Wednesday 1st April and my computer is playing a April fool on me! Somehow something has got on it and deleted the DVD player driver along with Microsoft publisher so I can’t reload it. I will have to get my computer expert on the case because I need to access publisher to work on a funding bid. Very funny. NOT! Jonathan put A Roland Ratso file on the desk top and I opened that by mistake and it was only on page 36 and I now have seventy odd pages of these ramblings. Bloody hell! Heart attack time. And then I closed that one down and there was Ratso’s demise in it’s full glory.
My feet are still playing up along with my old “during the pit” old war wound – the back. I do find that is I so comforting if I pamper my feet – I have diprobase cream which I get for diabetes complications although I think any emolument type cream does the trick. Maybe even the “soothing” cream for one’s derriere? Anyway I put this cream on a bath sponge and rub it all over and then put on some of the little trainer socks to soak up the mess and I find that does the trick. The only problem is that it does take time and my ritual to get myself “on-line” is becoming longer and longer. Gone are the days of overlaying and jumping out of bed ready to face the world. My introduction to a new day is a slothful disembarking from the mattress and into the bathroom for a pre poo collateral damage assessment. Once that is completed I can do a prediction on whether my underclarts are going to be on the receiving end of something rather spectacular if unpleasant.
Antony’s mate is on a photography course and he has asked us to do a list of ten things that we can’t live without. They have to be packed in a suitcase so he can photograph them. I chose a vinyl LP Disraeli Gears by Cream because it reminded me of my halcyon days when I was in digs in Westbourne Street when I was doing my ‘O’levels. Now THAT would be a book and a half if I could remember it! (You know what they say about the seventies – if you can remember it then you weren’t really there. Well I was!) My eh? Machine which is probably the most important appliance I have ever owned. A Buckby can to remind me of the umpteen canal holidays we have been on; and a representation of our Rayburn cooker in the form of a tea pot. A pair of glasses. I have worn them from about forty years because of short sight but when I had my cataract done they put a prescription lens in and my right eye is now 20/20. A pint mug for tea and some green tea and a trumpet of literally life saving gel. I also included the book “One flew over the Cuckoos nest” as a representation of a book but also because it reminds me of my uncle Bill who was a paranoid schizophrenic as well as a paraplegic in his later years. His story would make another remarkable book.
It is another lovely day and I am tempted to go out in the garden but my back really is shot and I have got a meeting tonight. I hope I don’t get kidnapped into the club after it (tee hee) and get forced to drink beer! Irene is looking forward to a market excursion tomorrow so I had better keep myself pristine(ish) because the last time it was proposed I managed to evacuate my bowels in the kitchen in a most spectacular fashion after which time I had not the confidence to go and Irene had lost the will after performing her wifely duties. The porridge has had a lot to do with my bowels and their inconsiderate performance which is a shame because I do like my oats.
Disaster has struck. Again. No! Not what you are thinking but nevertheless a disaster. I ate a can of Morrsions baked beans for my tea before going out and have farted all through the night – no follow ons if you know what I mean – but farting nevertheless. When Irene came to bed I let rip with a soprano note fart. Where did that noise come from? At least I can still make a noise when I do it after everything that has been shoved up there. So it was back to Russian Roulette time and I won everytime. But no sleep. Real cheek ripplers as well. I must have produced as much gas as a herd of cows and destroyed some of the ozone layer in the process.
Jonathan seems to have got the computer running something like it should be so I can carry on with my work. I did go to the club last night and had several pints of foaming ale. (Mental note – my car is still there!)
During my waking hours I got to thinking about the people we have lost on cancer backup recently. It is always upsetting even if we do not know someone personally and my thoughts turned to my own situation when my mother had breast cancer.
I was in digs in Brighton when she sent me a letter telling me that she had to have her breast off. I was only fifteen and recalling the letter made me realise how difficult it must have been for her to write it. She was nursing her own mother and was sleeping in the living room and as she was getting undressed she noticed a lump in the mirror. Gran died shortly afterwards and then my mother was on the cancer treadmill – more so in 1973 than today.
She died just over a year after her mother. What actually struck me was after her illness and the initial grief even though it was expected – was the huge hole in our lives left because we were not having to constantly nurse her twenty four hours a day. It was very difficult to run down after that experience although time is a great healer. All I want to say is that along with the grief there is a whole rescheduling of life to go through afterwards which we found astonishingly difficult - as difficult as the grieving itself.
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