Thursday 11th July 2019

This will be a post in two parts. The first, this part, will detail my day and drive to Suffolk and back. The second will describe my talk with Mum and will include some background history.

For the past few weeks, Mum has been in and out of hospital so many times, I have literally lost count.

As soon as she was discharged, she was readmitted.

And so on. And on.

It felt that events had come to a head, or her life at a crossroads. After long discussions with Jools I agreed to go and one last go at trying to get her to change the direction of her life, and to make better life choices.

I knew it was pointless, but I had to try.

Again.

I have been trying for over two decades, and in that time I have seen her wither and shrivel like a walnut. At the same time, she has become timid, and happy to stay in the house for days, weeks and now months on end.

So, one quarter of my time home from Denmark would be spent trying to get Mum to act like an adult. I was in a bad mood before I set off.

We were up at six, as usual. And after coffee and breakfast, Jools dropped me off on the promenade in Dover so I could wander about for a bit before picking up the hire car from the docks.

Not much to report along the prom to be honest. The town was yet to wake up. Lines of mobile homes and caravans could be seen on front of the Gateway flats, as overnight parking is allowed. The campers were up and about, having the first cigarette of the day or walking the dog. But I walked to the port, arriving too early so had to wait for the office to open.

One of the people who valet the cars came over and asked if I was waiting for a car. I was. Well, there's been an accident at the end of the M20 and the road is blocked, staff and keys are stuck in the jam.

Bugger.

So I waited.

And waited.

It wasn't so bad in the end, she arrived at half eight, but once the paperwork was done and the computer decided to talk to the printer and provide me with my contract. But by then it was nine.

I drove up the M20, getting through the twenty plus miles of road works and reduced speed limits until I got to the top of the motorway, turning off at Swanley and doubled back on myself to visit an orchid.

Don't I always?

Well, the Green flowered helleborine grows at just one site in Kent, beside a busy trunk road, and i was going to be within five miles, so why not visit?

Well, the orchid is small, weedy and like some helleborines, self-pollinates so the flowers rarely open. IN five years, I have never seen one fully open.

I arrived to find someone else getting out of a car there, and holding a camera with camouflaged monster zoom lens.

Have you come to see the poppies she aske me once I had gotten my camera, macro and ring flash out.

No, just an orchid.

This is the only place in Kent it grows. I said.

OK< her interest was piqued.

But then I had to find the bloody things.

I find a few after a few minutes. None were open, three had been munched. All were weedy and not worth photographing really. But I do.

She is excited, asks me to point at one of the spikes so she can show her friends.

We say goodbye, I give her my Flickr Moo card, so she can link up. Glad she did as she is a great wildlife photographer, and has shots of a white tailed sea eagle grabbing fish on Mull! We never saw that, did we Tony?

Anyway, back in the car, turn round and to the motorway where I find a massive jam to get to the tunnel. We inch forward, taking an hour to get to the portals, then smooth as we go under the Thames.

All was going well until I got to within 5 miles of the juntion to the M11, and there was another jam. Another hour lost.

I wasn't bored or angry, but had Test Match Special on the radio, and I have to be honest, the first time i have lever listened to it, and I loved it. Helped by the fact England were playing Australia in the World Cup semi-finals, and had taken three early wickets.

There is something soothing about cricket, something that does not encourage motorway madness for sure.

I go past Cambridge and onto the A14 driving due east to Bury.

We get spoilt in Kent with roads and railways. Always an option if there is a jam or accident. But not in East Anglia. So it was that I joined a long line of traffic travelling at 40mph up to Diss and Bungay.

Time crawled, but Australian wickets tumbled.

Yay.

I stop off for a drink and a sandwich, then carry on northwards, into deepest Suffolk and into Norfolk, driving along the Waveney "valley". Not so much a valley as a crease in the landscape.

Anyway, I arrive in Oulton Broad at ten to three, six hours.

I was shattered, then there was the meeting with Mother dearest.

England had just bowled Australia out for something like 223, and was now lunch.

Sport that has a lunch break has to be good, right?

Once I had spoken with, or at, Mum for an hour, I left.

Her house stinks of stale tobacco and smoke again now she is back on the weed, and I could not bear to be inside another minute.

I knew I would be stuck in traffic around London, but that would be better than stay another minute in that un-healthy house.

I called in at Wink's Meadow on the way back south, hoping to find the Frog Orchids again, but no matter how hard I searched, I got no luck. It is six weeks later than when I normally visit, and the place is seriously overgrown.

But full of butterflies.

And I find out later that my camera is on the wrong settings and so all shots come out blurred.

Oh well.

After an hour I go back to the car and find England have won by eight wickets, so will meet some country called New Zealand in the final.

Hmmmm.

Happy with that, I put om 6 Music for the rest of the journey, powering my way down to the A14, A11 and then the motorway through Essex, and along the M20 to the Bridge, over into Kent and down the A2, being passed by lunatic drivers. I stay safe.

I get to Faversham in good time, then see a sign saying the A2 at Barham is closed. I decide to take the Thanet Way then head down through Sandwich, would add a few minutes to the day, but what the heck?

What the actual heck was Thanet Way was closed too, and we were directed off and along the old road, through house, retail parks and the such, taking forever to do the ten miles until we were let back on.

So it was I got to Dover at half eight, I drove to KFC as I had not really eaten all day. I shopped hundy. Hangry. And bought a bucket of chicken, fries.

Jools had eaten, but helped me eat the food.

We talked about Mum and what happened as we ate.

It was gone nine already, and nearly time for bed.

Where is the time going?

Phew. Time for a shower and then bed.