Tuesday 10th October 2017

Tuesday already in my second week here in Suffolk. And I really just want to go home. Really, really bad. I am now in a routine, get up soon after it gets light, about seven or so, make coffee, check the internet then have breakfast. And wait for Mum to call on what the situation is.

Tuesday I was expecting Mum to be transferred, so there was the expectation of a quiet day and then going to see her at James Paget in the evening, but at half nine I get a call saying that the transfer had been postponed again as she had to have more leads removed.

She is as disappointed as I am, as she wants to be nearer home, meaning at least she has more than just me as a visitor, so a better class of conversation. Not only that, but as nice as a private room is, she has no one other than the occasional nurse to talk to; but she has freeview on the TV, so she has the radio on all the time.

All this means yet another trip south to Papworth, although I am feeling stiff with the five hours minimum of driving per day, so after breakfast I drive down to the south beach for a walk along the sea wall to have a stretch.

It is a warm morning, surprisingly so. I have shorts on as I am washing my jeans, but even with my lilywhite legs on display, and no coat on either, it was pleasantly warm, even if other walkers have coats on. Some also have scarves, woolly hats like it is the middle of winter.

To my surprise the beach has gone; this is where Mum used to bring me every day in the summers before I started school, as there were no shops or amusements here, just the beach and sea. Much cheapness for a young family trying to make ends meet with what was then a huge mortgage to pay each month.

I think the same storm that wrecked Shakespeare Beach back in Dover swept much of the beach here too, much of the part I used to play on has gone, and even though it is high tide with the gentle waves lapping at the foot of the sea wall, it was clear even as the tide went down there would be little sand. And the beach itself was closed by the council, with warning signs and barriers blocking access.

I walk to Lowestoft Ness, the most easterly point in mainland Great Britain. There is something there now; a towers and a direction dial sculpture on the prom, where in the past there was just a sea wall and behind a sewerage plant. It is better now, but not much to look at really.

I walk back and get in the car, sigh and set off for Cambridge, making my way back to Oulton Village before turning onto the Somerleyton road and then to the 143 and south.

You know the road by now, so not much to describe it; I just want to get down it to the A11, then to Cambridge and to the hospital so I can have a cuppa before visiting hours begin.

Mum is down, I am tired. Talk is limited, as I do little other than eat, sleep and travel, but the nets are now all washed and I am in the process of hanging them back up the windows. And despite my limited skills in making the rehanging look neat, they are at least clean.

At three I make my farewells and begin the long trip back, before the rush hour starts on the A14 through Cambridge, rushing to get to Bury and the bottom of the 143. And from there it is about a 90 minute or so run back home.

I am back by half five, and it is already getting dark. Another day gone in a flash. I hang some more nets before the light fades, then prepare insalata for dinner, and open a bottle of wine to slurp, making sure I don’t go over the top and get too angry/morose again like last week.

There is football on TV again; Holland needing to beat Sweden by seven clear goals. Was never going to happen, but they play well in the first half and were 2-0 up by half time. There was no belief from the start of the 2nd, so I channel hop hoping to find something diverting. I don’t.

Monday 9th October 2017

No call from either Mother or Papworth on whether she was being transferred today, which meant another long drive to the other side of Cambridge after all.

So my plan to clean the house, what I have not done this far, and wash the net curtains would have to be done around traveling.

At least there is coffee in the mornings now, which means I soon perk up. Before the drive I have to go into town to see a family friend of mum’s heart attack. Stuart is a barber and has a shop in Love Road. He is pleased to see me, but is concerned by Mum’s illness of course.

That done I decide to go for a walk as I have been sitting in a car for the last four days, so a leg stretcher would be great. The other walk my Granddad used to take me on was a walk along what was called the salt side, the downstream side from Mutford Lock, past all the old ship and boat yards that used to line the river there. There should still be a path there. He used to let me choose which walk to take, either were good as both meant crossing railway lines, this one involved walking through a passageway under the Ipswich line, then over a footbridge when the path got near to Normanston Park. I know this means nothing to you, but there are the details. I parked at the park then walked along the bottom where the swings and slides used to be until the tennis courts were put in, there was also a fine old pavilion here, but that got knocked down too. And finally at the end of the 80s, the new spine road took out a part of the eastern side of the park. I used to run round here in preparation for joining the RAF, I soon switched to road running as it was more enjoyable, and I could measure out the distance easily.

Anyway, from the bottom of the park, there is a footpath that goes beside the railway line then up over the footbridge to the foreshore. As a child, I used to love standing here when a train went past, with just a find iron barred fence separating me from the trains, which seemed huge. The top of the footbridge is also arched, meaning that as a child I used to get disoriented walking over it, but not today. The other memory I have of the bridge is Dad sitting me on the parapet waiting for a train, I was so scared I screamed as I thought I was going to fall onto the tracks.

I wait here to see trains arrive from both Ipswich and Norwich. I soon hear the sound of the automatic barriers in Harbour Road meaning the turbostar from Ipswich was coming. The points were already set to enable it to enter the junction and cross onto the down line to Lowestoft. And soon after I could just hear the bell of the crossing the other side of Oulton Broad North, and the level crossing close.

Another turbostar pulled in, not the 37s I was hoping for. I have heard them all over the weekend, every few hours. I take shots anyway, and then walk down the other side to the side of Lake Lothing.

Even as a child, the boatyards that used to line the waterside had mostly closed, and all that remained were the slipways, and to my child’s eyes, looking like railway lines leading to the bottom of the lake. Some are there now, some still working boatyards; bespoke yards specialising in reparing wooden boats in a traditional way. But where there were no restrictions on where a walker could wander, strong metal fences no line much of path, and where I sued to go and see the wooden skeletons of old wooden boats, not there is no chance of seeing them, even if they were there.

I reach the foot tunnel under the Ipswich line, where I used to run and scream enjoying the echoes, all is now just covered in spray paint. It feels very sad now compared when it was just rotting, now it is that, barricaded and vandalised.

I walk back to the car the way I had come, then drove to Tesco to get lunch before setting off for another trip to Papworth.

No churches visited today, just there and back, bearing the traffic on the A14, seeing Mum for 45 minutes, and then on the way out taken aside by her physio to quiz me on some of the answers Mum had given. Mum getting home might be some time away as she cannot pull herself up, from the toilet especially, as this would rip open her stitches. So, either the seat is raised of the toilet put on a pedestal.

Back to the car to get onto the main road as quick as possible so to get through Cambridge before the rush hour starts then onto the 143 and the hour and a quarter run home through the mist and drizzle of an autumnal afternoon.

I get home at six, just time for a shower before my old friend, Dougie, is due to call to take me out for dinner. Curry.

Dougie comes and collects me at twenty past seven, but we’re not going to Wallers, instead a new restaurant has opened up in the buildings on Oulton Broad North station. We have a table booked, and as usual with a curry house, they have house specialities; I end up having king prawns with ginger, garlic and other spices. It is good, and talking to Dougie is great, catching up on years of news and discussing the finer points of either having children or not having them.

And that is that, we eat up, he pays and drops me off at Mum’s. Evening done. I catch up on the evening’s football, with Wales beaten by Ireland. So it goes, so it goes.

And so to bed.

Brexit malarkey

You may remember a recent post in which I described how the Foreign Secretary on two consecutive weekends had articles in both the Torygraph and Sun setting out his visions and “red lines” for Brexit, and that any transition period should not be a second longer than two years. He said other bollocks too, but that is not the point here, its just that here was a Minister of State, having newspaper articles advocating policies different from the one stated by the Government he serves in.

This week, for Conservative Party Chairman and writer, Grant Shapps, set out a plan to unset the Prime Minister, stating that at 30 other MPS backed the plan. Boris de Piffle Johnson had the brass kahunas to tell Shapps and co to stop with the plotting malarkey and get behind the PM. Yes, this was for real.

Now it turns out that Conservative MPs has a Whatsapp group, in which they have been giving each other a right slagging off. Of course during this, the PM herself has been saying she wants to carry on and lead the party and country to the next election, which could be before Christmas.

Seeing Johnson, Shapps and Leadsome shaping up to take over from May is like the bridge officers on the Titanic fighting as to who takes the wheel of the ship after the iceburg was stuck and the ship was sinking. To the media, and in the Brexit supporting press, you would think that nothing was going on, just a few unhappy MPs. Who were sounding off, but the reality is the party is tearing itself apart, as the Brexit religion bangs against the walls of reality. The lies that were told to win the referendum, will be shown for what they always were, there is no escaping reality of course, but the Brexiteers will do anything to blame anyone except themselves and the pure religion of Brexit. It didn’t work because you didn’t believe in it enough.

Reality is already biting in one sector: agriculture. Planning what to do with this season lambs has to be decided before the end of the year; slaughter for food or keep to produce a new generation of lambs in the spring of 2019. Now wait a minute, is’t there something else important happening in the spring of 2019? Oh yes, Britain is due to leave the EU, and unless there is a trade agreement, British agri-goods will be subject to tariffs and origin checks as happens all other such good from 3rd party countries.

Similar issues surround grains, as they can be stored for a few years, should this year’s grain crop be stored, if the market for it in 2019 will, in effect, vanish when tariffs and non-tariff barriers should come into force? These are real issues that will have to be decided this year, before Britain has decided what it wants from Brexit, what the negotiations are leading towards. Even with a transistion, there has to be a transition to somewhere, not just a holding pattern whilst Britain decides among itself what it really, really wants.

A zinger say ahhhh.

A group of countries including the US and New Zealand have refused Britain’s idea of transferring the tariff schedules Britain currently enjoys as part of the EU, and Britain just keeping those when it leaves the EU. This means that Britain will have to negotiate, from scratch, on all goods with all members of the WTO. At the same time as negotiating with the EU on its leaving deal.

Big, big job.

And then there is the Irish border issue. As you remember, in accordance with the EU rules, there has to be a hard border at the edge of the EU. And in accordance with the Good Friday agreement there has to be no border. Two extremes, and a solution to the EU, Ireland and Northern Ireland will have to be agreed as soon as possible. So far six months have passed and there has been no progress.

The one way round it might be that Northern Ireland leaves the EU with the rump of Britain, but stays inside either or both of the Customs Union or Single Market, but would remain in the United Kingdom, however the hard border would be between the island of Ireland and the rest of Britain. It is unlikely that the Government’s partners, the DUP, would accept anything that messed with Northern Ireland’s status as being part of Britain. And to make matters worse, this weekend the leader of the DUP stated that having no border between Northern Ireland and the Republic was a “red line”.

Finally, the question of whether Article 50 can be withdrawn by Britain alone has reared its head again. It centres on wording in the second clause, about the intention to leave the EU. If it is an intention, then that could be reversed. And as Britain would only leave the EU on 29th March 2019, meaning it would not have to apply using the Article 49 process. It is known the PM has taken legal advice on this, and that judgement will be crucial if a change of mind is needed. It is also likely that the EU will have had enough of Britain now, and just want to get rid of us, and the possibility of both Britain and the EU going to the UCJ to decide on the legality of the Article 50 process. If that happens a pause would be inevitable.

Of course, at some point, an end must come to Brexit; stay or leave, and which it, it is impossible to see how the two wings of the Conservative Party could ever stay in the same party, so a massive change in the political landscape could lie ahead, at the same time as the fall out from Brexit and a collapsing economy rages around their ears.

There is no escaping reality, and it is coming. Soon. And it will be brutal. Reputations will be shattered, careers will lie in ruins. But what of the country, and the people who live in it, how will we cope?

Sunday 8th October 2017

If things had gone differently, I would have been in Sussex this weekend at the Bluebell Railway watching Deltics thunder and growl up and down. But instead, I’m here in Suffolk, driving 15 miles a day to and from Cambridge. It is a life, of a kind. But, the good news is that come what may, Sunday should be my last drive up and down the A143, at least until I go home.

I had thought of getting up early and driving into the centre of Cambridge to have a wander round, take some shots and have lunch. I have not been there since the summer of 1973, and all I can remember is that my grandparents took me to a basement restaurant for lunch, I and I demanded to have sausage and chips, as did the whole week they took me on a railtour of East Anglia.

Instead today, I would drive back up the long and winding road through Beccles, Bungay, Diss and to Bury. And maybe look at a few more churches on the way.

Instead of getting up at the crack of dawn until daylight and the blackbirds in what counts as a back garden at the cradle of Jelltex, aka my parent’s house. There is radio shows to listen to, blogs to write and have breakfast, and now that Jools had brought my coffee pot up, I could have a cup of fresh coffee with breakfast. I like tea, but in the morning, only coffee really works.

There is some tidying up to be done, more junk mail to be returned as not known at this address, then at half eleven, have lunch of toast and marmalade, and then begin the journey back south.

It was warm and damp, a gentle drizzle was falling and trees all along the road were turning to red and gold. The years gets older as the days shorten further. The harvest moon is now waning, last night it was so bright it seemed almost daylight when I went to bed.

On the way down, I stop at a church in Wortham. I say in, but really, I followed the signs to the church out of the village and down a narrow lane to a crossroads, where just visible in a gap in the hedge was the lych gate. I walk up the tree-lined grassy path to the church, and I meet a couple having lunch on a bench beside the porch. The woman says this is the best view in Suffolk, looking back towards the gate and into the sun. It is special for sure.

It clearly was fairly high, with a few scattered icons, but best of all were some fabulously carved pew ends, finely carved with figures with quotes from the bible underneath. Fabulous.

I got back in the car, meaning to call in at another church on the way, but I missed the turning, so press on. At least being a Sunday, the roads were fairly empty, so I could have put my foot down, but as I had plenty of time, I cruise at 60, listening to Roddy Doyle on Radio 6, about the music that shaped his life. It was a fascinating listen, and he has excellent taste in music.

Mum was in bed, and asleep, or snoozing. She said the chair she had been sitting in was uncomfortable. So I plump up her pillows, and she said that was better.

As this is the fourth day in a row I have visited, she has down nothing other than slowly get better, and most of the time all I have done is eat, sleep and travel back and forth to Papworth. So, talk was difficult, but we soldier on for 45 minutes or so. She is very tired, and by three she was falling asleep, so I say I will go. She is not quite well enough to say whether she was going to be transferred in the morning, that might be postponed until the day after. But we shall see.

I walk back to the car, gird my loins and drive off to the A428 to drive back to Lowestoft.

I have the radio on, Alexi Sayle sitting in for Jervis, so there is a lot of talking between songs, most of it imaginary, but still it is entertaining. And the sun had come out too, traffic was even lighter, so I made very good time indeed.

Back on the 143, there was hardly no traffic beyond Diss so I could cruise along at 60 with the late afternoon sun lit the countryside up.

Once back home, I prepare and cook dinner, chicken goujons and fried potatoes. Not as nice as the ones I make at home, needless to say. England were playing again, beating Lithuania 1-0 whilst playing their B team as qualification had been confirmed on Thursday.

I think another evening of TV and blog writing lay ahead.

Saturday 7th October 2017

I had to set the alarm again this morning, as I wanted to be up in time as Jools was driving up from Kent, and we were meeting up in the town of Godmanchester, as I had seen the name on a road sign and wondered what it would be like. The plan was to meet there at half ten, which meant being on the rad by quarter past eight to be in time.

I have time to have breakfast and get dressed before walking to the car at five to eight. It was a dull kind of day, but bright, but there was supposed to be rain later and no chance of sunshine. But with the roads fairly clear, it was going to be a good drive.

And yet, I was down, just tired. This just being the third day I had done the commute to Papworth, it was taking it out of me, especially yesterday with all the traffic. I was thinking of not going on Sunday, just to have a break, but that would change.

Down through Bungay, Diss to Bury and then onto the A14, I made good time, but it was still ten when I turned off the main road towards Papworth, then taking toe first road of the roundabout to Godmanchester. It was a ten minute drive down the road, and turned out it was a fine old town, and I even found a parking place beside the flood meadow.

And then I wait. I get a text from Jools, she is late. So, I settle down to listen to Danny Baker on the radio, and is a riot, especially the story that ended with the punchline: “after the cake incident, Benny Hill carried me over his shoulder to the first aid truck”.

To my surprise, Jools pulled up beside me and then found a spot just along the road. We meet up and hug. Now, what to do? We go for a wander, looking at the fabulous Council Offices building beside the Chinese Bridge, then wandering into town to the church, which I snap, then around the town some more before going back to the flood meadows to sit and talk.

Then come midday, we are hungry, so go to the pub opposite, but they don’t do food. But recommended a place down the road called The Exhibition. We both drove there, and they did indeed do food. I have fish and chips and Jools has fish cakes., it was rather good, especially with no washing up.

We then go to the hospital, have a coffee in the restaurant, then walk into the town to get Mum a paper. Papworth Everard is a very odd place, all new build houses next to the hospital, then further along a huge car park beside the fire station, which is only big enough for one engine, then a couple of shops in the bottom of a modern brick building Anyway, they had a paper, so we were able to walk back to the hospital, and by then visiting hours had started. Now she is on a ward, I can only visit in certain hours.

Turns out Mum has fallen on her feet again, with a bed in the private, a room of her own, with TV, phone and fan. But there is no one to talk to. At least she is more with it today, but still forgetful sometimes, and so what was said here about lifestyle choices will have to be repeated.

She has more tubes removed, then a blood test, and the big news is that she should be transferred to James Paget on Monday, which will save the five hour drives to the other side of Cambridge.

But nearly two hours have passed, and Jools has to drive to St Maggies, and I have to get back to Oulton, so we bid her farewell, walk down to the car park and bid each other farewell too.

Jools follows me back onto the main road, and I direct her to the junction she has to take to head south on the motorway, and I continue on my way back to Bury.

And then the rain starts. Not heavy, but heavy enough to make the drive a challenge, and the dark clouds turn early evening into night. And there is just Jazz in Radio 6. Bah!

But I arrive home, having driven across the marshes to St Olaves and then by the Herringfleet road to Oulton. I stop at the butchers for a pork pie for dinner, then at the corner shop for crisps. Arriving back home just after six.

And relax.

I check the interwebs, then have the pie and a bottle of Wobbly, and while Craig Charles spins some soul and funk on the radio, I relax. And then there is more footy on TV, the dreadful Dutch national side who needs to knock 14 goals against Belarus to have a chance of qualification. I don’t believe they can do it, neither dies the Dutch team.

Friday 6th October 2017

I had decided that as soon as Mum was out of the ICU or maybe back home or at James Paget, I would go home. But then I realised this would mean that the tasks I came up for would fall on others, as mum sees friends as people to get to do jobs and chores. So, I will have to stick with being the dutiful son thing for a few weeks as yet.

But I had set the alarm so I was up bright and early after just five hours sleep, so I could have a shower, go to get Sheila the money she was owed. It was tempting to go into Tesco to get bacon and/or croissants, but after getting the money, I drive back home for breakfast of cereal using the full fat raw milk, and was lovely.

At nine I had to be at St Michael’s, Oulton to meet with Pat, as it emerged she has a key to get in, meaning I could see and photograph inside the church I was christened in. But to get there I had to pass two junior schools, or whatever they’re called now, and it was peak school run time, with people dumping their cars anywhere. Can’t kids walk to school now?

Pat is waiting at the church, with key, so we catch up with news on Mum, then go to the church. Of course, I see now it is a big church, and with a tower in the middle of the nave, quite unusual. So, I go round getting shots and looking at the memorials seeing if I recognised any local names. But I do see my great-uncle who died in the Great War listed on the war memorial. I had last seen his name carved on the wall at Tyne Cott.

I was done, and really should be making tracks, so we hug and I climb into the car and take the road through Camps Heath, then onwards to St Olaves, then the rad you know towards Bury.

This time I stopped at a different couple of churches. First call was Brockdish, a church just hidden behind a line of trees, shielding it from the main road, but I had glimpsed the tower yesterday, so, stopped today. You approach the church down a green lane, the sound of poorly rung bells could be heard as I got out of the car. Bell ringing lessons, apparently. The church is splendid, and there is a warden inside making tea for the ringers, and tells me of the history of the church. Visits like this really make church crawling so enjoyable.

I stop again at a greasy spoon just before Diss to have lunch; a cheeseburger and a coffee. The first coffee I have had since Sunday. I see another church nearby but decide to leave that for another day, and once I had eaten, I climb in the car and drive on. On the radio, Robert Plant was doing a live session on Radio 6, and listening to someone who is a legend, still being passionate about music, new music, was wonderful and inspiring.

Just before Bury St. Edmunds is Great Barton, and there is a sign pointing to a church, and after passing by many times, I decided that today was the day to go and see it.

Church of the Holy Innocents was about a mile along the road, and inside it is another gothic delight, and the pews filled with knitted prayer kneelers, looking very colourful indeed.

But it seems that I had lost track of time, and I really had to get going to make visiting time, so quickly got in the car and drove back to the main road and onto Bury and the A14. The sun was out, Robert Plant was ripping the studio up with his music, and making the drive, in bright sunshine, very enjoyable indeed.

All was going well until I neared Cambridge when the matrix signs warned of delays. Thinking quick, I turn down the A11, then cut across the 505 to the motorway, then back up re-joining the road beyond the jams, thus saving 25 minutes on the time stated on the signs.

There were then jams at the roundabout at the end of the dual carriageway, meaning that when I got to Papworth, there was twenty minutes remaining of visiting time, and once I got a parking ticket, and got up to the ICU there was just ten minutes left.

I told Mum how disappointed I was that she had badmouthed me to Janet, when all I wanted to do was help. A word of thanks would be nice. So, that off my chest, we talk some more then it was time for me to leave the ward, but I said I would return in an hour.

So I sit on a bench outside in the partial shade of a tree, watching people come and go; mostly nurses and doctors, but relatives too. Some looking worried, other laded with bags of things to take to someone on a ward. At three I go back to the ICU, talk some more with Mum and joke with the nurses. I am a card. But in half an hour, it was time to leave, and I was expecting a three hour plus journey back. The line of traffic to the main road was a mile long, but moved quickly.

To my amazement, there were no queues on the road past Cambridge, motoring past Newmarket and turning off at Bury and less than an hour had passed. I was happy now that I had got thus far, so with the radio on and the sun shining, I cruise back home, this time only stopping to fill up the car with fuel and have an ice cream as I drive through the Suffolk countryside in what was light traffic for a Friday afternoon.

I was back home in just two hours and five minutes, just after half five, and time for dinner, which this evening was cold sausage sandwiches. And a brew. And no wine.

The evening was spent writing, reviewing pictures while the usual Friday night TV shows plays in the background. And in 12 hours, I’m back on the road again.

Sigh.

Thursday 5th October 2017

I was woken at quarter to eight by the phone ringing. There was a phone beside the bed; who knew? I pick it up and it is the nurse again saying Mum was awake and all was going as expected.

Would I like to talk to her? OK. She walks over the ICU and holds phone to Mum. Say hello to your son. And in a croaking voice, hello. How are you Mum. Hello. Can you hear me? Hello.

I gave up and spoke to the nurse again, and agreed with her I would be there at midday, and the good news is that there no closed hours, just between two and three. Finally she said to call again at ten after the doctor had done is rounds, and things would be clearer.

I have breakfast and a cuppa. And think about what I would see; how ill she would be and how many machines would be keeping her alive.

I had to take about a dozen bags of out of date food to the local tip, so come ten I call the ICU, she was still OK and it was OK to visit, I’m on my way, I said.

I take the car to the local tip, the south side of Lowestoft, on the industrial estate where I was a draysman for a few months, oddly the nervous tick didn’t return. *Wink”

There is a queue, as people decide to declutter their lives, or get ride of some garden waste or, as I saw an old woman struggling with, 3 old doors. I get a parking space and begin to take the bags to be dumped. That done, I realise I had lost an hour already.

The sat nav said the trip would take 2 hours and 5 minutes, so with the radio on, I put my foot down, and off I went, down the southern bypass, which bypasses nothing, really, then through to Beccles and turning down onto the Bury road, passing by Bungay, Harleston; the way we usually travel back from Mum’s in other words.

It was glorious day, a day which should have been spent taking pictures of the sunlight on the trees turning to gold. Onto the A14 and from then on, traffic was heavier and quicker.

Still a fine day to be out, but my mind to wonder how I would find Mum. Time would tell, and in little time in fact. I go through Cambridge, and on the road to Bedford, along the road I used to commute to Lyneham down all those years ago, 21 years ago in fact. At least it is a better road now, duelled, at least until I turned off towards Papworth Everard.

The hospital is nothing like I imagined; a cluster of small buildings with car parks inserted where they could be fitted in And spaces were at a premium. But I find one, then discover that I need change for the fee; being sick or being a relative or friend of someone in hospital, parking is like a tax; two pounds fifty for two hours. It adds up if they are in for some time.

The cardiac unit is in a new building, and the ICU is two floors up, no lift, that I could see. Best get the old heart pumping, all things considered.

I have to call from the door to the unit before being admitted. A nurse comes and takes me to see Mum. She is in bed, looking grey and connected by pipes and tubes, including one into her neck. She is barely conscious. But we do talk, a little. She slips into sleep many times, but I do talk to her. Nurses and doctors come to introduce themselves and say they were pleased how things had gone. Mum could hardly swallow, but had to have some water to help take two pills, one another painkiller as she said it hurt when she coughed.

A physiotherapist came, and took her heart beat with a stethoscope, despite there being an expensive machine monitoring that all the time behind the bed. I help Mum answer some questions, then it became clear that they wanted to get Mum out of bed to walk. She became distressed and I came over ill. Yes, I hate hospitals, and do make me feel ill. As it was twenty to one, visiting would stop at two anyway, so having seen Mum, I say I will go, get some air and come back tomorrow.

I had come over in a cold sweat, and so was good to be back out in the warm sunshine, walk back to the car and drive out of the hospital and begin the two hour trip back to Oulton Broad.

It was gone two once I had passed Cambridge, making good time pressing on to Newmarket and Bury. From there it was a two lane road across Suffolk, but the hard part was done, so I could take my time, and maybe stop at a couple of interesting churches I could see from the road, and promised myself I would stop one day That day was today.

First up was Wattsfied, and the church could be seen up a narrow lane lined with thatched cottages from the main road. Looked like it should be unlocked, nice village and all that. But was locked. I could have rung for the key, but there would be other times. I take a snap and walk back to the car.

Back onto the main road, I see a sign pointing to the north to Hinderclay, and think I should investigate, so turn off and follow the signs to the village. At the village crossroads, I can’t see the church, but taking the right turn back to the main road, I spy a sign pointing to the church, hidden behind some mature trees.

And this was open, unlocked. But I can’t find the light switch, so it is really gloomy inside, but well worth stopping, the nave and chancel feeling tiny beside the impressive tower.

And now to home, where I thought I would have an early dinner as I hadn’t had lunch. And a drink. Very thirsty.

The road from Haddiscoe over the marshes is always a delight, lined as it is by pollarded trees, and having clear views east and west along the river and New Cut.

Then turn towards the coast at St Olaves, up the long straight road to Herringfleet and Somerleyton.

I did stop once more, at a farm where they sell unpasteurised milk, and I thought I should really try some. Three pounds a litre, so I buy two, served by three ruddy cheeked farmgirls who were very proud of their milk. I could see the milk through the container, golden, the colour of cream. Lovely, if unhealthy.

And then home, where straight away the phone started to ring, people wanting to know how Mum was, so inbetween fielding calls, I cook bangers and mash.

Mum’s friend Janet comes over and tells me that Mum told her when she was in James Paget, that Mum said I was throwing her stuff out. Imagine doing all what I have done and be moaned at behind your back?

I was livid. And remained angry all evening. I was angry watching England play, the fact it was a poor game did not help, but then I had a glass of wine, and another, and I just needed someone to talk to. It was now 11 at night, thankfully a couple of good friends answered a Facebook post so I talked to them for a couple of hours, whilst I had more wine. None of it clever, but thanks for good friends, I went to bed happier and less angry.