Coughing up the truth

Today, Wednesday 4th October, the Prime Minister closed the party conference with her keynot speech. And despite all the promises of new policies, what she came up with was one nicked from Corbyn; build more council homes, and one nicked from Ed Milliband; cape energy rises.

Very little new on Brexit, still muddled, but nothing really to contradict her speech in Florence two weeks back, which is something. But, she coughed all through the speech, and apart from the Brexit gumpf, was OK, if unexciting. Thing is with Brexit being the only policy in town as it effects everything else. There was no new direction in the three main area that need movement, and as if by magic, this morning the EU agreed unanimously that there had not been sufficient progress on these three areas, so parallel talks could not start; this surprised no one really.

But of course it wasn’t her fault, nor her ministers, just those darned foreigners.

Boris still has his job, but the sight of Amber Rudd telling him he must stand to applaud May during one of her coughing fits would not have been missed as most news providers have posted the video. So, May has got through the conference, but it politically fatally wounded, she almost certainly will not be in post in for the New Year. And all the time the Article 50 clocks ticks down, and another month has been lost whilst the Cabinet and the Brexiteers try to work out it is they actually want.

And there will be no transition unless Britain accepts the four freedoms and the UCJ.

All in all, not much has changed.

Wednesday 4th October 2017

Here I am. Still. But today is the day of the operation, so I will stay and wait for news from Papworth on how things have gone, meaning lots more time to clean and throw things out. Lovely.

In a break with tradition, I have toast for breakfast, using the last of the crusty bread. I can still smell stale tobacco in the house, but when I open the door to the spare room where I have not sprayed Fabreeze, it hits you like a piano falling out of a skyscraper. Yuk indeed.

Sheila told me of another cupboard full of food, at ground level beside the sink, it s where Mum kept her baking stuff. And soy sauce, and boulion cubes and so on. All are either out of date, including glace cherries so old they were an odd shade of grey. Instead of going in the bin, I begin to put them in black sacks, taking them to the tip later.

In about an hour, flour, ground nuts and sugar so old it had turned into white concrete, all went into a bad and into the back of the car. I know this isn’t exciting, but its what I did.

Then there is the living room, the area of stuff around the chair in which mum spends 23 hours plus a day. It all gets put in more sacks and put on the spare bed to sort out. Finally, there is the shelf at the front of the kitchen which is three feet deep in plastic containers, unused kitchen gadgets and cake tins. What can be thrown out was, and the rest in sacks and on the spare bed. Gadgets get put into a now empty cupboard.

Phew.

And then there was the waiting. Waiting for a call from Papworth that she is out of danger and out of theatre. I watch some crap daytime TV, as you do, and get sucked in by Wheeler Dealers before turning my attention to blogging.

I get a call from Jools at six asking if there was news, then an old friend, Pat, calls asking the same. In time she came round to spill the beans on things mum had failed to mention; like Pat does not go round because of the smoking, and Mum begged Pat to buy her a new washing machine earlier this year. I have no idea if this is true, but then have no reasons to doubt it.

At quarter to eight I get the call, just after I had eaten dinner; she was out of theatre, the operation took longer than expected, and they were going to keep her sedated until the morning. I did again at ten, and there was no real change, other than she was not worse, which is good.

I watch more TV, and have a bear. As you do, and also deal with yet more calls until I am so tired I go to bed at half ten, and as I lay awake just nodding off, I could hear the sound of working diesel engines, as two 37s haul one of the last trains to Norwich. Growwwwl.

A Poundland Churchill

On Tuesday, the Foreign Secretary made his conference speech, and it would have been good in its calls and statements of unity, if he himself had not had self-penned articles in the press these past three weekends on his own vision of Brexit and what those red lines should be.

That he has the brass kahunas to do this tells you much about the kind of person he is. Some have said, that it was a very public pitch to be the next Tory leader if May’s speech did not go down well. It seems in case May does not last the week, month or year, the replacement will be either Johnson or Reese-Mogg; and that is the state of the Conservatives, two ex-public schoolboys, both born into untold wealth, happy to tell the plebs what they want. I mean it worked with Brexit.

If May goes, whoever takes over will have to deal with the two wings of the party that will never meet in the middle and will rip itself apart whichever way their leader decides to take them regarding Brexit. Johnson then rounded the day off by making a very off-colour “joke” about Libya, which in normal times would have resulted in his sacking. But then he has committed a sackable offence most days it seems, and still he’s there.

Tuesday 3rd October 2017

Today is a kind of lull before the storm. Or before the operation anyway. Mus is to be transferred to Papworth. She called at eight, asking me to do a couple of more chores for her. She puts on a brave face, but I know she is scared. I would be too. I say I will see her Wednesday or Thursday, probably Thursday as she would be in recovery or Intensive Care.

Mum’s cleaner comes at nine: she does four hours a week, and helps make ends meet. I had realised that if I had said not to bother come round, she would be badly out of pocket. I told her not to bother working, she had done so much these past two weeks, and in the preceding months, she deserved time off. But She is honest, and said she would work anyway. So, I leave her to it, and she will put the door key in the wall safe (don’t ask, but means I can get back in, if I remember the combination)

A few months ago, maybe as long as a year ago, I had seen a documentary from the 70s by John Betjeman, where he visited many Norfolk churches, including Trunch, which has a stunning font. Yes, a font. Know that sounds odd, thinking about a font for a year, planning a visit. But there you are. A friend as a fabulous website on East Anglian churches, so I look at another couple of possibles, but my main target was Trunch.

I said farewell to Sheila, and climbed in the car, set the sat nav and it took me to Gorleston, Yarmouth and then down the A47 to Acle. I had thought of going to Halvergate, a small village where in another life I had picked up my first car from. I wondered if Halvergate had a church, it probably did, but at the end of the Acle Straight I saw no tower of a church, so went to Acle instead.

Acle is the main town between Yarmouth and Norwich, where the dual carriageway ends and the Acle Straight, a two lane road with just a single bend, otherwise 8 miles dead straight to Yarmouth. I needed to fill up the car, get a country A-Z. My first task after I had filled the car was to see where Acle church was. There was two, I drove round the town and found the parish church, looked nice enough, but there was no parking, and being so close to home I could return. I followed the sat nav out into the hinterland, the narrow roads and lanes that spread north from here.

I drove slowly, hoping to see many church towers and free to go and investigate. The road passed by a church, flint built with the East Anglian round tower. I pull in and meet a volunteer who is doing some tidying up in the churchyard. We talk for a few minutes, and I smile in the warming sunshine, and that I am spending the day church crawling.

I guess I should have felt guilty that I was doing this when Mum was being moved by ambulance. But there was nothing that could be gained from spending the day in the house waiting. Waiting for hours on end for a call that would not come. So, I went out, after doing chores. And churchcrawling. Mostly churchcrawling.

I go inside, take in the atmosphere, take shots and look at the fittings.

I move on. I see another church. Another round tower, another flint church. There is no board outside saying which church it is. On the information board, the benefice lists four churches, but seems to have the dedication to this one, Reps, wrong. It was a banner in the chancel that gives away the church and dedication. St Peter, Reps with Bastwick.

As I drive over the Norfolk flatlands, under the big blue sky that on Norfolk seems to get in this country. There are fields, villages, woods, and as I drove along, I saw a huge church tower over the tops of trees forming a green wall. I was still two miles from the church, yet I could see it clearly.

This was Worsted, the town that gave its name to a cloth, and was centre of the mediaeval wool and fabric industry, that made this one of the richest area in England, and nearby Norwich the country’s second city. The industrial revolution changed all this, and mostly that revolution missed Norfolk, and it sunk into rural torpor.

St Mary, Worsted is a church on a grand scale, all knapped flints, glinting in the sunshine, with the village square laid out at it’s eastern end.

Inside the warden meets me and greets me warmly. He shows me the highlights of his church, and he can see my enthusiasm for his church, we talk for at least ten minutes, at which point he leaves me to explore and take my shots. The only downside is that he tells me the parishners do not like their 18th century box pews. I don’t tell him I like them.

I am now near Trunch, maybe just 20 minutes away, s I decide to press on. Through North Walsham, then turning off the main road, but then I am waylaid by another flint church beside the road, this was Swafield, and was open.

I was now just a mile from Trunch, so I drive on and thankfully, the church was easy to find, on the main street, next to the village pub and opposite the village shop. St Botolph has the font. It also has a rood screen, and despite damage by puritans, it still is impressive. Behind the font there is an ancient wooden structure, now serving as the bell ringer’s platform, but its faded paint is still visible.

Once I have my dozens of shots, I go to the pub for lunch. The landlady has pulled a muscle in her back, but is still able to provide me with a pint of IPA and takes my order for a cheese and ham ploughman’s. There was so much food, cheese, ham, slaw, pickle, bread, butter, onion, radish. And more. But was good. And there were a few locals to swap banter with, a very enjoyable lunch I have to say.

I decide it is time to turn south, and my next target was supposed to be Little Plumstead. It was about half an hour away. But in getting there I stop at Dilham, Smallborough before arriving at my target. But there are no signs for the church, and the map has none marked. And yet the village sign clearly had an image of the church on it, but no idea where it is. My friend, Simon, says of his visit, it was locked, so maybe it was for the best.

One of my favourite beers is Woodforde’s, and they have their brewery in Norfolk, so that was my next destination in Woodbastwick. That was well signposted, and call in the brewery tap for a swifter straight from the barrel, and to buy some ale from their shop, before visiting the village church, mainly because of its unusual dedication. But, despite there being a sign saying the church was pen, I found the door locked, or at least I was unable to open the door. Ad this turned out to be the only church of the day was locked.

The day was fading now, and the light was poor as cloud cover was now total. But I see a road sign pointing to Panxworth church, so I turn out of the traffic down the narrow lane, and find just a tower a truncated naïve. Worth a shot or two.

The sat nav wanted to take me back home through Yarmouth, but I had a better idea, driving through Acle again and then out onto the marshes towards Reedham, where there is a chain ferry to take a couple of cars at a time over the Yare.

Four quid gets me on the ferry. There are no other customers, but a cyclist just makes it on, paying his quid to cross, and once two cruisers had passed, the winch powers up and drags the ferry across. From there it is a simple task of following the road through a couple of small villages (no churches), then onto the main road into Haddiscoe, across the marshes, over the New Cut and old river before taking the back road to Herringfleet and Somerleyton and to home.

Back home I find mum’s hoard of custard creams, I have a weakness for those too. Make a brew and then settle down to review my shots from the day. Jools calls, and Molly is in the vets after a lump was found the day before, they take a biopsy, but the initial result is unusual, does not look like anything cancerous, but we shall wait for the result.

Dinner is chicken tenders, cous cous and sweetcorn. I know how to live, or at least look after myself. Night falls, and it grows cold. Autumn is here. There is stuff on TV, so after clearing up I sit down to be entertained on the history of Vienna, but it meant nothing to me. Ahem. Followed by a documentary on poetry in Liverpool. Better, much better than it sounds.

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.

Sunday 1st October 2017

All things must pass.

I have been putting off the moment when I load the car up with my stuff and head north. Nothing bad is going to happen to me when I get where I’m going, it is somewhere else not home. And when I get there I meet the reality of the situation, Mum in hospital, battling for every breath, and next week she will be opened up and her heart replumbed. And she might not survive.

I mean every medical procedure has risk, but this is serious shit.

I am awake before dawn, there is a holy blowing outside, and there is a power cut. I mean you think its dark as night, but when the electricity is cut, it gets really, really dark. There is the occasional flash as power is restored and cut again.

Before the power was cut, it was half five, so it must be nearly six by now. Maybe. So I get up, go down to feed the cats whilst Jools is still sleeping. All three cats are waiting for me to get my act together, open food packets and kibbles tin.

There is time to make coffee. I hear Jools upstairs, so I microwave the milk for her coffee, and put the pot on the cooker. There is soon the smell of roasted grounds.

There is yesterday’s football to watch, then pack, have breakfast. And then, how long to wait before leaving, when you don’t really want to leave. I am packing the car at half nine, loading the boot with my stuff, and then time to say goodbye to Jools and make my way north.

Up the M20 to Dartford and into Essex. I have been traveling this way for years. I know the route, the landmarks, so I have the radio on to keep my awake. All the time, my mind is going through the different situations that the week will bring, from a long time in recovery to death. Death is a real possibility, a friend lost her Mother in such an operation. This shit is real.

Up through Cambridge, then to Bury St Edmunds, and into the rolling fields of Suffolk. Landscape had changed since leaving the M25 and going up the M11. It is Essex, the suburbs of London, but then the towns thing out, we pass Stanstead and carry on north.

Traffic thins out beyond Cambridge, and again when the A11 turns off towards Norwich. I has been raining, but now has stopped, but isn’t pleasant really, and yet it is a good drive The landscape is littered with flint towers of Norman churches. I would like to have stopped at every one, but if I do, I will have to stop at every one, and I won’t reach Mum before the end of visiting hours.

I am in no hurry, so happy to drive at 50, passing familiar towns and villages. My old friend Andrew lives in Bungay, but we have fallen out, all based on a misunderstanding when I got rid of my old mobile, it really wasn’t all about him. But, he didn’t see it.

I carry on passing Bungay and into Norfolk. Across the marshes and the New Cut at Haddiscoe, taking the right turn through Herringfleet, passing the green banks of rhododendrons, with one summer flowering one, all a riot of pink. I am now back in the back yard of my youth, if not my childhood. I cycled here to Somerleyton a few times in the long hot summers of 75 and 76, now I cruise past in the car, past the school, the hovercraft statue and the church. Nearly home now.

My choice is to go to her house, the old family home first, unload the car, have lunch and then go to the hospital. The key is in a safe outside the back door, I have the code and let myself in. And a surge of stale cigarette smoke hits me.

She was taken away from here by ambulance a week back, so this is what she lives like. The place is a mess, not from the event, this is just how she lives. So I try to clear some space in the kitchen. In a cupboard, I find jars and cans of food years out of date. I decide to start there. I have three plastic bags full of food that unsafe to eat. And there is more in the fridge, and another cupboard yet more out of date stuff.

The fridge is nearly empty, so I put in the little food I brought with me. And I take the crap food to the bins. Elsewhere there is so much junk I don’t really know where to start. I make a brew with the tea bags I brought, have a short cake or two then I am ready to go to the hospital.

It is a short drive, maybe 8 miles to get there. A drive I have done hundreds of times. I am not in a hurry, cruise there and turn into the car park, find a space, and take a deep breath.

Into the hospital, up the stairs and to the Cardiac Emergency Unit, or whatever it is called, and in the last bay there is mum. She is reduced. Withered almost. A lesser person than I remember. Her left hand is totally black, where nurses have tried to find veins.

She is scared, and yet tries to sound normal. But I have my stuff to say, that she is gambling with her health with the out of date food, and with the way she is she can’t afford to do that. And that she has the choice to make, to change or not to change. She has been told there will not be another chance. Probably.

Will she be able to live in the family home? We don’t know. I say something important and she changes the subject, as she always does. Am I getting through? Does she understand? I don’t know, but then I have said my piece, she has her date with a knife next week, and only fate knows what will happen.

I try to tell her about our time in Yellowstone, she seemed interested, and yet after just two minutes of talking, ad she is asking about something else. She is talking about food; that the freezer is full of food. But Mum, there was a jar of Branston in the fridge, use by date was 2006. I cannot eat anything in the house, Mum.

Does she understand? I don’t know. I tell her of the 8 jars of Apricot Jam I found, the similar number of jars of mayonnaise and other sauces. All with the same use by date. She had gone out many times and bough up to ten jars of the same food and all have sat in the larder since. She really does not comprehend.

After 50 minutes we are all talked out. She is not interested in entering into conversation, and I have run out of saying the same thing with her actually understanding. She tells me to take a bundle of papers relating to her time in Papworth. There is a place to stay, but I will travel up each day, ends up being cheaper. She accepts this.

And then I leave. I will return tomorrow. But before then I go back to the old family home, now packed with junk bought by people with the best of intentions, and that she does not have the strength to just get rid of. It is home, and yet isn’t.

And it stinks of stale fags.

Once back I open as many windows as possible, and empty out more cupboards, put the trash in the bin which now is half full of wasted food, costing hundreds of pounds and now fit for nothing but trash. This is her life, buying stuff for no real reason other than the compulsion to buy things.

Such a waste.

I have another tea. Put on the radio to listen to the footy: Newcastle v Liverpool. Sounded exciting, but ends up 1-1. Then it is dinner time, alone in the house, just with the TV echoing around, whilst I warm u the leftover chorizo hash. I can find four containers of utensils for cooking, but not one bottle opener. At least ten wooden spoons though. It must make sense to someone.

The evening is spent with the TV, flicking from a documentary about Russia to Wheeler Dealers, then waiting until MOTD comes on at half ten. I shared the evening with a bottle of wine and some pringles. I had better make sure this doesn’t come a habit. But it helps my mood as I look round the living room, still covered in stuff. I plan to clear the dining table in the morning. It has video tapes, medicines, pot plants and other nondescript stuff that people have brought round.

Saturday 30th October 2017

So the weekend comes round but this one is unusual. Unusual as on Sunday I pack lots of clothes and head to deepest Suffolk for an unknown period of time to be near Mum when she has her operation. I have friends who for them, or their relatives similar operations have been successful. Or fatal. What am I expecting? Don't know really, to be honest. I expect her to survive the operation, but take many months to recover. Maybe two or three months before she is allowed back in her own home without substantial help from nurses, or other health care people. Or me.

We shall see.

And as it is another fine autumnal day, we have stuff planned to do in the darden as we prepare to have the boys in again for some minor work inbetween the house than the stuff they did last year. More of that in a minute.

But there is a trip to Tesco, but this time to get meals for one for Jools, as she will be staying down here, working and looking after the cats. So, not much really to buy, so we can zip round quick and be in and out in twenty minutes, and then there is the building supplier. As we have to choose a path. Or the material we want our path to be made of. And get some spay paint, to mark out the path and beds in the grass later.

Fourteen pounds for a can of spray paint! I ask you, what the actual heck? But we have no choice.

And then back home for breakfast of croissants and more coffee. At which point the gardner arrived. As I have said before, we could do the hedges and rampant vegetation, but he has the tools and at £15 an hour, would be money well spent.

So we leave him to tackle the plants beside the drive, meaning it would be wide enough for a car again, and son scrape down the side when we reverse down. Doubly important as Jools also has a hire car for as long as I'm away.

So I take the time to bake some short cakes, and instead of just guessing the size I use a pastry cutter to make 16 cakes, all golden and crispy. As Jools finished in the garden, we sit on the patio with brews and still warm cakes.

The comes the marking out of what is in our heads for the builders to follow. We mark out the centre of the path, then measure out a foot or so each side, then paint the lines. The idea is to come up with a figure eight and the comma shaped flower beds finishing the effect. We are done in an hour, and although not perfect, we hope when done it will look great.

It was always the case that cheese and wine was going to be a bad idea for lunch. Not the cheese but the wine. But we had cheese to use up, including Cornish camembert, so, with freshly open packets of crackers, we tuck in and make a dent in the small cheese mountain.

I lay on the sofa as there was football on, but the wine and warm weather mean that my eyes get heavy and soon I am zedding away, at least until nearly four. But then as Norwich don't kick off until half five, I don't miss much of any importance. Sadly, as the so-called match of the season, this far, kicked off at the same time as Reading v Norwich, the only game on the radio available was Chelski v Citeh, which in the end I follow online instead of the radio, as by that time another batch of chorizo hash was ready.

City take the lead, but then quickly concede their first goal of the month. Legs and mind are tired after seven games in 30 days, but hey. And in the second half, a well worked goal and bad marking meant that Jerome headed home unchallenged. Three more points. And that also meant watching the highlights on C5 at nine, bringing the end to a quiet day, and my last day at Chez Jelltex for some time, and the last blog maybe for some weeks.