn't have to be physical, tangible - it is an attitude of mind, of which we are ALL capable.

It is the attitude of controlling, creating dependence, manipulating anyone to suit ourselves.
It can live in a mansion, wear designer clothes, or next door with Joe Bloggs ; we can find it just as easily in deprivation and abject squalor.
Until attitudes-of-mind change slavery will continue in myriad forms and locations.
"This week I went to Auschwitz".

faces

I sat in the car park at Morrisons, Lincoln, last evening - I couldn't be bothered to walk around another store. We had just traipsed around B&Q and the ASDA outlet looking at toilet seats, voile curtains, lamps and compost etc.etc. Then we decided to eat Mexican so had to collect some of the ingredients.

Anyway, while No.1.son and wife went into the store I remained sitting in the car doing what I do best, people watching. There are really only a few types of people, so I understand, and I suppose given that we are all descended from 6 "Eves" that is not surprising. That seems to fly in the face of the idea of individuality but, of course, it's the detail that makes the difference and the details are infinitely varied. A man went passed with gorgeous hair but as he got closer the proportion of his face in relation to his height and the length of the hair rather spoilt the image. There was the sloppily dressed guy with his eyes looking heavenward who seemed to fit the stereotype of the academic with his head in the clouds. Of course the reality is probably very different and all I am doing is exercising my own prejudices but it makes an interesting past time and beats looking at shelves full of products that I am not allowed to eat or rather aren't good for me. If I am people watching then I am not eating so I pass it off as part of my diet regime!
Categorising people is one thing, confusing it with reality is another. I like to muse on the other lives of the people who pass by, wondering what their mood and motives are. Are they shopping to get away from household tension or simply because they need to replenish stocks. Is it a special meal to impress, placate, buy favour or defuse stressful relationships or because of conditioning? Will the ingredients be chosen for quality or budget, for health or taste - the two should be synonymous but unfortunately aren't!

A couple stroll by, hand in hand, middle aged but still able to express affection, carrying eco friendly bags between them - sharing the load, crusty baguettes poking out like a stockade wall and melons stretching the jute bags to their limit. What kind of meal does that conjure up? Alfresco dining, with a Mediterranean theme. I salivate at the thought of luscious tomatoes drenched in olive oil and lemon, the drippings sopped up by the bread, interspersed with ripe. plump olives and pimentos, and, at some point, a dessert of melon cubes, grapes, strawberries with a syrup flavoured with fresh mint and preserved ginger. I come back from my reverie and shake myself. Too much tv watched I think.
In a rush a pair of women, obviously mother and daughter, overtake the relaxed pair, hugging strawberries and boxes of cereal, thinking of tomorrow's breakfast or embarking on the diet promoted by a current ad campaign? Two meals replaced by cereal and the promise of at least a drop in dress size in a matter of days. If only....

I watch them rushing, ambling, determined, unsure, their faces reflecting the myriad of reasons why we do anything and the needs that drive us. By now my hunger is palpable and I just want my pair to re-appear so we can get home and eat. The desire is overwhelming. I watch my son and daughter in law's faces as they approach the car. If he's been to the cash machine then the meal may be a more strained affair, if she has bought more than envisioned then the strain may make the meal inedible before it's served.

continuation

Mr Fantasy went home and then the phone calls began - from all and sundry. The care package didn't kick in as it should have and he started to phone people who then phoned us for information and advice! We played Pontius Pilate again, unashamedly, and referred them to the experts. This man was ambulant, continent and could wash and dress himself and manage his own toileting but we had doctors asking us if he knew how to open the door. How would he feed himself? Their own assessment referred to the fact that he had cooked a meal for his relative on a recent visit so the powers that be were told very firmly that he was quite capable of getting himself a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea, that he would only starve if he chose to.

He left and I started a holiday only don't run away with the idea that a holiday for me is going away or doing nothing. It began with my children organising some of it for me and so first item on the agenda was Speech Day at my grandsons' school. As promised to No.1 grandson ( although he didn't think I meant it) I wore the big hat and his mother wore a fetching little number, we arrived almost late and he cringed with embarrassment and tried to hide. The face of No.2 grandson was also a picture acccompanied by much head shaking. Once No.1 had received his award the day deteriorated somewhat; the weather closed in so the picnic was consumed hastily indoors. Then came the removal phrase. At the end of said phase there was barely room for passengers, both parents were bathed in sweat and tempers frayed. Mother swore that the start of the new term would find the offspring down sizing and father feared for both his own mental, and the car's,suspension. Coupled with this was anxiety about the funding for No.1's sixth form place, and the what ifs lay upon us all like a leaden blanket as we finally set off home.

I ask myself, constantly, how much more of this I can take? This seemingly relentless requirement for me to keep everyone else steady - and I know I have referred to this before in this place but it does seem to be a recurring theme -and my growing awareness that the ability and wherewithall to do so is draining away. The desire to be released from the continuing commitment is overwhelming at times. How many more times can I scream silently in the bathroom as I try to contain overpowering emotions?
I love all my children and their children to pieces but there is a point where age is creeping up and motivation has to be dug deeper for. In other words the spirit is still relatively willing but the flesh is so very weak.

the fantasy man

This week I have met two rather interesting people, demanding but interesting, that have tested my patience to the limit. Mrs Hyper was the term "in your face" personified. She positioned herself about six inches from my face and delivered everything at about one hundred decibels. Prior to admission she was so depressed she could barely bring herself to lift up the phone. Whatever the doctor has given her has had a significant impact and now she is so pepped up that she can't sleep or sit still, consequently her legs are swelling and she is almost as anxious but in an active sense, as she was before. Trying to get anything done with a whirlwind attaching herself to me and with a constant commentary made me feel drained. She was so emphatic and interspersed her narrative with references to various physical ailments - showing me a sebaceous cyst, her swollen calf etc etc- and her own personal history and that of her extended family, all at the same time. We all felt exhausted by the time she was collected and went home!

The fantasy man of the title just demands a book to himself.
He introduced himself to me with a clasp of the hand and hushed voice. "Someone is out to kill me dear, I know a lot of secrets and a lot of important people and that makes life dangerous for me." My heart sank. Life was stressed enough as it was without someone fantasising. He went on to tell me that the room was wired and he hoped that those listening in were getting their money's worth. I kept my face impassive and tried to behave as if it were the most natural conversation in the world. When I could escape I re-read his file and realised that the assessment was very sketchy and superficial - we would have to radically re think our approach. He cosied up to various other clients, whispering in vulnerable ears - I tried to observe discretely without exciting his hostility. He strode into the office and demanded paper and pen, to " record his observations ...." We waited to see what would develop and were disappointed with the result. A rough sketch and random jottings that while not exciting were a graphic illustration of the two people he talked about - never knowing which one would surface first when he woke. By the end of the week nothing would have surprised us and we all learned to assume poker faces. Two photo albums were thrust into a colleague's hands, full of wartime pictures - signed photos of an American beauty in uniform with shades of a Glen Miller style musical back ground. Maybe there is some hidden mystery here. The late marriage to a guarded blonde, who looks into the camera warily, who is photographed staring into the distance from a hill top, who looks unapproachable and icy. His family, such as it is, evinced concern but with such exaggeration that at the end of the interview we began to wonder who was conning who. Were the Oriental volunteers really fleecing Mr F or was it a ploy to keep his money intact ready for inheritance. The more detail the relative gave the more mind boggling it became and we decided to play Pontius Pilate and have nothing to do it with the situation.
Half way through the stay a social worker appeared to assess the situation and quickly realised she didn't know half of it. After a chat and perusal of the notes he'd made it became very apparent that she would have to reassess and possibly look at other options for care. The longer I am with Mr F the more like an iceberg he seems - we are only seeing the tenth of the mass(man) and the further we delve the more dangerous it might be. Watch this space.

you thought you had got rid of me!

Dear Blog you must be so disappointed to find that my hoped for disappearance didnot happen.
I am disappointed with myself for leaving things so long but then, it has given you a breather from my endless navel contemplation - one girl's meat is another's poison.
Things have been hectic and yet the material outcome seems to be negligible, as usual.
I accompanied the grandsons back to school on Sunday and on the way we trailed in the wake of a traveller's traditional caravan, the synchronised clopping of the horses' hooves totally in keeping with the countryside we passed through. It was also a living link with the boys' paternal great grandmother who was probably born in one like it.
We arrived at the school and led a crocodile of other cars seeking the right entrance to the car park. The official one was closed although the electronic barrier kept waving to us from the other side! It seemed to be mainly grandparents acting in loco parentis and then taxis full of Oriental teenagers who appeared to have been shopping for their lives.
The return trip was very quiet with just Mr Charming in the back. It must be very strange for him dealing with the coming and going of his brothers at erratic intervals.
Back to work on Wednesday and had to hit the ground running. Although nothing much seems to change in the lives of the very old if one is in tune with them then you notice the nuances. Thursday brought a surprise in the form of an extra member of staff so that The Boss and I could settle down to a bureaucratic marathon. Basically, we are doing a job that a senior administrator for the regulatory body has been doing in years past. Now we have to assess ourselves and still continue to pay loads of money to said body for doing a large part of their job for them. Unfortunately we won't get their salary. Talk about brainache.

We have moved on now and this weekend I felt as if I was doing mental health nursing. A client with fear that he was going to be killed by a hairdresser. As he said himself he is two people and when he wakes up he doesn't know which person will emerge, neither do we! Further along the corridor another client sits shouting in her room and we are unable to help her. These are the times when I feel most inadequate and dissatisfied. Also, at the weekend, I spent a lot of time steadying staff and by the end of it felt burnt out, asking myself who steadies me, apart from God?
Between work and family I start to feel very small and fragile and ask myself how much more I can carry. But not being a quitter I have to square my shoulders and try to make each day a new start. If only so that I don't have to dwell too long on my own weaknesses. I have had to remind myself not to become complacent and imagine that the Chinese whispers and bitchiness can't devastate me. I am a fool if I fall into that trap and I have been a fool enough times in my life already. Tomorrow is my day off, I have already done the washing and it's flapping gently in the breeze, being bleached my the sun, so once the robot's leg has been dragged around the house get ready dear Blog...

ad lib

I have holiday starting about 9.30pm tonight (Friday) and I haven't got a clue what I am going to do with myself.
There is so much I should be doing, could be doing, want to be doing, BUT which I shall do, or feel up to doing, is the unknown quantity. I set out with such good intentions but the reality of my energy and inspiration levels always means I fall short of my own aspirations. The children are otherwise engaged and miss my grandchildren as I do there have to be times when I share them, reluctantly, with other members of their families. Anyway, I have to do maintenance work on my own psyche and individuality because if that falls apart then I shall end up like a lot of the sad women I have looked after over the years, lost and moribund. They have subsumed themselves so entirely in home, hearth and family that when the children have flown the coup, the husband/partner is dead, and they can no longer manage the home, they are left with precisely nothing. No interests, no personal individuality and no impetuous to drive them forward.
So now we are on Sunday and what have I done? Well, I have transplanted lettuce seedlings, and planted more spring onions - I have carted water for the tomatoes and now the sun has gone away and growing conditions are at a premium. I have made bread and muffins (chocolate), fiddled with various designs and photos and more than anything struggled with this laptop which has suddenly decided to play silly b's with my pictures and programmes. It freezes, shuts itself down, and the cursor becomes paralysed. My mobile phone is also temperamental and will send/receive multimedia messages as/when it feels like it. I am fed up especially as I haven't changed any settings. I bet if I take them back to where I bought them the first line of defence will be to ask me what I have changed? Of course they will then work perfectly and make me look a complete prat!
Bank Holiday has dawned bright, fair and windy - just right for hanging the washing out, cleaning the vacuum cleaner filter, thus covering myself in dust, desperately trying to make the place look presentable ready for the hairdresser visiting tomorrow. Isn't life riveting? And protecting my tomatoes from the coming gale. Is this really nearly June? So, I rigged up this Heath Robinson affair of a wind break around my baby plants, composed of bubble wrap, pea canes and pegs. Very useful items pegs. Not classically decorative - bubble wrap and bright orange pegs- but serviceable.

We are onto Tuesday now and the hairdresser finally arrived. Why are they so afraid of my hair, of cropping the nape of my neck so the hair doesn't stick out at a 45 degree angle as it grows out of my scalp?
The excuses are interesting if not bizarre - it will make your head look small, it will make you look masculine, I can give you a false hairline - NO! Just do as I ask - you ask enough money for it.
Then I went for a lay down after an early start and disturbed night. I get up and guess what? One side of my hair is as flat as a pancake. When I lay on the other side this does not happen. It simply confirms a long held view that my hair, like the rest of me, has a life and mind of its own, that continues without reference to my control.
Wednesday. This entry has to stop being a draft and become a published post so I will endeavour to bring it to some sort of conclusion. I had the most horrendous night which did not bode well for the day to come. It was broken sleep punctuated by vivid, bizarre rather than frightening, dreams and an inability to relax or get comfortable. This of course meant that I overslept this morning. I was going to do so much in town before going to see my daughter and the pixies. The weather was dank and misty, more reminiscent of November than the end of May, and it didn't take much to talk myself out of my original plan, truncate the agenda, and head for the supermarket to pick up lunch and then to my final destination.
Those pixies - what can I say? They do me the world of good with their zest for life ( and destruction) and redress the sense of hopelessness that occasionally assails me. Of course they are wonderful, of course I am biased, but you don't get great children without good parents and if the pixies' elders need to reassure themselves about their abilities then they should be comforted by the plain, straight forward, rightness of these particular imps. The day, after I left to come back home, deteriorated somewhat, weather wise, and as the rain cascaded off the guttering I turned my back on it and lost myself between "facebook" and you Dear Blog.






































9

a miscellany

Various things have been buzzing about my brain over the last few days.
A lot of it to do with the Lancaster. Now, people seem to think it very peculiar that a woman should be obsessed with this aircraft, in her own right if you see what I mean, not as an adjunct to some male in her life as a shared interest. I am the one that drags the males in the family,(not that it takes much you understand) to various places to watch this, and the rest of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, going through its paces. For me it is a deeply emotional and evocative experience that re-affirms that all is not entirely lost in this apparently benighted land - that there are still some semblances of the character and tenacity that saved our communal lives.
And I am not alone. Another woman of my acquaintance, a phlebotomist, is also a Lanc. fanatic. We exchange notes when we meet over a blood sample and if she didn't do such a good job and wasn't such a thoroughly nice person I would have scratched her eyes out when she told me she was actually going for a ride in My Beauty (My pet name for City of Lincoln, whatever her current manifestation) and had paid £250 for the privilege.
I have also noticed that there are more women on the flight line at take off, also there out of their own interest and not at the tail end of a line of father, son, brother, grandad etc. etc.
Standing by the barrier at the Coningsby families day flypast, as each element of The Flight taxied out, I looked over my shoulder and the word, and the distinctive sound of the Merlins, was getting around. The stampede as people converged from all quarters made me glad I had stuck to my guns and made getting a good vantage point the first priority when we arrived.
As My Beauty and her acolytes, the Spitfire and Hurricane, trundled down the runway, I looked along the crowded barriers. There were women holding video cameras, digital cameras, mobile phones aloft. As the planes cleared the ground level with us the young woman next to me couldn't contain herself any longer. "Aren't they bloody brilliant?" To which the general response was "How right you are!"
While they fly I shall not lose all hope.

shape of life

There is an awful symmetry about life and death.
I use the word "awful" in its original meaning, i.e. shock and awe style.
We would be very worried if birth was a quiet, placid affair, however much we woman would
like it to be so.
So why do we see the perfect death as requiring calmness, tranquillity and stillness (prior to the ultimate stillness, of course).
The truth is that there is an awful symmetry and as we come kicking and screaming down the birth canal, taking the first breath that ruptures the vessel that allows the circulation of blood to become closed and independent,
the struggle begins.
Whether we like it or not, the struggle is vital and without it we remain enfeebled and lacking stamina.
My great fear for today's generation is that, in our desire to protect them, we deprive them of the opportunity to strive, to discover what they have in them, to push their limits and thereby grow stronger.
However long or short our days, and I believe in earthly terms the expenditure of life force varies for each individual, once the cycle has completed, the life force, for want of a better word, is exhausted and life here is over. The problem is the length of the cycle - some use it up more quickly than others. This is the unknown quantity.

Out of the mouths of babes.....

Lewis, aged 9, on seeing an advert for wrinkle and spot removal:
"You should keep all your wrinkles and spots - it's nature's way of telling you -
Being an adult stinks!"

The BBQ

The people, a motley crew, of almost-chavs with the women in over tight clothing and men in peculiar combinations of colours and patterns. That awful ensemble of t-shirt, three quarter shorts, socks and Birkenstocks was much in evidence.
The tensions were mostly hidden but rose nearer the surface as more alcohol flowed.
People dipped into black bins and pulled out cans and bottles.
Vaguely defined groups developed at tables, under canopies around the edges, ebbed and flowed in the middle. We all scrutinised each other. Funny how people find an observer like myself uncomfortable.
Someone not just stuffing her face or rapidly becoming legless is conspicuous and threatening. I saw them watching, whispering covertly, and didn't care!

The children bounced in ever changing configurations on the trampoline or toddled around the obstacle course of adult legs.
The hostess had worked hard. She had that pug-nosed Crankiesque physiognomy typical of some urban Scots.
We picked at barbecue food - cold stiff pasta salad, cold stiff, partially carbonised sausages. The roast pork was good if slab like.
After two hours of racket and karaoke I made my excuses and left escorted by number one son, himself at the edges of his sociability scale, and we walked home. Daughter in law, and guest,arrived a little later and after stamping feet and tears to relieve her exasperation at the actions of so-called friends, settled down to counsel said guest with the aid of yours truly, and a bottle of wine.
While I played endless games of solitaire and tried to keep us all on this side of sanity, tears and heartache flowed and years of separation were bridged. And we wondered why we had bothered with the BBQ.

catching up again!

To continue from where I left off regarding peculiar people and my decision to start a personal backlash against other people's insensitivity ( with regard to me).
Some of the other people I saw during my sojourn in the city included the lovely placard man with his all- weather gear and big sign admonishing sinners to repent - the truth always hurts but remains the truth for all that. I was waiting for someone to start giving him some lip just for the opportunity to wade in and, the two of us together, show the unbelievers what really muscular Christianity is about - not that Sign Man would need my help. I have seen him in action and believe- you- me he can more than take care of himself.

There was the little woman in the chemists who stood so close to me I wondered if she wanted to pick my purse, although it would have been a waste of time, but no, what she wanted was advice about hair spritz as if asking me would leave her any wiser. Neither of us found what we were looking for or were even sure what it was in the first place!
Why,when there is loads of space where ever I am, do people have to come and stand so close you would think they were practising sardines? And they have to inflict their life stories on me as well, speaking as if I was privy to the characters starring in said story so don't need the vital bits of background info. that makes sense of it all. I must have the sort of face that is so inconsequential and nonthreatening that just talking at me makes them feel better and me feel like a blotter. ( But then I wouldn't have ammunition for this blog or the "novel" I keep trying to write.)

A person strolled into my place of work this afternoon who also imprinted herself on me for all kinds of reasons. Firstly, because every time I see her I am convinced I know her from somewhere else but can't think where. Secondly, because she has the archetypal middle class English face that is intellectual but trying so hard to be of the people. She wears a well worn gillet, cords and quirky handmade shoes that are so foot shaped and utilitarian only middle class ex-hippies and those needing orthotics would look at them.
However, the chief reason she impacted on my memory was the great fuss and palaver she made over a small bunch of pansies she had brought for the person she was visiting. Could we find a small enough vase to fit them? When she had shown them to said recipient she would come back for said vase. She came back, put the flowers into the vase,( a plastic drinking glass, which was all we had small enough) and inspected them from various angles. Could she take them back again for the recipient to look at? Where would be the best place to display them to best advantage and effect when she came back?
Eventually, we settled on a table by the front door where the six pansies would "cheer us all and raise our spirits" - perhaps. In the meantime my and colleague and I were trying to actually get on with a fairly important task, the completion of which would really cheer us up no end.
After all that this woman sat with the resident, in total silence, and never gave the already wilting pansies another thought.
This is what gets me about this particular type of intellectual. They try so hard to be eco- friendly, recycling minded and earthy and the truth is they often don't have a practical bone in their bodies and really do live on another planet, which is inhabited by"lovely people who think nice thoughts" and don't disturb the ether of cosy suburbia.
If you ask them to do something really natural such as clean up great cow pats of ordure that have just erupted from a human rectum or pick dentures out of unmentionable places, they wouldn't just run a mile they would collapse with disgust. Whether we like it or not nature is red in tooth and claw, and yellow and various shades of brown in elimination!! If we kicked up as much fuss about the really vile and artificial stuff we create and do to each other, as we do about totally natural functions we would all be dead without, then I might start to take some of these people and their ideologies seriously.

people watching

I don't know if it's because I am getting older, ( I almost typed "odder" which could equally fit) but I do find myself becoming more reactionary - not, I hasten to add, in discriminatory terms, i.e.gender, race, sexual orientation etc. ( However, any opinion expressed is in essence discriminatory)

No, I mean in terms of speaking my mind with more acuteness than I have in the past.
I thought about all this while standing on one leg, then swapping to the other, waiting for a taxi in the middle of town. People watching is a favourite pastime of mine in any geographical situation but today it seemed that my senses were heightened. Perhaps it was the excruciating knee pain I was trying to relieve?
There was the woman in green, swathed in waterproofs and scarves - I wondered if she was a "green" candidate living up to the image - and obviously from her high colour sweating profusely. Then the bald headed man with a naked upper lip, a rim beard of pale ginger, combed out like a sun ray on his chin, in a long black leather coat and Doc Martin high laced boots. Obviously a grass roots philosopher.
A trio of women all wearing exceedingly tight trousers with expanses of flesh seeping over the waist bands waddled passed followed by the older woman in clinging jeans that emphasised the shelf-like nature of her buttocks.
They seemed to be impervious to the picture they presented while I keep try to hide away and be inconspicuous. It struck me that I too could be myself without souring the cream or making people scream and run for cover - couldn't I?
People drifted out into the road, munching endlessly on subs and wraps, heedless of traffic danger, then ebbed back to the pavement.
I craned my neck to see round the vehicles that shouldn't have been parked in the bay, but were, to try and not miss my cab and cursed the idiots that kept blocking my view. A car containing a man and child continued to sit in the bay, talking on his mobile until his partner appeared, (see I can be politically correct) and they mused over the bank receipt, disputing each item until with vehemence he revved the engine and they sped off.

But back to my exercise in growing intransigence:
While in the chemists scanning shelves of hair products some- woman imperiously tried to excuse herself to get passed me and it took all my self control to stop myself asking her what she'd done. Earlier, some- man had continued to walk into me despite surely realising we would collide. He had worked on the premise that I would get out of his way but I set my shoulders and carried on relentlessly meaning he had to swerve and was stopped in his tracks - and I didn't care if he had tripped! Some-people need to realise that Yourstruly can be just as obstructive and will be practising more of the same.

I am more than a little fed up with being the one who apologises, gets out of the way, takes the evasive action. Not doing it anymore and if that makes me a bit of a dragon, a cumudgeon, or whatever, then so be it. There has to be a time when the perks start and surely one of them is that one can speak one's mind with impunity and tell it as it is.
My list of those who need to be told what they really are in a clear and concise manner rather than having it dressed up in psycho babble is growing so beware, dear Blog, because there will be more of the same!

delayed

Here is another quick fix of a blog because I shall feel so guilty if I let another 24 hours go past without making an entry. This has been a hell of a shift for a variety of reasons. Very few people know, or care, about the effect of continuous repetition on the target. And before anyone says "You shouldn't do the job if you can't hack it" let me say we are looking after someone who should be more appropriately placed but that would involve health care professionals getting their fingers out and doing something about it. We were supposed to be a temporary holding operation which it has been very convenient to extend and extend. Trouble is the poor sufferer isn't improving and we seem to be crying the wind. She is too young to be in this placement but it has salved everyones' conscience and because she can't make up her mind, due to her condition, then no one else is prepared to. Result is nothing moves forward and she is back to square one, has come full circle, and we are tearing her hair out trying to deal with the situation appropriately. Pigs in the middle as usual.
Well, it's another early start again so if I am going to succeed in getting any sleep tonight I had better make a move. I shall be back to vent more steam tomorrow, all being well, so beware!

still getting a grip

I think that I shall have to make a point of researching more thoroughly the whys and wherefores of this blogging business.
I tend to go straight to new post and type away instead of looking at what others are doing - arrogance I suppose.
What I do know is that I am not making the most of this opportunity and it's basically due to lack of thought and planning as well as lack of self-discipline.
On another tack, my daughter goes back to work tomorrow after maternity leave and it's going to be hard for her.
Part of her is going to miss being there when her girls are rampaging around learning at a rate of knots, and yet she has a good brain and is extremely capable and needs to be out there doing. I would hate her to let all that talent atrophy, especially the writing ability, in a welter of domesticity, so I hope and am encouraging her to be as objective as possible and see that she is providing for her own and their future. They are also being left with a super dad who loves them to bits so will not lose out in terms of care and attention. She has nothing to worry about, in that respect, and the world needs strong women like her - with brain and skill tempered by care and compassion.

tiding over

This is purely an exercise to fulfill my desire to make regular entries.
Today has been a day for visual art and learning about my lap top's limitations in the art department.
I have had two extra days off work after pulling a ligament at the back of my knee and having to hobble into work on Wednesday afternoon because there was no one to cover my shift. Fortunately, an extra member of staff came in so I concentrated on medication and administration, although I must admit not responding to the buzzer was very difficult.
There are times, and this has been one of them, when I am tempted to go into the office with "Mug" written across my forehead with marker pen, because I am sure no one else would be so crazy or so easily persuaded!
By Thursday morning the knee was so swollen and stiff I could only move with great pain and a walking stick. I had to admit defeat and ask to be covered for that day's shift. I am not the sort of person who can just sit and watch television so I have filled my time building up my stock of cards and experimenting with new designs when not feeling guilty about not fulfilling my duties.
My imagination outstrips both my ability and resources, damn it, and every imperfection is magnified in my eyes, contributing to my frustration. I never really believe in my ability and so give up before I've started.

Stephen Fry and Guttenberg's press

This was a magical programme.
From wine press to printing press,
Obvious when the suggestion was made.
The pouring of the font.
Lead, tin and antimony, immediate solidity,
Chemical alchemy.

Artisan plus intellect,
Shirt sleeves, dogged patience,
Muscle, brain power,
Inventive alchemy.

Effort producing such treasure,
Glowing asymmetric jewels
Juxtaposed with geometric compacted type,
The wonderful crackle of a page turned.

The secrecy of dangerous invention, ideas,
Accusations of subversion, or fear of same.
Medieval industrial espionage.
Guttenberg "brown tongued" to protect his invention
Printing papal indulgences to buy,
Buying papal indulgence to print.
Temporality and spirituality combined.
Stabbed in the back with foreclosure,
But new ideas were unstoppable.
Poor Guttenberg,
Face saved with a Palatine knighthood
And pension.
Aborted dreams salved by minor status.

Where would we be without the metal inverted "e"?
The clunk of type rippling in the form,
Caress of ink paddle stippling, glistening across letters,
The anxious creak of press,
Replication.

To watch craftsmen decoding the mystery of
Press construction, and in the process,
Invent problem solving devices.
Engineering alchemy.

It's having the knack, Stephen.
You have a special combination,
Erudition, intellect, humour.
Media alchemy.

Independence - what's that about?

I attended a review today where the word "independence" must have been uttered at least a dozen times and it made me think about what the word and reality actually is.
My thesaurus says : liberty, scope, range, latitude, elbow room. So, in the light of that definition just how independent are any of us?
Let me say, straight away, that I believe that the whole concept of independence is a misnomer, a mirage, so the ultimate irony is that it is the focus of whole sections of industry and philosophy - and is in reality completely unattainable.
Real independence would only be within the reach of a superhuman, robotic entity ( for even God needed company) who could supply all its own needs and had infinite elbow room.
How many of us actually do meet ALL our own needs? Do we grow and process all our own food, produce the materials to clothe and shelter ourselves, supply all our own utilities? I am talking about real independence, life without reference to others.
Of course we don't. However self-reliant we might think we are the truth is that we need others to fill the gaps in our own knowledge and abilities.
When I talk to clients about maintaining independence and how we can support them in that, I am beginning to feel I maybe selling them a lie.
I think I should be talking in terms of interdependence - the need we have for the skills and input of other people and their need for ours.
The frail elderly are particularly vulnerable in this area. Because we live in a society which covertly believes that you are only valuable when you are producing, whatever that society might say overtly, then when people reach the time of life when their obvious productivity seems to have ended, the sense of guilt and dependence is overwhelming. To ease that sense of guilt we promote the idea of independence as the holy grail of social care - we are so focused on it that we lose connection with reality, we are expending valuable energy striving for the unattainable.
Now, if we talked in terms of interdependence then not only would it be a realistic goal but we would actually value not only the client but all those making up the network that allows us and our society to function.
The frail elderly are often perceived as takers, a drain on increasingly scarce resources and as unproductive, with a parallel rise in the often unsubtle questions regarding their continued right to life.
Of course, the reality is that without these people I, and thousands of others, would be unemployed and even larger swathes of British industry would be defunct. Which begs another question as to whether there is a correlation between the low status of both the social care force and their clients and the fact that the makeup of both sections is still largely female, and aren't we cheaper by the dozen?
The truth is that we all need each other, in every situation. If no man is an island then no woman, or man, is independent, and we would need to be the one in order to really be the other. We could all start to function more realistically and attain more successfully. More importantly, we would recognise the value of those who really count in society - I am not talking about class or professional status - but anyone who enables any of us to function and meets our needs, however eclectic.

naughty girl

I have been a naughty girl and ignored you, dear Blog, but I feel so awful that the most I have been able to manage, especially after baby sitting Pixie 1, is to try to eat something and then go to bed.
I shall be glad when this week is over for all sorts of reasons and hope to goodness I feel better.
Am in to work this afternoon at the start of a run of three late finishes then in very early on Monday morning - hope I can manage it!
My colleague has been bereaved so I am holding the fort but I can't shield her from everything, much as I would like to.
More immediately, I must psych myself up to tackle the mundane domestic chores of hoovering and dusting - Boring! - the last things I want to do but I can only ignore it for so long.
My mind is firing on about a quarter of a cylinder so bye for now - maybe I should plug myself into the laptop to give myself a frisson of motivation.

writing exercise

I had tried all I could to kick start the writing drive, including buying an extortionately expensive little pad and pen at the railway station book stall. I worked on the principal that surely a train journey ought to stimulate the brain cells. Where did the genie go and what did I have to rub to make it re-appear?

For a start, this lousy rail service needs a kick in the pants. National Rail Enquiries give out the information, it's even printed in their guide but come day and time? No train and no one knows anything about it except National Rail Enquiries and us!

I check my mobile phone and wonder who Nicola is and which of my particular financial vultures she represents? I deleted her message without really listening to prevent the bolt of lead re-entering my stomach and dragging me back down.
At least, from the carriage window, there's a different view, looking over and down. The landscape has a different shape and interpretation from the perspective of other peoples' backyards.

I have upset the refreshment attendant by bringing my own food and drink. I'll put him out of a job - but prices shouldn't be so inflated I tell him. He's in a sulk.
The ticket inspector looked at my ticket three times. Do I look suspicious or does he not believe his own punch?

I make a crackly call to my destination and at least my grandsons seem glad to hear my voice and anticipate all the opportunities for inveigling sweets, magazines, junk that my visit offers.

The refreshment guy has a rhythm all his own. He drags the trolley so far down the aisle and, as the rattles of bottles deafens, he says "Any drinks?" with so much sibilance it becomes a hiss, a release of gas. His hips swivel in step with the wobbly wheels.

This time of year the sun is low, the shadows deep and in the fields the past peeps, teasing us with hints and possibilities.
The sun flickers through hazels and hedges. Will it trigger fits in those susceptible to strobeing?
It is a gloria in a mackerel sky.

hospital visit

Just back from a visit to the hospital and so many memories have been triggered.
It's forty years since I left the place but each time I call in the clinic at the main entrance I am reminded of the love affair that started in the building next door, the old casualty. He was a porter and I a student nurse. He had had an adventurous life and I was as green as grass. We embraced in the old porters' lodge across the road just before I went on night duty, he was my first port of call as I went to the wards, in the morning, and he was ready to leave after a night shift.
Further up the drive was the red brick, barrack-like, structure of the Nurses' Home -where we started off under the eaves as cadets, and moved from floor to floor depending on where we were in our training. I always said it was a cross between a convent, girls school, and military establishment - the only thing we didn't have was a service number.
Today, I decided to take the courtesy bus from one end of the hospital to the other. There is much re-building going on, as everywhere else, and the corridors I trod have been shorn of their outbuildings. Up the hill, the Lecture rooms, where the Principal Sister Tutor held austere sway are dilapidated and blanketed in new brick. Round passed the Clock Tower, anno domini 1878, glass and chrome cover the ghosts of Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, Keats, a literary cloak to hide long rows of geriatric, psychiatric beds, and the locked units where the immoral girls were kept - the irony being they had been locked up to try and curb their pubescent sex drive and I had to leave because my sex drive made me an unmarried mother at 20. 30 years, or so, earlier and I could have been one of them!
Now into the relatively shiny new orthopaedic clinic where, what ever the surroundings, the waiting is just as interminable. And people don't change.
My ability to wait and watch started very early when you saw the doctor at 9am and were still waiting in the stuffy, cramped ambulance room, to go home at 3pm. My mother, bless her, had walked the wards before me and, despite herself, built up great reserves of stoicism and self control - she expected no less from me and the training started from the word go. So, no fidgeting, no whinging, no unkind comments about others - we waited our turn, being sensible and patient, after all we could be in a much worse situation and it would end, it really would. I just wanted to get home, get through breaking the news to dad, then onto the sofa,before a roaring fire and get my nose in a book knowing that this was how it would be for the next few weeks - safe, secure and endless opportunity to escape into my imagination.

Today, I seemed to be the only singleton amongst a crowd of orthopaedic couples. The clinic staff seem to plod about looking hangdog and casual - the system must be known to them, one hopes, because it certainly isn't obvious to the patients. Opposite, sits a small, blonde haired, middle aged woman, huddled into an Astrakhan coat. Eventually, a large, louche, man joins her, loud and tapping her thigh with a "Now then my girl..." She brushes away his hand, embarrassed at his hearty familiarity. To begin with I think he's taking advantage, that she doesn't really know him, that she wishes she was somewhere else and I expect her to get up and move away but she doesn't and it becomes obvious that they are together.
He has the face of a frog, he's bigger, coarser featured, with the flushed, almost cyanosed, complexion of a hard drinker. The clothes are good, he has a patterned scarf tucked into his collar, and I notice they they are both wearing similar shades of brown, but it can't hide the roughness that sits uneasily with late affluence. He subsides into the same reverie as the rest of us.
The saw whines in the plaster room. It has been many years since I had a cast removed but I can still feel the tickling sensation of the blade slicing through the gypsum and the sense of anxiety as it closed on the skin. Only the experience teaches you to actually believe the plaster technician when he says the saw vibrates rather than cuts - that it won't slice through the cast into the skin. After the first time you believe because you see with your own eyes but the mind takes more convincing and there is always the tinge of anxiety.
Ancillary staff slob to and fro. Piles of files and x- rays are ferried around in square, metal, four wheeled trolleys not the two wheeled wicker baskets with walking stick handles we used as cadets. And today there weren't enough wheelchairs to move patients who had been decanted from ambulances, into the waiting area but couldn't walk into the consulting rooms and so appointments were held up while staff scoured adjoining corridors for spare chairs. Various names are called and we strain to hear our own, afraid if we miss it then the wait will be even longer. I always remember the Senior Geriatrician giving me a lesson in voice projection the first time I did his clinic. He had been in the Brigade of Guards, an Old Contemptible, and always walked with great long strides carrying a furled black umbrella. It was my first out patients clinic and he sent me out with a set of notes to call "Mrs Smith" - no response so I tried another patient, still no response. He came out with me the third time and directed my attention to the fact that not only was it busy and noisy in the waiting area but Mrs Smith could have been to the toilet, be entering via the ambulance area or just plain deaf. "Lift your chin, Nurse, turn to your left, raise the pitch of your voice and call the name. Now, try it to your right, then finally, if there's still no answer, to the body of the clinic."
Of course Mrs Smith was there all the time, chatting to her neighbour and deaf, and the pimply nurse, feeling and looking unsure of herself had directed her voice into the buff manila folder of her notes.
I have often wondered whether something similar ought not to be mandatory training for clinic staff, especially as now I am the deaf one struggling to hear my name when a bored, staff member mumbles my name from the other end of the corridor, into my buff manila folder of notes.

Then, I am in to see a doctor and he's actually courteous enough to stand as I enter and shake my hand. He examines my fat, unattractive knees, reads my notes, checks my slightly less unattractive orthotic shoes and tells me we will leave well alone for another six months.

Here goes

Sitting here, shivering slightly with the change in the weather, I have several issues exercising my mind and emotions so this entry may take sometime to compose and complete. It may also seem very random in content.

A few days ago I received a circular from the Royal British Legion highlighting the problems of, and help given to, various categories of casualties of service personnel and their dependents. It both angered and moved me considerably. Angered me that people are being jettisoned back into civilian life, after suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and being discharged as unfit for duty, with very little after care or support, and they and their families are having to turn to a charity for basic welfare provision. It moved me as I have a family member suffering from the same condition who is venturing back to work on Monday in order to save his job, home, and his children's education. If he doesn't make a successful return then he will be in the same boat and, quite frankly, I don't know how we will all cope. My capacity to withstand one crisis after another is waning and while the spirit is still willing the flesh and bank balance are spent!
I can see a period of intense and prolonged prayer coming on. On more than one occasion I have set myself the task of intensive prayer which meant actually getting on my knees for long periods and concentrating deeply to exert as much spiritual force as possible - e.g. at the births of my grandchildren in difficult circumstances. Prayer comes every day, in every way, but there are times when extra effort is necessary and I can feel this will be one of them.

Second installment coming up. The other thing to exercise me this week is my growing not-so-little list of those who won't be missed(to paraphrase the song from The Mikado) and I want to add Naomi Campbell to the list, and those like her.
They are all spoilt brats who take up valuable space, do nothing meaningful or useful, need their bottoms smacking, should be sent to bed without any tea and minus their dummies and not allowed out until they have matured sufficiently. Paris Hilton was let out of prison far, far too early for my liking.
Why we throw our hard earned cash at these rich,useless entities, who then grow richer while we grow poorer defies any sort of logic. The same argument was presented to me as a reason to stop smoking and it worked better than any health advice.
Add to the list, also, those incompetents who foul up and are not held accountable (they need a list to themselves!). If I have to carry the can for my actions then I am damned sure everyone else should as well. Yes, I know it's an unfair world but that doesn't mean we have to let injustice go by default just because the worst aspects of human nature seem to predominate.
And if another person bleats to me about not being able to come to work because of a pain in their backs, heads, stomachs or egos, I shall scream, quietly as usual, because it is a daily fact of life for me. I want to say "welcome to my world" where the expectation is that one will just carry on regardless, cope with whatever is thrown at one and just get on. If this seems like a self-regarding rant you are absolutely right - where else can I let off steam?

bursting forth

Get ready, Blog, because the pressure is building and come Saturday I intend to let you have it full force.
I have been ferreting around and there are a lot of drafts that I need to transpose and get into some sort of formal order or it will never happen.

My mind is once again starting to buzz with fantasy and characters acting out their lives on the screen of my frontal lobe. If I don't give them a voice and record their activities then they will plague me to death and I shall know no peace. Whether what I write has any quality or credibility is another matter - the important thing is that they are demanding I release them and I can't ignore it anymore.
This is the one area of my life where I can have free rein, although it does feel as if the characters control me, and I decide their fates. I can be at the centre of this particular universe and manipulate to my heart's content,pathetic as it may seem.

I will try hard to maintain the boundary between the realities and not lose sight of what is real and what I have created. We could get very philosophical here as what constitutes reality and varieties thereof but I really am too shattered to think that deeply.

Blueberry and banana muffins

Today I have enjoyed the delights of blueberries popping as I bit into the muffins my daughter made, and shared them with my pixie of a granddaughter, a child I never thought I would see and for whom I have a close affinity. We not only look alike, at least as I looked as a child, slender and rather fragile, but share the same brittle bone condition. I am determined she will not suffer the same fate as myself, being defined by the condition and limited because of it.
She is beautiful, as most children are, with an impish look and temperament that closely replicates her mother's and therefore the ability to give masterclasses in tantrum and sulk. That they will clash is all ready evident, and I have had to mediate, but Pixie's fire gives me hope that she will give a good account of herself and not be any one's fool, unlike her grandmother.
There is so much character in the sideways glances and snatched looks, beneath luxurious eyelashes, and an ego that finds itself already struggling with the physical limitations and immaturity of being two years old and wanting to delve into every nook and cranny. I see the individual differences in interaction between her and mum and dad. As they pass each other, Daddy says "Hi" and Pixie responds in the same tone and pitch, they nod to each other, each mirroring the other. With Mummy there is the same unforced response but, for me, the bemusing sight of a mini me and her grown up twin - the same volatility and passion mixed with a great tenderness. The ability to evoke both great love and exasperation.
Given the headlong descent into apparent self destruction that characterised Mummy's teenage years - there came a time when she was nineteen when I resigned myself to the possibility that I would lose a child young - I had given up hope of her living into her twenties let alone that she would ever be a mother.
She was never going to have children, she couldn't cope with the competition, particularly of a daughter, and felt she would be a terrible mother.
The truth of course is that not only is she a very good mother but has found a depth of maternalism that has astounded her. She has almost literally given her life to deliver her children and, sometimes, works far too hard being SuperMum.
I pondered all this while trying to prevent Pixie from getting blueberry all over herself, it stains so tenaciously. It could be a metaphor for the deep embedding of Pixie into my being and the brio she spreads as freely as crumbs and juice.

the lost hour

Can't help it, folks, but this losing of an hour each year,especially as one gets older, is no joke.
It always leaves me feeling cheated and more groggy than usual when I wake up on this particular Sunday morning. Who is this suppose to benefit? Farmers these days seem to work whether its light or not, and have big searchlights if they need it. School children don't care whether it's light or dark if/when they make their way to/from school - it's going to be one way or another after all.
So, what is it all about? When we were fighting for our lives and needed every hour of daylight to plough and sow; when we couldn't use headlights or street lamps then this all made sense, economically and in safety terms, but now?

Of course, we all live in different time zones, whether geographically or mentally, but it would help if at least within the confines of this country we didnot have to go through this twice a year - constantly quoting to ourselves, or trying to remember, spring forward and fall back - and then being unsure whether we have it the right way round.
My children, all adults seemingly, still wait for a message from me reminding them about the change, because for goodness sake they couldn't remember it themselves could they? Apparently not because on more than one occasion, when I didn't nudge their memories, they have lived life an hour behind the rest of us trying to make sense of the discrepancy, so they have no need to scoff.
However, this time I sent the message and then an hour later, after consideration, realised I had made the basic error and had to swallow my pride and admit my mistake, all excused on the grounds that I'm becoming gaga, and send another text.
It will be interesting to find out which member of staff arrived an hour late this year. I do know that overseas workers find it bemusing to say the least. If we can't work it out or explain it what chance do they have?

the return2

Dear Blog - after all you do seem to have become an entity to me - I returned to work to find that nothing had changed and the work load was heavier than ever. Now, before you tell me off for moaning, where else can I whinge, legitimately, if not here. One of the residents, now deceased, used to say it was alright living longer and being well cared for but it was at the cost of wearing the carers out in the process!
Nothing runs to schedule when there are four of us and twentyfour of them and a significant proportion of them need intensive care from all hands. Monday to Friday there are five on care but, for some obscure reason, there is this idea that everything eases up at the weekend so we can do with less staff. The truth is that we have exactly the same work load and extras like marketing to fit in. The official answer is that "this is how it always is in care and no one works with a full staff quota at weekends" - yet, the expectation is that standards will not be compromised and we will plough on regardless. It's damned hard work and not difficult to understand why recruitment and retention is such an ongoing issue.

However, I have now been at home for a little while and had chance to defuse myself so ought to have a more positive outlook even if there is precious little energy. I have fought the desire to go and have a nap as something that wastes time and is inefficient but having checked my emails, my ebay and facebook I am running out of excuses. The time of chopping and slicing approaches and then getting into bed with a crossword and something mind numbing on digital tv and I might feel a little more human.

The return

Well, I have returned home and I swear that the next set of days off I get I am going to go somewhere on my own.
I love my family dearly but I don't think I can stand the stress anymore!
I have missed you, dear Blog, and the self discipline you invoke in me.
This has been four days of flu, stress, more flu and more stress with me in the middle trying to keep everyone on an even keel. Now, it's back to work tomorrow and I am absolutely wrecked but at least I have some topics for the blogs to come.
For now, I am off to bed, to get something approximating to a decent night's sleep,with my melange of fruit and veg. and a word puzzle, to try and attain some sort of equilibrium again. Must remember the 14 points of articulation......

The wrong button

I have racked my brains ......Damn! Now would you believe, I have caught a wrong button, just the merest pressure, and lost all I have written. I was going to say that I have found it difficult to decide on a topic for today, especially as I shall be away from the laptop for four days. No doubt themes will occur during that time and, given the nature of my family, they will be many and varied.
This is by way of a coda to my first series of blogs and has been an excellent exercise in daily discipline and overcoming my inability to compose at the keyboard.
My next test is to transpose work I have already drafted in longhand.
More immediately, I must gear myself up for today's shift and coping with a member of staff noted for her ability to not only talk but also slow down the pace dangerously. This needs careful handling and planned strategy otherwise the work load falls on the backs of the rest of us instead of being shared.
So, Blog, until the next time.....

A good childhood?

The Children's Society are conducting research into what constitutes a good childhood and inviting reminiscences from past generations as well as today's. It got me wondering about my own childhood and that of my children and grandchildren.

I suppose my childhood was privileged in many ways, both in terms of a lot of my contemporaries and todays' children. It didn't seem like it at the time and,by today's standards, I suppose that materially it might seem fairly deprived, but where it differed from a lot of my contemporaries was that because we lived with my mother's parents security came from several sources. I had my own room; we kept pigs and chickens so ham and eggs weren't scarce; my grandmother dealt in second hand goods, mostly clothes and books etc., so I was dressed in Ladybird clothing, used but in good condition, right from the start, and there was a large kitchen garden with apples,pears, soft fruits and vegetables. There was room to roam and play and grandma's ragbag provided me with endless dressing up possibilities. There was also an endless supply of comics, both boys and girls, and classic books. The house was never empty and the door open to a varied selection of callers: some to do with my grandma's business, some were family, sometimes neighbours in for a chat and a barter - Mrs Jackson next door made ice cream in the summer and used our eggs or gave us Staffordshire oatcakes and pikelets in winter - and motorists paying their rents on the garages at the end of the yard.

Like most children, though, I was only dimly aware, at that time, that not everyone lived as we did and given that my father worked a brick making machine, only the extended family setup gave us the extras.
Where my childhood might be construed as lacking was that there were few other children living around us. I had to be taken to play with other little girls unless cousins visited. I don't remember feeling lonely but I suppose my preference for being with older people stems from this time. There were two children living across the road, in a row of dilapidated cottages, twins with an Italian father and English mother, but my grandfather disapproved of my consorting with them - not because of Italy's role in the war but because the father was a jail bird. It didn't always stop me playing mud pies with them though.
However, the fact was circumstances and choice meant that I was in the company of adults most of the time. Even school didn't redress the balance as it took me ages to settle. I hated leaving my mother and with fractures and such a great deal of my general knowledge was acquired from the books supplied to me by gran at home.
I have never known again the warmth and security I felt, when ill, of being tucked up in front of a blazing fire, a rich comforting mug of Sister Laura's food in reach, and a pile of comics, annuals. and picture books to occupy me.

My children knew a different sort of environment - a new council estate with a lot of the modern conveniences not available to my family when I was small.
Sophisticated technology was starting to impact on most peoples lives. A wider range of people and experiences influenced their development and there were more children around. We were the nuclear family, living in our own four walls, albeit rented, and living on what was in effect a more restricted income than my parents. Grandparents still helped to make up the shortfall but not so much in terms of their daily presence.

Now I have five grandchildren experiencing, in many respects, a childhood that, materially, would have seemed unachievable fifty five years ago. Three of them have already moved home several times due to dad's job. They have flown and lived life in the sun, gone to school in three countries, become almost casual about travelling and never known life with outdoor plumbing or being in close contact with their food.
My two granddaughters have graduates for parents, a home that belongs to those parents and already know, as do their cousins, how to operate keyboards and digital this and that.
The other great change is in the fluid nature of family relationships. I lived in an extended family but the relationships were relatively simple and stable. Today, children, including my grandchildren, have to untangle the complex web of family connections where both sets of grandparents are divorced and "step-grandparents" are part of the set up. Where aunties and uncles may not stay in the same combinations.

Whose childhood is better? Materially, I suspect, theirs by miles, but having space and opportunity to indulge and develop imagination, time to consider,a lack of pressure to react and a greater degree of certainty then, maybe, mine.

The truth is that all is relative and, while I can see where their childhoods could have been bettered, they would probably regard mine as boring and restrictive in its opportunities and lack of what are now regarded as common place necessities.