Monday 2nd October 2017

I sleep in until it is light, and there is the hint of sunshine outside. Hmm, red wine and chorizo hash, a bad combination for a good night’s sleep for sure.

Once I had made a brew, and drunk most of it, I begin the job of clearing the dining room table of crap: potted plants, papers, presents, alarm clock and much, much more. But I can now see all four place mats, even if it is just me who is eating at the moment.

What to do with the day? Well, some retracing steps taken as a child, when Granddad would take me walking on a Saturday afternoon. It has been a decade since I last walked down onto the marshes, and despite the strong breeze, it was warm enough.

I drive down Sands Lane then onto St Michaels, where there is a car park. I decide to check on my other Granddad’s gravestone, that Mum and I had put up a decade ago. His last resting place is on the last row overlooking the marshes that stretch to the north. On a warm autumn morning, it’s a fine place, but in winter the wind cuts through.

His stone is flat in the ground, and now is partly covered in grass, but he is remembered, even if he passed away five years before I was born. I have shots of him, and in everyone he is laughing. His laughs echo down the years.

I hear an approaching train, I can see the line crossing the marshes. I was hoping for some loco action, but all I saw was a DMU, probably a 153. Made a lot of noise for a single carriage.

I take the bridleway down the back and take the left track towards the railway crossing. The crossing is the highest part of the road, and offers the best views over what counts as a valley here, over to where Oulton Dyke has crossed into the River Waveney.

Across the railway and down beside the drainage ditch on the right, and a steep bank on the right giving glimpses of Mancroft Towers, where nearly four decades ago they gave me no cash in me Christmas box. Not that I am one to hold a grudge what 35 years or so later.

The path comes out at the edge of Oulton Dyke, where 85 years ago, Granddad and his brothers used to come down here each summers day to swim. When I was that age, the broads were polluted and little lived in the water, and swimming was out. But now, water is cleaner and fishing is possible. If the season was open.

Where it was overgrown down beside the Dyke years ago, it is now a nature reserve, with a clear path to follow right to where the Dyke fed into the river. I was lucky enough to have a dragonfly land near to me, close enough to get a shot with the compact anyway. And then a little further on, I find a field mouse just sitting in the middle of the path. I stop beside him, take some shots. He looks round, spies my size elevens and decides he should go and hide. And is gone.

I follow the path back over the railway, not until I had waited for a train. Half a bloody hour I waited, sure a pair of 37s would be coming along. But after waiting that long, all I saw approaching was a single 153.

Again.

I walk back to the car and take me to Tesco where I wanted to buy a dongle for the laptop so I could get online. But they had no dongles. Go to Carphone Warehouse they told me. So I drive south of the river to ASDA where once upon a time they used to build ships, not sell cupcakes and fizzy pop.

I could not find Carphone Warehouse, even though I drove round the car park. Maybe it was disguised or on holiday?

So the only thing left was to drive into town to find one of the mobile shops, and hope they sold dongles.

Even the council has left the town centre, moved to where the old canning factory was, so the car park had spaces. I park and charged two quid forty for two hours, man you would think they would like to encourage visitors.

I find the Vodafone shop, and they have a dongle. £25 for 15Gb, so I pay up and make my way home via Tesco where I get lunch, and after making a brew and a sarnie, surf the net.

I get sucked into daytime TV; why was I interested in a 40 year old Honda Goldwing with just 66 miles on the clock? Dunno, but was.

Anyway, I watch TV, listen to the radio and generally while away the afternoon until five when Mum’s cleaner came round to see me, and we swap information. And it seems that Mum, again, has been economical with the truth. I wish I could say I was surprised, but mum has run her ragged getting Sheila to run errands, get stuff, phone family and friends. 19 times Mum called before the weekend was out, and yet told me there was nothing she needed.

Was the ideal time to go and talk to Mum then. A drive at the end of rush hour to Gorleston to the hospital, and Mum looking like a little girl who had been caught out as I laid out things that had happened and I had discovered in the last 24 hours. There’s a pause then she carries on as if she has not heard.

So, with the operation on Wednesday, after I said I would throw the remaining cigarettes out, she looked panicked and said she would sort it out. So a final word from me,if you don’t give up the fags this time, I’m not going to visit again.

I speak to the staff nurse, and it seems the by pass surgery isn’t quite what mum has made us believe. Still serious, but a valve replacement and something called a cabbage. I am at a loss, but it is the end of the day, and I have had enough, so drive back to hers for some caprese and silly strength Belgian beer.

Tesco have started to sell Delirium, and I manage to drink both (small) bottles I had bought. I try to write, but the beer has the obvious effect and I am ready for bed at ten, blog post only partly written.