Transworld light

I’m done with surgery here, except this: it’s left me – temporarily, I hope – with blubbery uncontrolled lips. When I drink, water spills out of either end of my mouth and I have hell’s own job pronouncing p. Which would have been bearable if our beloved Samsung fridge/freezer hadn’t abruptly lost the will to chill.

VR and daughter PB (the abbreviation is Professional Bleeder, not Phlebotomist as in the previous post) embarked on getting rid of food that might otherwise rot while I made a telephone claim on the still valid warranty. Speaking to a pert Korean woman on the other side of the world.

Even if my lips had been functioning as they ought this would have been an ordeal. A model number that ran to 13 characters and a serial number that was even longer were starters. More, I learned my own spelling vocabulary long before the present one (A for alpha, B bravo, C Charlie) came into use and I must have confused my dialoguist no end. Let’s call her Kwan.

It was an ordeal and yet it ended happily. Kwan had a lot to get through. As well as the techie fridge/freezer data there were protective Covid-19 rules for the visiting engineer. Plus telephone numbers that we both had to get right. Time after time I missed certain words (I’m getting deaf in my old age); then she’d miss some of mine. Yet she persisted as I yearned for the call to end.

But when it did end I was suffused with warmth. Her patience had totally charmed me and I thanked her sincerely. Surprised, she replied nicely in her tinkling Korean way. After, I even submitted myself to a phoned questionnaire about Samsung’s efficiency.

So there was eventual light, and darkness comprehendeth it not.

More than just smells

Slots now filled in

Chemistry was my worst subject at school. I could never remember whether the subscripts in the molecule applied to the element before or after the titchy little number. You remember, don’t you?

Little Willie was a chemist,
Now he is no more.
For what he thought was H-two oh
Was H-two S-oh four

In fact sulphuric acid.

I wasn’t much better at physics but RAF national service forced me to repair radio gear and a modicum of electronics was required for this. You will learn, they said. So I did.

Daughter PP (Professional Phlebotomist), who became a science teacher, is staying and she knows a lot of chemistry. I’ve encouraged her to chat. Did I know that water (H-two oh) is a complete freak? she asked. Why should two gases combine to create a liquid? The phenomenon is – I believe – unique in the natural world.

What’s more, we clever buggers who think we know everything cannot duplicate this process. And if you’re thinking the addition of an electrical spark might hurry things along, think again. The volatile hydrogen would explode and the oxygen would sustain the flames.

PP became dreamy and expatiated on the bits and pieces that constitute the periodic table of elements (see pic); I listened, fascinated. The symbolic expressions are so humdrum, yet the qualities differ so widely. Fitting mankind’s every need, you might say.

And there they are, all neatly laid out. Mind-bursting of all is that Mendeleyev , who made a huge contribution to the layout, left empty slots in the pattern to accommodate elements not yet discovered. Those slots will be filled, he said, and lo! They were. How about that for confidence?

More chemmy chats to come.

Two days in Worcester

Having delivered RR to the Worcester Acute,
OS photographed me striding determinedly
towards towards the front door at 07.15
(Below) Massive throat bruise not as bad as
it looked. Didn't feel nothing, honest

Monday, August 9.  05.30. Home. Wake, shave. 06.10. Daughter OS arrives in her Dacia Duster, waits in driveway (Covid regs) as I hug VR and daughter PB goodbye. Am driven to ghostly empty Worcester Acute hospital , 33.5 miles away. 

07.20. Present myself at Theatre Admissions: “I’m ten minutes early.”

08.00 approx. Various tests, including MRSA, which goes astray leading to long, long delay. Waiting in my two smocks (one on backwards, the other forwards) I begin this verse and finish it, post op, at about 06.00 the following day:

Somewhere outside these pastel-coloured walls
Drugs seep into some deep and sluggish lungs,
Bones crack, dead tissue’s scooped away,
Blood forms into a shining estuary

Hours pass as I wait on my entry to
This battlefield. Impatiently, since
Pastel colours hardly compensate
For the expected, healing, well-trained blade.

Alone and bored on my inflated seat
I ditch the phone and open up my gob
To murmur Schubert’s An die Musik.
It works! But later? After we know what?

Three teeth gone. A mort of bone. Blood lost.
I twist my face to a facsimile
Of song. The very stimulant of life.
“That magic art, I thank the world for thee.”**

** Last line of lyric translated by RR.

14.00 approx. I enter the theatre and say, “So much electronics.” Wow! Imaginative!

17.00 approx. Stirring feebly in my single bedroom I am told by an unknown person. “Mr Hall (my surgeon) has phoned your wife and told her everything went according to plan.”

Tuesday, August 10. 05.00. Slept so well I rolled unconsciously on to my left (ie, operated) side; spill blood and unidentified fluid on to the pillow. Feel ashamed. Get up and revise verse. At very early breakfast time I’m asked what I’d like. With much bravado I say I could manage scrambled eggs but the cook is not yet on duty. Orange jelly and yoghurt, actually tasteless, seem delicious.

09.00. Throughout the waking morning a stream of people: the surgeon and interns, a dietician, a nurse with analgesics, then shots of antibiotics, then a plastic flask of strawberry mulch. High-spot of the early afternoon is long chat with gorgeous speech therapist. We switch from post-op food to how op might affect my singing. Not too badly.

15.00. Surgeon returns. I tell him I feel fit enough to vacate my no doubt much-wanted bed. He’s mildly surprised. “It’s only been twenty-four hours.” I spread my hands. He says, “Well OK, then.” I phone my daughter Dacia Duster driver, “See you at 19.00.”

18.30. Walk up to nearby car-park. My overnight bag is heavy with a dozen flasks of strawberry mulch. My nurse of early morning is gorgeous too, if privately giggly, comes from Zimbabwe and insists on carrying my bag. I protest vainly, “This looks like life in Rhodesia (The former colonial version of Zimbabwe.).” She says, “Can’t let you carry it, mon.”

19.00. Duster arrives and out steps unexpected passenger, VR. Mumble-lipped, I introduce her to my nurse as my mother. The final after-effects of anaesthesia

Gone, perhaps for the greater good

Nail nicely manicured

Yesterday I deleted a post I’d posted the day before. Nobody had commented but then few people do at the weekend.

The subject was ill-health and I’d been deliberately tangential in the way I’d tackled it. Avoiding answering questions most readers would probably put, then sliding away into another subject that rarely draws comments, weekend or not.

Why the deletion? I had in fact rewritten it several times, delicately walking the tight-rope I’d erected. Sitting on the couch a few hours later I decided what I’d written was puckish.  Over-puckish, to tell the truth, since I’m regularly guilty of puckishness.

Had someone commented things would have been awkward. I’d have betrayed the reader. As it was there were only five page views.

During thirteen years of blogging I have occasionally offended readers. Not intentionally but I can’t pretend I’ve been entirely innocent. I try to be original and that means taking risks. They don’t all come off. I’ve been dropped more than once.

By risks I don’t mean being rude. More often offences are the result of digging too deeply into my personal life. The offence may lie in an unintended reflection on others’ lives. A complex matter.

One writes to be read. In my former trade – journalism – the rule of thumb was: grab the reader by the lapels within the first two sentences. You can see the risks. Lapel-grabbing isn’t always welcome.

Ironically this post is not one that’s likely to draw comments. Honest responses that stick to the point and don’t veer off into more comfortable regions carry their own risks.

I’ve retained a copy of the deleted post. Despite being puckish it’s well-constructed. Perhaps a little tweak here, a hint of compression there…

Waste not, want not.

Doing without flying buttresses

There are those who say that watching France's Tour de

France on telly is hardly a cultural event. Most members of 

my family would prefer such dullards slung their hook

Holidays: Final tranche.

Must one “do” things on holiday? May one do nothing and yet remain unguilty?

Neither VR nor I are in the best of health these days. Few people are in their eighties. God knows about the nineties.

We did get about a bit but mainly as passengers. Back at the two luxurious villas we moved through the well-upholstered premises, revelling in the space and an environment that differed from our home four hours down the road. VR read and read, I experimented with a cheap tablet as a portable medium for writing my new novel, Threesome – conceivably at some future holiday, if and when.

We moved to an outdoor arbour and were served meals prepared – willingly, enthusiastically and imaginatively – by our offspring. We ate out, at least eight times. Drink was consumed but mainly by others.

No ancient churches were visited, no historical discourses initiated. These are in any case not my preferences. As in France I took every opportunity to engage the locals in conversation that sought not to be banal. It is the only one of my activities that might qualify as cultural. Writing fiction consists of merely giving in to a compulsion

Previously I have rejected the notion that time can be wasted. The mind is always at work even during the most lethargic of periods. TV news often merely skims the surface of events, yet it may act as a trigger to silent ratiocination. And the choice of obscure multi-syllabic words.

Hand on heart I can say I returned home in a mildly improved state. On holiday I had thought about serious and portentous matters. Even the structure and tone of this post. Perhaps I’m a shadow of what I was, but shadows are vital to most successful paintings.

We cohere and we break apart

Heavier bottles on the floor

The holiday again. 

VR said several times the most important thing was that the whole close family (minus one, for explicable reasons) would be together. And so it seemed. We arrived in three cars with an enormous – almost embarrassing – amount of drink which filled all horizontal surfaces of the utility room, see pic. Well prepared, you see.

Togetherness was symbolised by an event that first evening. The English soccer team had reached the final of the European championship and even those who disdain soccer (me in particular) felt honour-bound to watch the TV coverage. We broke the house rules (“Furniture may not be moved from room to room.”) and yelled noisily at the screen from sofas. The fact that England lost – and in a belittling way – mattered less than the sense of community.

But we were three generations with different interests. Later a split-off group visited indoor climbing walls, another went to the coast for a truncated form of surfing, out of National Service nostalgia I watched training jets take off and land at RAF Valley and discovered a decommissioned nuclear power station en route. Most times we ate together but on other occasions we fragmented.

Togetherness cannot be forced. VR read enormously, others fiddled with their mobiles. Both these activities are divisive. Occasionally, even at high noon, I crept away and lay, eyes closed, on our bed meditating on various current matters. The English tend not to be chummy by nature and holidays should offer opportunities for individual self-expression.

The unexpected gets remembered. Daniel brought a very superior game of skittles called Möllki. They played and we – the ancient grandparents – watched with interest.

Both villas were comprehensively equipped but lacked a coffee-making apparatus. We bought a cafetière and all was well in the morning. A small matter but rewarding.

Nothing about the scenery

We did nothing cultural on
holiday. Although this is clearly
a church it has been modified
for other purposes. The distant
figure in red is grandson Zach.
Climbing not aspiring.

Just back from a two-week hol in Wales. One major reason: to escape England, a country I presently loathe. A temporary state of mind, I trust.

But would Wales be sufficiently foreign? After all, it’s not unfamiliar territory. The border is a mere eight miles from my house.

Holidays can be deceptive. The best way to “discover” a country is to work there, lolling tells you very little. Luckily (if not for me) an opportunity to “work” there arose on the first day. A medical condition had recently flourished and I needed help. NHS, our health service, extends to Wales but the service is embattled thanks to Covid. I desperately needed a specific drug and knew there would be delays. I had to go private, which meant paying. More particularly, Occasional Speeder, my daughter, was able to arrange this for me online.

The prescription travelled through cyberspace; to fulfil it we drove to nearby Carmarthen to a chain pharmacy. In the car park we looked for guidance. A woman, carrying a bag typical of those containing prescription drugs, stood alone addressing the world at large. Uttering the story of her life and the way it complicated her relationship with pharmaceuticals.

Yes, she knew our pharmacy. It wasn’t far. She described the route, slightly incoherently, then walked with us, continuing to tell her life story. There were complications about our prescription and while waiting we popped out to another pharmacy for palliative measures. Car-Park Lady abruptly re-appeared there too and resumed her biography.

Here was foreignness. The Welsh speak voluntarily and at length. Car-Park Lady was typical. The proprietor of our second villa was another. Almost the exact opposite of the English. We weren’t irritated, rather we were refreshed. More follows, perhaps.