I'm Late, I'm Late. For a Very Important Date

The words of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.  I feel my world has become just as crazy at the moment. A few weeks ago, I received a letter from my credit card company, Barclaycard, with a new card which was due. Also enclosed was a card for Greg, as the additional credit-card holder. I was a bit surprised as I had told them almost three years ago that he had died, but then I began to doubt whether I had told them, so sent them a letter, just to be on the safe side, saying he was dead and would they remove his name as the additional cardholder.
 

I've been away for a few days tending to my mother's house and  garden.  I got back yesterday to a pile of mail including one from Barclaycard. It was addressed to Greg.  In it it, they expressed their condolences at my death and referred to me as The Late Addy. A second letter pointed out that my credit card bill (which I clear every month, so I only owe for any expenses during the previous month) needed to be paid by the Late Addy's Estate.   They also said they would be cancelling the account in two weeks' time.


It seemed horrible seeing my name in black and white referred to as The Late Addy. As if someone had just walked over my grave. I have rung them this morning and the operator seemed so surprised to hear from me she asked me about ten security questions just to make sure it was me. By the time I had answered all questions correctly, she ventured that she knew what I was ringing about! I think it has now been sorted out and they are going to confirm it to me in writing that I am not dead. Until then, I can't be sure!

Well worth it

I'm glad to see that all the hard work and expense to date towards Kay's education is paying off. She texted me these two deep, meaningful poems last night, as I sat watching TV......
 

 

Rosies are red.

Violets are blue.

My lasagne said neigh,

When it should have said moo.

 

 

Rosies are red.

Violets are glorious.

Don't try and surprise

Oscar Pistorius!

 

Let the train take the strain

Back in the good old days, if you wanted to go somewhere in the UK by train, you walked into the station booking hall and you bought a ticket. Apart from the options of whether you wanted First Class or a seat reservation, the price was set.  You knew how much you needed to pay and what change you'd get for a sandwich. You could pick your train departure time at whim (unless you had a seat reservation on a specific train). Life was simple and uncomplicated.

Not so, nowadays.  The price varies for the same stretch of line by extortionate amounts depending on how close to departure you book it, whether it's at peak times, whether you want hifi access, just want a single fare or (for all I know) need to breathe in air on the journey.  You can even be charged the excess fare by the ticket conductor on board, should you decide to go on an earlier or later train than the one you originally bought if that attracts a higher fare. The variation in prices has always puzzled me, when I am selecting train tickets online, and last night's BBC2 fly on the wall looking at the railways confirmed the madness of it all, when a passenger at  London's Kings Cross asked for a return fare to Newcastle and was quoted £301. The look on his face said it all but he managed to stammer incredulously "I could fly there and back for less than that" to which the rather boring, no-nonsense booking clerk replied unhelpfully "your prerogative sir."  The booking clerk had just spent a few minutes talking to the camera about customer service and how to treat the public but had obviously not mastered the technique himself.  Another rail employee was even heard to say you could have a 5-star holiday abroad for the same price of some of the train fares. Given the number of times the train I have caught has left late or been held up late along the line, because some low-life has stolen the signal wiring, I could have probably nipped over to Greece and back by plane for the same money and in the same timescale!

The distance from A to B is constant, the train is going anyway, so why the difference in fares? Surely the nearer to departure you book, the more grateful the train company should be that the train is filling up and not travelling half empty, thereby making them more profit, so why clobber the passenger with a higher fare for booking late? I appreciate that it's all about the consumer having choice but who in their right mind would pay £301 for a return trip to Newcastle, if they can buy the same seat on the same train travelling the same stretch for a quarter of that price? Is it me or is it them?

The second day of February

The day of the operation arrived. I recall the Registrar (a youngish-looking woman in her mid-thirties) coming to see me at my bedside to get me to sign consent forms.  She told me she was going to be the one to do my operation, although the consultant would be in the adjoining theatre, if there were any problems, and she would try to do a bikini-line cut (going from left to right) rather than one going from north to south, although much depended on the location of said mass and its size.

The rest of that day was a blur. Obviously I was out of it for much of the time and only had snatches of consciousness back in the ward afterwards, as nurses came and poked and prodded or moistened my mouth or took my blood pressure.

The day after that the consultant visited my bedside. He was able to tell me that the mass removed by his Registrar measured 8 inches by 6 inches, roughly the size of a rugby ball, as if I needed to visualise it, but was thankfully a benign fibroid, as he had hoped it would be. He said he had never seen one so big in all his forty years of medicine. Trust me to produce a whopper!

Once I was over the worst Greg then broke the news to Kay about her granddad, as we had been anxious not to alarm her until I was up and running. Over the next week in hospital, I gradually went from horizontal to vertical taking a few faltering steps along the ward until by the end of the week I was able to move with more speed. Greg had already collected my mum, so she was living at home with us and stayed for a couple of weeks, seeing me back home again, before she returned to her home to prepare for the last-minute funeral arrangements. Three weeks after my operation, Greg drove us to my mother's house 60 miles away to be there for Dad's funeral, with a pillow stuffed between my healing scar and the seat belt!  And the rest, as they say, is history.

All that was 12 years ago. The Registrar made a grand job of the scar, doing a left to right bikini line cut in a natural crease of skin. You cannot even see it now. The red line eventually went white and has now completely faded. However, the scar etched on my brain is still very much there.

First of February

I suspect, should I ever die and they need to perform a post-mortem on me, they'll find the First of February 2001 etched in my brain like a stick of Brighton rock.  It is a date I shall never ever forget.

In mid December 2000, I had been told I needed an urgent hysterectomy operation. I had developed a large mass in my womb. If I lay face-down on a hard floor playing a board game or doing a jigsaw with Kay, I could feel it digging in to me. The consultant gynaecologist I went to see was fairly hopeful it was a benign fibroid but because of its large size, could not rule out it was something malignant. He needed to open me up and see for sure, but did not want to leave it too long. However, with the Christmas and New Year period in the way and therefore an obstacle both from my and the NHS point of view, my operation, although urgent,  was fixed for the 2 February 2001, some six weeks away.

However over Christmas, it became apparant my father was very ill. I have written before about how special he was to me, how close we were and how upset I was when he died, untimely ripped from our lives by leukaemia and (cruelly) to have two kinds of the disease at the same time: one which he could have lived with for many many years and, apart from the occasional blood transfusions, would have caused no problem, but the second type was more aggressive and by mid-January 2001 revealed the diagnosis that he had but a few months if not weeks to live. Not certain when exactly he would die, I was nervous to go ahead with my operation, but my father begged me to carry on, as it was much needed and he would not be happy if I postponed it.  He argued that I still had my life in front of me and would be recuperating by the time he grew worse, so we stuck to the schedule.

A few days before my operation, Greg, a nine-year-old Kay and I drove the sixty-odd miles to stay with my parents for the weekend. We visited my father who was by now very weak and in hospital. The consultant haematologist told us that Dad was rapidly fading and that his blood was showing more of the killer leukaemia cells day by day. Again I protested that I ought to cancel my operation, but again my father insisted I should go ahead and be all the more stronger to deal with what would happen to him later. At our parting, I hugged and kissed him and could not bear to let go or turn the corner out of view from his bed in the ward, all the time trying to keep a brave front for Kay who did not really understand or suspect what was going on.

A few days later, it was Thursday 1 February 2001: the day before my operation. I had been told to report to the ward at about mid-afternoon. I was to have a bath at home beforehand and to have brought a case full of stuff to last me a week in hospital. The hysterectomy and removal of the "mass" would take place on the Friday morning. I was at home busy preparing  myself and making sure that Greg and Kay would have enough to be fed and watered during my 7-day absence. I was also packing a case and getting ready to have a bath after lunch.

At about 12:50pm the telephone rang. It was my mother in floods of tears. My father had suddenly passed away ten minutes before. I froze. Now what to do?   I was all for rushing to be with my mother but Greg wanted me to have that op so badly  as he was nervous it could be bad news and to postpone it was madness. However I could not leave my mother to cope with Dad's funeral on her own and in any case I did not want to be incapacitated for it either. I decided to cancel the operation. I rang the hospital and left a message with the consultant's secretary. I rang around my circle of friends and relatives telling them the grave news.

I was in a daze. I could not think straight. There were a million and one things to think about, not least of which was how we were going to break the news to Kay. The phone kept ringing.  Then in the late afternoon my consultant rang me back. He said he sympathised with my position, but he would seriously urge me to reconsider the operation for the next morning. "Your father can no longer be saved, but YOU can", he said. He also said he could not guarantee that putting it off for a few weeks would have a good outcome if the mass was malignant. He begged me to think about it and ring him back with my decision. Meanwhile people were ringing me saying much the same thing, that my father would want me to go ahead with the operation. My mother even rang to say she had been taken by close friends  to collect the death certicate and the funeral could be arranged for three weeks hence by which time I would have recuperated. There was nothing else for me to help her with, so even she said I should go ahead with the op.

Thus it came to pass that on the evening of 1 February 2001, Greg delivered me to the hospital and then rushed off to collect Kay who had been with a childminder since leaving school that afternoon. I found myself sitting up in a bed in a large old Victorian  gynaecological ward of twenty beds or more, ten down one side and ten down the the opposite side. I sat listening to people laughing with and chatting to their visitors, while the tears rolled down my cheeks. My beloved father had just died;  I sat all alone surrounded by people; and I faced major surgery the next morning. A day I would never ever forget.

Winter Wonderland

Heavy snow has finally reached London for the first time this winter. It snowed non-stop for five hours on Friday and for about twelve hours on Sunday.  This is the view from my study window this morning........

 

 

Last night when I took Snoopy for a walk, I might as well have been on the moon. There were no people about and no cars, as they don't grit my road. Just lots of snow, lamplight, me and the dog. And absolute silence!  You would never have thought you were in the midst of a big city.

Peace at last

I've spent the last four weeks with company. Either with Kay on Christmas leave from uni, then with Kay and my mother over the Christmas season, then just with my mother, once Kay had returned to Uni for her January exams and finally with my mother at her house, when I took her back and stayed with her for a week. I finally returned home two days ago to peace and quiet. It was nice having company, don't get me wrong, but I do seem to like my own company too and it was great to pour a well-deserved glass of wine on my return and watch some pre-recorded programmes I had not gotten around to watching over Christmas. Of course having company meant I was running up and down my many stairs between rooms like a mad thing serving teas, coffees, meals, tidying up etc, not to mention taking the dog for two walks a day. Mum in particular is finding she cannot manage to stand and cook for herself (she has severe scoliosis and arthritis), so even at her house I was doing all the cooking and chores for her, still walking the dog etc.

I've woken up to a fine dusting of snow this morning in which Snoopy and I tentatively ventured out, but apart from that I'm currently catching up with my blog reads and a nice cup of cappuccino. Then I'm going to plan having my two rather antiquated (1960s) bathrooms renovated in the spring.

Happy New Year

I have often heard that some people see the days of the week or the months of the year as colours, presumably depending on their mood and whether they regard colours in the spectrum as happy ones or sad ones. If that were me, Mondays would be as black as soot, as traditionally they have always been the first day back to work after a relaxing weekend. Saturdays would probably be vibrant red - a day to party and unwind. But, all this is academic, as I personally do not really see them as colours.

However, I have been thinking, I do see the year as a looming cliff before me. Starting in January at the foot of the cliff, I climb upwards and ever higher making my way through all the annual anniversaries and birthdays to my own birthday in November.

This is then swiftly followed by Christmas, where I stand at the top of the cliff exulting in my success after the long slow climb, enjoying the lovely food and warmth that Christmas brings. Suddenly before you know it and before you can say "Last of the Christmas Leftovers", it is New Year's Eve again. Now I find myself on the very pinnacle of the cliff  (standing on tiptoe on a big rock admiring the view). The clock strikes midnight, the fireworks shoot into the sky and there is much hugging and celebrating. However I find myself projected within seconds into the 1st January at the bottom of the cliff once more, having to start the long slow climb yet again. Far from wanting to make resolutions and looking forward to the year ahead, I  am slightly annoyed that I have got to start all over again. Does New Year do this to you?

Merry (although not too merry) Christmas

Hearing some of the stories people at my local Al-Anon meeting tell of their life with an alcoholic makes me appreciate what a better place I am in now. Six years ago I was living with a 24-hour, 7-days a week drinker. I thought I was going crazy living on a merry-go-round I couldn't get off, with no prospect of a solution or salvation. Nobody to help me, no professional body to turn to with any practical means of help and only my (then teenage) daughter to talk to about it.

Almost three years ago, the solution came. A drastic one at that. A death, a funeral, a catharsis. It was not meant to be that my alcoholic would stop drinking and we would ride off into the sunset to start retirement hand-in-hand together. I would have preferred it, but it was not meant to be. Instead I have become stronger, calmer, at peace. Alone, but at peace. I really feel for those at Al-Anon and elsewhere who continue to suffer their living nightmares. I want to tell them that peace will come eventually, although maybe at a price.  I have much to be grateful for, not least of which is that I am not living in that hell any more.

I'm building up to that annual crescendo when I collect my mother, welcome back my daughter from uni for a few weeks and pile the house high with enough food to feed the Albert Hall in one sitting. Beds are made, the house is sparkling and the cards all sent to their far-flung destinations. All that remains is to wish you a happy and peaceful Christmas and all the best for the New Year, especially for those still on that nightmare merry-go-round.

 

Merry Christmas (although hopefully not too merry for some!)

Hang on, Snoopy.

I was hunkered down in front of the X-factor final on Saturday with a German beer and some nibbles when Snoopy jumped off the sofa and looked at me with that look says "ignore me at your peril". He will often do that during the course of an evening. It is almost as if he hates to see me finally relaxing after I have been buzzing about all day like a blue - a****  fly while he snores his head off on the sofa. Come the evening, I slow down and he comes alive. Well, no wonder, he's been asleep all day!

He'll stand in front of me and fix his gorgeous brown eyes right on mine, look right through me and try to tell me something. It can mean "I want a biscuit for looking cute", "I want a biscuit for not looking cute", "Just give me the biscuit" or "Let me out into the garden, I need to do a wee." By process of elimination, I usually get to find out what he wants.  I can't simply ignore him, because he stands between me and the television  and, as he is quite a big dog, he blocks my field of vision.  Which can be pretty irritating when you have just settled down to watch the X-factor final with a beer and some nibbles.

I had to pause Christopher Maloney singing a duet with Gary Barlow (thank goodness for being able to pause live television these days) and go downstairs to let Snoopy out into the garden. He did a wee AND a poo, came back in again, got a biscuit for looking cute and I then returned upstairs to the lounge to carry on watching TV. He didn't follow me upstairs and after a few minutes, I paused the TV again and went back downstairs to see what he was doing. He has a habit lately of scavenging in the kitchen waste bin, pulling out the discarded cellophane that has wrapped meat or fish and chewing round it for the flavour. He'll then leave the tell-tale bits of cellophane all over the kitchen and when reprimanded look at me in all innocence with a look that says "it wasn't me". I half expected to find him doing that. What I found, however was not nearly as pleasant. Diarrhoea all over my kitchen floor! Eeeeeeuugh! All hopes of returning to the X-factor were rapidly abandoned, as I gathered kitchen towel, plastic bags and gloves for the mop-up operation.

I already know he has something wrong with his liver and pancreas (see here). However, looking cute is no compensation and I suspect a trip to the vet will be on the cards this week, if this continues.

Footnote   We went to the vet yesterday and after three injections (painkiller,antibiotic and steroid) Snoopy seems much improved this morning. Could be a touch of colitis, thinks the vet, but I am to observe what the steroid does over the week and report back. Now I have a pain in my purse!     12.12.12.

Daylight robbery

I'm still recovering from the shock. I've sat down quietly in a darkened room and am hugging a mug of hot chocolate to calm my nerves. It's  never happened to me before, so it'll definitely take some getting used to. I expect once it's happened a few times, or I can talk it over with one or two supportive friends,  I'll come to terms with it, but nevertheless, the first time is the worst, I suppose.............

This morning I went to the local Post Office. I had about 5 small-ish ebay parcels to send, a parcel to some friends in Germany, a few stamps for the USA and Germany, and an order for sixty 2nd class stamps and ten 1st class stamps. The bill came to £66.65! I usually spend a lot in the post office every Christmas but it has always been under £40. I love sending Christmas cards to my kith and kin in the USA, Germany and around the UK, but am beginning to wonder if emails and e-cards are the way to go in the future. Either that or re-mortgage the house!

The best laid plans of mice and men

Well, the birthday didn't quite go according to plan. In fact it didn't ressemble what was planned at all! However, it was just as good fun. My two bezzie friends had emailed a few days before to say they wouldn't be able to join me for lunch after all as both had gone down with the bubonic plague in varying forms - one with throaty/chest infection and the other with norovirus. It couldn't be helped and we promised to do something another time. However Greg's sister Jill was still on track to come down to London and we planned something completely different for the day.

First of all we made a beeline for Carnaby Street, as Jill had heard of a lovely chocolatier shop in that area that makes exquisite chocolate sculptures. Called Choccywoccydoodah, it was certainly an eye-opener both in terms of sculptures and the prices! Here are just some of the pictures I took on the ground floor level of their shop.

 

 

 

 

We went upstairs to their quirky cafe (even the toilets were well worth a visit for their quirkiness) and indulged in a lunch of chocolate dipping pot (choice of melted dark, milk or white chocolate with a variey of things to dip in it ranging from strawberries, marshmallow, turkish delight, brownies, tiffin and shortbread). Although the plate didn't look too filling at the start, I can assure you it made us stagger out onto the streets afterwards!

After a wander through the streets of Soho, we ended up on our way to the German market again on the South Bank  to have a look at the stalls.

 

We returned home for a cup of tea and a sit with the dog, before venturing out again in the evening for a meal at  my local Mexican restaurant. After our main course of chicken fajita, Jill let slip to one of the waiters that it was my birthday and, before we knew it, a slice of chocolate cake ended up in front of me complete with sizzling sparkler and a tambourine-shaking Mexican waiter (or then again he might have been from Scunthorpe). I told him it was really my 21st birthday and he picked up the table number sign, bearing the number 16  and nodded (I wish !)

Both unofficial and official birthdays were great. Thanks Jill and Kay!

Meine Mutter

As Kay said to me over the weekend, I am like the Queen, as I have two birthdays this year - the official one and the actual one. My birthday is actually later this week (62 and trying not to keep on counting!) I'll be celebrating at a birthday lunch up in London with my two closest friends. Greg's sister is also coming to stay with me for a few days and will be joining us for the lunch too.

Kay will be unable to get down from the North for the actual day, as she'd be busy in lectures, but desperately wanted to come down the weekend before (the one just gone), even though I told her I didn't mind  and she didn't have to worry. She insisted and said she would be arriving for a long weekend on Thursday evening and not going back again until this morning (Monday). She also decided to combine her visit to me with a night out with some of her old schoolfriends on Saturday-night-into-Sunday morning, so we agreed the best day to celebrate my unofficial birthday together would be Friday.

I imagined we might go for a meal locally and we also tentatively discussed visiting the German market on the South Bank too. When Friday morning arrived, Kay was up with the lark and seemed very excited. "Are you excited too?" she asked.
"Well, yes," I said, although technically my birthday was still a week away and I hadn't quiet got into the spirit of things. She handed me my presents and amongst them was a card which she instructed me to open last. When I did there were two tickets to see Mamma Mia that very evening. You could have felled me with a feather. She had even resorted to subterfuge and asked a friend of mine to look in on the dog, while we were out (as I have said before he cannot be left alone for more than an hour or so which is why I am relatively housebound).
"You deserve a night out, " said Kay beaming from ear to ear.

First of all, during the day, we did go up to the South Bank to see the German market.

 

There were so many stalls to see, although not all were authentic

German ones,

 

but we could not resist having a Bratwurst for lunch there

 

washed down with a big glass of mulled wine (too tipsy to take pictures of that, sorry).

 

Who was it that said, when you are tired of London, you are tired of life? This view of London always makes me feel so good.

 

We dashed home again in the late afternoon to reassure the dog, then dashed out again in the early evening to see Mamma Mia. It was a fabulous, happy, foot-stomping show with people dancing in the aisles and we came away absolutely euphoric.  For an unofficial birthday (or even an official one) it was fantastic. Thank you so much Kay..... and I still have another birthday to look forward to in a few days' time.

 

The title of this post, by the way, is Mamma Mia in German. Well we WERE practising our German at the market, see.

Pay attention at the back!

Aoccdrnig to rsearech at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny improatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a ttoal mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Tolatly amzanig huh?

The futility of war

In the First World War my two grandfathers were on opposite sides.

My mother's father William was on the side of the English. Born in Bermondsey  as the oldest of ten, he enlisted at the age of 19 at the very start of the war and fought at the battles of Ypres, the Somme and Paschendale - the latter where he was badly wounded. He was in the Royal Artillery and had a horse called Smiler that used to pull the gun carriages. The horse was also badly injured and had to be put down. My grandfather luckily was brought back to England with injuries to his leg, head and eye. He lost his eye and from then on had a glass one. He was plagued by bad headaches for the rest of his life too, whenever the schrapnel moved around.

 

My paternal grandfather Erisch was on the side of the Germans. Born in Berlin, he also enlisted early on in the war. He fought for a time in France, where he was shot in the leg and then, after he had recuperated, he was sent to the Russian front which was notoriously freezing and conditions were unbearable. He was awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery. He went on after the war to marry a girl with Jewish connections (my grandmother) and in 1939 they were forced to flee for their lives and settle here in England, some number of months after their two teenage sons (one of them my father) had already come here with the Kindertransport.

 

 My German grandfather in exact centre front row.

 

When my mother and father got together in the Second World War, announced their engagement and introduced both sets of parents to one another, my two grandfathers amicably shook hands and joked "I bet you were the b*****r that shot my leg/eye".  It was good that they could be so forgiving, given the extent of their injuries.

Intensive care

The bed is made, fresh towels laid out and a hearty meal is cooking on the stove. Kay is coming home for the weekend complete with infected tonsils. She rang earlier in the week to say she felt she had swallowed a razorblade, had a bit of a fever and felt very sick. She fancied a weekend at home and a bit of TLC and requested her favourite meal of cock-a-leekie soup with dumplings. I'll have you know my dumplings are renowned! ( Yes, all right, all right.)

I've bought a huge jar of Manuka honey. That and the dumplings are going to stick to those tonsils and fight it out (although the doctor has prescribed antibiotics in the event it gets any worse, but has said not to take them if at all possible). For two whole days, Kay and I will curl up on the sofa, watch DVDs and have a giggle.

My kind of intensive care.

picture from www.allrecipes.co.uk

Savile's Travels

About twelve years or so ago, Greg, Kay and I went on a camping trip to Scotland. We were going to try to do the whole journey in one go from London, but got held up in an enormous traffic jam on the M25 caused by an overturned newspaper bale lorry and only made it as far as Northumberland by nightfall. The next day, we carried on through the border with Scotland and got as far as Glencoe before stopping for a lunch break.

We stopped off at a remote roadside cafe high up in the mountain pass just before you reach Glencoe and piled into a warm cosy interior offering warm drinks and light snacks for refreshment. As we settled down at our table and took in our surroundings, the strong waft of cigar smoke and a very distinctive voice reached our senses. It was Jimmy Savile sitting at a corner table with a crew of mountain rescue people, deep in animated conversation. We learned much later that he had a cottage up that way and often helped out with the mountain rescue teams. His camper van was parked outside near our car. Kay, then about 10 years old, was excited that we were in spitting distance of not just any old celebrity, but THE Jim'll Fix It one. We tried our best not to stare at him and left him in peace, as we appreciated what it must be like to be a celebrity and have people clammering for autographs or taking photos, when all you want is a quiet chat with friends and a cup of coffee. It fills me with dread now to think what a lucky escape we had. Kay could have so easily run over to him and got in contact.... in more ways than one.

My reaction when the news about Savile first broke was to think what a shame he was not alive to defend these malicious allegations,but with every person that comes forward to say it happened to them, I now think, what a shame he is not alive to face the punishment for these charges. The NSPCC has been quoted  as saying he is likely to be one of the most prolific sex offenders they have ever encountered. It is incredible that for 5 decades nobody had the courage to stand up and report him (from the many child vicitims to the adults who worked with him or for him). It seems everybody thought or was told the same - that he was too big a personality, particularly in the  charity arena, for their complaints to be believed. It either seemed too far-fetched or it would damage the donations or salaries he put their way. He used his charity work to gild his reputation, make himself look extremely altruistic, when all along it would seem he was doing the very opposite, creating more opportunity for himself to pursue his own vile interests.

It is sadly too late to get justice from him now, but a lesson to be learned from all this is  surely that we should not put any one soul on too high a pedestal that they cannot be knocked off, if need be. Celebrities are but ordinary mortals who just happen to be able to sing, act, tell a good joke or be in the right place at the right time. (Some are even just famous for being famous, although they cannot do anything remarkable to save their lives. They just happen to be the ex or the current squeeze of someone who is famous). We must stop treating them as if they somehow have supernatural powers and are beyond the laws of the land.

Letting Go

Kay and I are very close and have always got on very well together. That's not to say we don't have the occasional argument or disagreement over something, but generally speaking we are very close. She tries to phone me every day, partly because she knows I am on my own and  am trapped in the house for long periods (because of not leaving an aged dog on his own too long) and partly because she likes to share her news with me.

However, I know that I am an anxious person and always see the worst in situations or people. It probably stems from growing up in a family where my maternal grandmother lost two of her three young children within the same week (one six weeks old, the other three years old) in 1925 to double pneumonia and whooping cough. My mum was 18 months old at the time and the only one to pull through, even though she was in hospital with the other two.  On my paternal side, things were not so hunky dory either. My father's wider family in Germany were largely wiped out by the holocaust and he and his brother and parents only managed to escape to England in 1939 by the skin of their teeth. So gloom and doom and cautionary tales were forever in the family psyche and have rubbed off well and truly onto me.

Whenever someone tells me something, I am a glass half-empty rather than half-full. I see problems where noone else can. I sense danger. This tends to heighten where Kay is involved and I just cannot help myself saying "don't do this, don't try that." When she was little, it was not too much of a problem, and I don't think I was any worse than the average mum, waving a small child off to school, letting them make that first climb alone on a slide, dropping them off at their first sleepover. As she grew older, I adjusted reasonably to waving her off on school trips to France, watching her jump off at the deep end of a swimming pool or seeing her head off on a backpack challenge to Guatemala and Belize. My grandmother used to say "Small child, small worries. Big child, big worries." This is so true. No matter how old your children, the worry grows in ratio to their age, as they become more and more independent and experimental. Try as I might to bite my lip, I find words tumble out of my mouth with dire warnings. The result is that Kay thinks that on occasions I am trying to smother her or stifle her wanderlust. She once said that I can never be pleased for her about trying something new. It is not so much that I don't want her to challenge life or experiment, but that I am afraid it will go wrong and harm her. I accept that since Greg has died, I think this has got worse, as she is now my world.

With that in mind, I am trying very hard to be pleased for her that she is taking a 7-hour coach trip tonight along dark foggy autumnal motorways from the far north end of the country to Cornwall to go surfing for a long weekend with the new club she has just joined.  She is an average swimmer, although you can count on one hand the number of times she goes to a pool in any given year. She never swims in the sea and she has never been surfing......ever. The weather is reasonably good this weekend. So I am desperately trying to put on my glass half-full hat. Cross fingers, touch wood and wish me a shedful of luck!

Update
All is well.....she survived the weekend safely and so did I!

Wrinkly drinking

This article appeared in the news today. Greg would certainly have been one of those listed in the 2010 statistics.  Having been a light social drinker most of his life, he suddenly took to drinking in an excessive way literally once he hit the age of 55 and took early retirement on health grounds (ailments that had nothing to do with drinking at that stage). I still ponder about why he took up drinking and why so excessively, but have to put depression over quitting a very stressful but  extremely dynamic job high up on the list. Nothing he did after that (particularly because his health prevented him) came close to the excitement his job had given him. I guess for a lot of over-55 year olds that may well be a key factor for taking to the bottle... the feeling of no longer being useful to society....as well as a dawning resignation of changes not necessarily for the better in life/marriage/health and the outlook of being on a downhill slope.

It's knowing when to keep to the advised drinking guidelines, though, that can be the difference between life and death. In Greg's case, addiction took hold and he was dead by the age of 60. He'll be in one of those statistics somewhere too.

Water on the brain?

There's something about being by water that I find very restful and calming. (I am sure Freudians would say it has something to do with being back in the womb.) If ever I have troubles on my mind, a walk by a river, a lake or the sea seems to put them in perspective and I can breathe freely again. When my father and then Greg died, a walk with the dog around the lake in my local park used to help no end. I love to hear the sound of water lapping against the shore of a lake, water rippling over stones in the river, or the waves pounding over shingle on the beach.

After my recent fiasco with the roof problem, I was very much in need of some therapy and a week at my mother's by the sea was all I needed. Of course I was busy doing her garden and other chores in the pouring rain, but there were also some nice days to take in the sea air and relax.

Raising the roof

I've just had one hell of a week. One of those weeks where you feel like bursting into tears and taking to the hills. I've spent endless nights staring at the walls, tossing and turning and trying to sleep, but have lain awake all night and waited for the alarm to go off in the morning. I've lost my appetite and lost pounds in the bargain. It's not a week I want to repeat in a hurry. In fact, ever.

And the reason for all this? I've just had a new roof put on my house.

I've mentioned before I live in a small cul-de-sac of town houses... six-storey houses with flat roofs. The reason for the six storeys is that from the side elevation the house looks like this.....



From the front or back of the house, there are only three storeys, but once inside the staircase winds centrally through the house and through the six storeys. The roof, as you can see, is in two parts - an upper roof and a lower roof. On the very top level (to the top left of the diagram) is a bedroom and bathroom and from the bathroom window you can look down onto the lower roof. This sets the scene for my story.

 

The roof is 24 years old and, as anyone with a flat roof will know, that is ancient. It hadn't failed me and would probably have been going strong for a while longer, but it had got to that stage where I began to think my luck might not hold out much longer and it would be better to replace it while it was still keeping out water, than wait for a deluge, a crack and be swept away in the current. What with the washed-out summer we have just had, the miserable  wet autumn and thoughts of cold snowy wet winters ahead, I decided to bite the bullet and have the roof replaced now. I also decided that while the roof was off, I would also invest in roof insulation as well to do my bit for the planet.

 

I did a bit of research on roofing companies but decided to pick a small family business which had been going strong for the last three decades.  They have a website and it looks friendly and cosy, like a comfy pair of slippers, and I felt we could get on famously. More than half the employees (both workmen and office staff)  are related with a few non-family members thrown in. I should have maybe got a few other quotes in, but since it is all down to gut reaction anyway, I decided I was happy with that one. I arranged for them to come along to look at what needed doing and the owner turned up the next day. I thought it a bit strange that our entire meeting was done outside the house, including the bits about possible price and other details. Not that I have secrets fom my neighbours, but I kinda didn't want the whole street to be involved with the discussion. Mums were coming back to the cul-de-sac with their kids from school runs and it was a bit of circus rather than a quiet meeting.

 

When the estimate came in, I gulped a bit but it was within the price range I had expected it would be, so was not unduly alarmed. But they had missed a significant detail out and when I wrote back to clarify whether that detail was included in the price or they had left it off, the owner said he had forgotten to include it, but as a gesture of goodwill he would let me have it for free, as I was now a pensionner. So far, so good.

 

I wrote back agreeing to the work and signed their terms and conditions which basically covered such things like having no comeback if cracks appeared in my ceilings, or not being able to alter the slope of the roof (it's flat, so no problem), and not holding them to keeping my TV aerial in its place etc. After a week or so had passed, I had heard no more, so casually rang up to ask when they might be able to start the work. I was told it was scheduled for a few days from then, but nobody had bothered to telephone or write to tell me, so that was slightly alarming. Having told them I could not be there for that date, we agreed a date a week later.

The scaffolders turned up to erect a scaffolding tower and also drilled holes in my upper brickwork to put a fence around the perimeter of both roof levels. Nobody had told me there would be holes in the brickwork, but I was assured it would be filled in when the scaffolding was being removed. The roofers were due to start on  a Monday, but by midday had not turned up and when I rang, the office serenely told me (in the kind of tone to suggest my psychic powers had definitely let me down and should have told me) that they were still on another job.

 

On Tuesday, the men turned up and to be fair worked like Trojans. They did not stop once from 8am though to 4pm. I plied them with endless cups of tea and coffee and would climb to the top of the house each time to pass the cups through the bathroom window. It meant too I could have a peep at what they were doing at each stage of the process. About 40 huge great insulation slabs each the size of dining tables were hoisted up and laid on the surface before several layers of felt was fixed over them.The men did not even have any lunch and one of them did not even get down from the roof all day, so goodness knows what he was using as a toilet, although I have a pretty good idea! The same happened on Wednesday and Thursday.  I thanked my lucky stars that the weather was fantastic and the sun shone its head off for all three days. 

 

The main roofer seemed to have plenty to say against his boss, giving pretty good vibes that all was not harmonious, and said his boss had little understanding of the problems that could suddenly crop up which meant that he always underallocated time on these jobs and meant this particular roofer had to work like crazy to get things done.

 

The job was finished on the Thursday and I heaved a sigh of relief as I'm not very good with sharing my home with workmen or making small talk, as I pass the tea and coffee over to them.

 

On the Friday and Saturday the sun continued to shine and I forgot all about the roof. On Sunday it rained and boy, did it rain! The heavens opened and the rain came down in stair-rods. I was suddenly reminded of the roof, so ran up two steps at a time to the top of the house, to admire my beautiful new roof through the bathroom window and see how it was coping. This is what I saw......

 

 

After four hours of rain it looked like this.........

 

 

 

The puddle was 16 feet long, about two feet wide and probably about an inch deep. I naturally panicked and texted the boss on his mobile. He seemed a bit taken aback that I could see it and at first must have wildly imagined I was dangling from the scaffold in the rain with my camera.  I said I was not happy with the water collecting on the roof. He seemed completely laid back about it and said all flat roofs have pooling. He pointed out, that he had not altered the slope or fall of the roof, I must have had water on it before but that because my old roof had a layer of gravel on it, I had simply not seen it before.  I pointed out that my neighbour's roof was exactly the same construction as mine and also had no gravel, but did not have a vestige of water on it. Long story short, the texts went back and forth between us but he did not seem too fussed and seemed to dismiss everything I said.  He did say he would send the workmen back the next morning to have a look and they dutifully turned up at 7.30 am to "get me out of the way before they started their other job". They were up and down from the roof within minutes and said it was fine and the water would eventually evaporate, although if any more rain came, it would just wash over the edge and not get any worse. I was made to feel I was fussing about nothing.

 

 

As the week went on, the amount of water did get worse. I kept inviting the owner to come and see for himself, but he refused to come out, kept on talking down to me as if I were an idiot and said it was not a problem. I then got the invoice through the post and was on the verge of signing the cheque, when I got an email from Trading Standards whom I had contacted earlier in the week. They said I should get a second opinion from another roofer, as the problem did not sound right. The second opinion  said  I should not accept that size of puddle under any circumstances.  By now I was getting more than a little worried and didn't know how much or whom to trust. So I decided to get a third opinion from the trade association. I thought it prudent to email the owner to say I was doing this and would not pay until I had spoken to the trade  association about it. The logic in this was that the invoice had to be paid within 5 days of receipt or otherwise I had to lodge a written complaint by then instead. At this point the owner went completely ballistic and accused me of blatantly trying to avoid payment and, if I did not pay in full within 24 hours of receiving  the invoice, he would put the matter in the hands of his solicitor and I would be charged all legal fees. I literally didn't sleep a wink all that night. Or the next night. The  day after that,  I finally got to speak with the appropriate contact at the trade association and they assured me that, although it was not an ideal situation and the roof company should have made sure that water could drain off properly, the roof would nevertheless cope and, if not, I  would at least have the guarantee to fall back on. They suggested I only pay three quarters of the bill and then only the final quarter once I had the guarantee. When I told him this, the owner went ballistic again and said that he would only issue the guarantee if I paid in full.   What a nice man. With my arms tied well and truly behind my back, I have paid the £4000 in full, as I am sick of the whole thing and just want an end to it.  I'm still left worrying whether I have done the right thing to pay up when I am so unhappy about the outcome, but fingers crossed that the owner keeps to his word and that the guarantee comes through the post in the next few weeks as promised ....

 

Meanwhile, one thing is certain - I never want to replace a roof ever again.

 

 

 

Alive and Kicking

I've mentioned it before, but every five years, I have a thorough health screening .... all for free and in the name of research. I was first approached 27 years ago, when I was working as a Civil Servant in London to take part in what is known as The Whitehall Study. It takes a random group of people and studies them over their lifetime to look into such things as health and stress and what affects it. The research is carried out by University College London (UCL). Ever since that first approach I have been invited at five-yearly intervals for medicals and to fill out beforehand extensive questionnaires about my lifestyle, mood and health. I consider it a good thing. The University gets to do their research and maybe unearth important data and I get to have a free top-to-toe medical. It's a win-win situation.

Every time I go, they change the format slightly or add another test on. The sessions usually can take anything from three to four hours. You don't have to agree to anything you are unhappy with and can even opt out of the whole thing if you suddenly decide you no longer wish to participate in the project. Yesterday I went along for my sixth medical. Naturally I was inquisitive to know whether Greg's death (which had occured since my previous medical) had had any effects on my health or stress levels. 

The only thing I personally hate about it, is that you have to turn up having fasted for about 12 hours, which in practical terms means no breakfast. Not even a cup of tea or coffee. Since it takes me well over an hour to get there, changing onto three different trains (overground as well as underground trains), up and down escalators and a good 20-minute walk at the end of it,  I arrive starving hungry and croaking for a drink. Yesterday the format was to start with blood tests to get the DNA, cholesterol and glucose levels out of the way, as well as my blood pressure which I was pleased to see was 100 over 67. Normally you don't get to eat until lunchtime, as they need to take more blood tests two hours after you are given a glucose drink, but I was told that the second blood test had been scrapped for this round of medicals, so at ten o'clock I could help myself to tea/coffee, a sandwich and piece of cake. Boy, was THAT was the best part!

After that there were all sorts of computerised mental arithmetic and IQ tests, memory tests and face recognition tests to test mental function for the onset of dementia.  There then followed a section where I had an ECG (I was told my heart rhythm looked fine, although it is sent on to a cardiologist for more detailed study) and a test to establish the elasticity/health of my veins in the neck and groin. Hip/waist/ height and weight measurements were taken to find out my fat content/BMI and I was told I was well within the range of "normal". That cheered me up no end!

The final section was to measure my hand grip strength, my finger tapping agility and general mobility (the speed I walk,  the speed I stand up from and sit down on a chair without using hands etc). I had to blow three times into a machine to test my lung function. I passed with flying colours.  A piece of hair was removed to test cortisol (stress) levels in it and I was finally fitted with a waterpoof watch-like contraption on my wrist which I have to wear non-stop for the next 10 days. This will record my activity levels and I have to fill in an accompanying diary which will show when my waking or sleeping periods are. The watch will be sent back eventually to be studied to see what my activity levels are over those ten days.

All of this is used in some way for research, although I will only get the official results of the blood tests and ECG. If there is anything wrong, my GP (who also gets a copy of the results) can then act on it and discuss it further. But so far all looks very well and it would seem I am alive and kicking.

All by Myself

People keep me asking me how I cope on my own now without Greg, particularly as I don't have Kay living at home full-time with me any more either. The answer is simple..... I am an only child.

I have never had the luxury of brothers or sisters and have always  had to find things to entertain myself from a very young age. When I was very small, I had all sorts of imaginary friends I would speak to and play with. As I grew older, I read avidly or got absorbed in solitary hobbies. As a teenager growing up in a city as big as London, my schoolfriends lived quite a distance away (my school was at the time a well-sought-after grammar school and so could pick and choose their girls from a very wide catchment area) so it was not the norm to hang out with them in the evenings and at weekends, as they lived too far away or a visit involved a train journey across London.  It was really only when I went to university that my social life really took off. I don't have cousins either, as my mother ended up as an only child, although she was originally had two little sisters (see here) and my father's brother never had children at all.  I have always been used to a solitary way of life.

At present, my mother lives 60 miles away, Kay lives about 200 miles away, my two best friends live about 60 miles away in opposite directions, so it is never a simple matter to get to see any of them.  I have passing acquaintances I have made over the years and very good neighbours if I need someone in an emergency. Snoopy keeps me tied to the house at the moment as leaving him on his own for more than about 3 hours is nigh impossible. (I usually have to do a mad dash just to get to the supermarket and back before he frets). I always find something to fill my day and am always surprised when I look at the clock and see how late it is.

I've always been a simple home bird,  I don't really fidget to see whether the grass is greener in another part of the world (all grass is the same ultimately and  with few exceptions we all end up coming back to the place we call home). That is not to say I don't occasionally want to do something different for a change, but I don't feel deprived if I can't. I am happy with my own company too,  although that is not to say I don't welcome others visiting me.  It's just that having been an only child, I am used to dealing with (and content in) my own company.

So you see, the answer is.........I am doing all right...... (I think).

Back to the Future

Picture from firsttutors.com

 

Kay has left home again after the summer break to start her fourth year at university. Those who have been following this blog for some time will know that she is studying medicine.... a five year course in all. However, medical and dental students have the option to intercalate and take a year out. This is summed up more here (although she does not go to Bristol university and different universities that offer intercalation do so at different stages of the medical degree. Where she is, they do it between year 3 and year 4.) It is basically a year out of medicine to do the final year of a medically-related science degree and get a BSc degree at the end of that 12 months, the idea being to enhance her career prospects in the future. She's quite looking forward to the opportunity to mix more with non-medics and occasionally work in a lab for a change. This time next year, with hopefully a published dissertation and the BSc under her belt, she can continue with her fourth and fifth years of medicine. It's still a long haul ahead, but we're hanging in there.

Meanwhile, the house seems awfully quiet again.........

Back to the Past

I've been putting off meaning to clear out some of the dross in the integrated garage for a while, but have always found more pressing things to do or just couldn't be bothered. But things have been piling up in there, because the garage has always been the place to throw in things that were superfluous in the house, it is also used as a laundry room, storage for electrical/garden/car/tool paraphernalia and it houses our camping equipment (several tents ranging from two-berth to sixth-berth/chairs/mattresses/tables/cooking equipment and even the camping kitchen sink) which we collected over 15 years odd of serious camping. Not to mention all the paintbrushes and tins of paint that have built up over the years. There is a substantial shelving system along both long walls of the garage , but stuff has just ended up getting jumbled up and lost. Not only that but boxes of junk have ended up in there making it impossible to get from one end of the garage to the other. There's no way you could fit a Dinky toy car in there, let alone a full-size adult one.

Kay was away for a long weekend visiting a uni friend in Chester, so I decided it would be a good opportunity for me to get up to my eyes in dust, dirt and cobwebs and have a good old clear-out. It was quite a trip down memory lane going through all the camping stuff on the garage shelves, as I practically remembered each and every item and where we had supplemented things for our gypsy-like holidays under canvas.  As I touched things, I suddenly became aware that the last person to touch them had been Greg and I felt a pang of grief/nostalgia that I was touching where his hands had been and no-one else's since. The garage had always been Greg's domain.  He was responsible for storing away the camping equipment at the end of a holiday, getting it out again when it was needed and packing the car in the way he liked to pack it. He did a lot of therapeutic DIY in the garage, either making things for the house or constructing things to make our camping experience more homely. He spent a good part of his days off in there pootling about. But what I had not bargained for was finding this little hoard amongst it.

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Towards the last few years of his life when Greg became alcohol-dependent, he would try to convince me (and himself) that he was not an alcoholic,  but I knew he was buying small bottles of whisky to decant from larger ones and obviously hid them in the garage to take a sly sip from, while at the same time he was protesting to me that he was not drinking so much because, as he kept pointing out, the level of the larger bottles in the kitchen was only going down slowly . Over the last year or so, as I have decorated the house, I have found the occasional bottle stuffed away between books in the study or under his side of the mattress or even once inside a music hifi speaker, but finding this little hoard (11 bottles in all stashed amongst the garage shelves) took my breath away and brought everything over those last few years flooding back in glorious technicolour. It also left me very sad to think that he had to result to hiding them to con me and himself.