Feeling too hot?
Take a trip to the seaside.
Don’t forget to turn the sea off before you leave.
Time to retreat to the shade.
Sun or shade, which do you prefer?
Silly Saturday Sea and Sun
Author: tidalscribe.com
In The Purple Zone
Far from people not talking about cancer, I have found people are happy to talk about it if they know you have joined the club.
Someone I don’t know very well asked me to stay behind after a club Zoom meeting, personal not club business. I was puzzled and everyone else felt obliged to leave. I have noticed at paid for Zoom meetings, not the free sort where you get timed out after forty minutes, there are people who just disappear, others who wave goodbye the moment it officially ends and then there are ‘only the sad and lonely’ left, reluctant to leave, keen to squeeze out a last bit of conversation or gossip about those who have already left…
Anyway, it turned out her husband had been diagnosed with prostate caner and was due to have radiotherapy. The fact that he was having it in a totally different place, body and hospital, did not put her off asking about my experiences.
In the middle of our busy local little Sainsbury on a Saturday morning I bumped into one of my neighbours who had an update. It was only falling off his bike and breaking his pelvis, that resulted in hospital blood tests revealing a rare blood cancer. We had a long chat about chemotherapy between the chocolate biscuits and the food bank.
Apart from the daily tiny anastrozole tablet and the twice daily huge adcal tablets, fortunately chewable, I have to have six infusions at six monthly intervals of Zoledronic acid. A week before is the blood test and booking that is wonderfully efficient at my hospital. Phone up oncology outpatients blood test line. They answer straight away and book you an appointment with no fuss.
The same nurse does blood tests all day long and soon calls you in. I feel like I know her and assume she knows why I’m there…
‘Have you got a blood form.’
’ No, I thought it was all on the computer.’
‘Who’s your consultant?’
My mind goes completely blank.
‘What are your ailments?’
‘Ailments? I haven’t got any ailments.’
‘Where was your cancer?’
‘Oh.. that.. breast.’
She narrowed the choice of consultant down to two and I recognised the name. A quick phone call and she knew what was being tested. We lay people think ‘a blood test’ will miraculously reveal all possible medical problems and presume there are at most three different kinds of tests, because they usually take three phials of blood.
The following week I headed confidently to Yellow Zone A, where I had the previous two infusions, only to find the waiting room in darkness and the desk deserted. There was a note pinned to the window. TIU unit moved to Purple Zone Level Two Cardiology Department. I don’t know what TIU actually stands for or why it would be in cardiology. Back down the corridor, back past Costa coffee, WH Smith and the toilets, down another corridor, up two flights of stairs. There were signs along the way, but once you leave stairwells and main corridors you are confronted with a series of swinging double doors and are not sure how far to go without ending up in an operating theatre or resuscitation room. I found a waiting area that said ‘wait here till called’, but how would they know I was here and what I was here for? I pushed some more doors and found a large room with an island in the middle and a person.
I was in the right place and had a nice young male nurse, who unfortunately couldn’t get the needle in. That always happens and I feel guilty for putting them under stress, you can’t go away and leave them in peace to concentrate. If you have had all your lymph nodes taken out, you are not allowed to use that arm ever again for anything, needles, even blood pressure band. So I only have one arm for them to use and my hand is the only part they can get into. Eventually he had to ask one of the other nurses who took a few tries. I wonder if it’s universal among the medical profession that patients are always told we will just ‘feel a little prick’ whatever is going in or coming out of our veins. I asked her if they are ever defeated and she said ‘No, well hardly ever…’ I suggested a scenario where the desperate nurse can’t find anywhere to put the needle except… ‘I’m just going to pop the needle into your jugular, just a tiny prick…’
Monday Madness
| New like! |
What better accolade could a blogger ask for?
This was our book club book this month and it was really interesting and an enjoyable read. Apart from learning a lot about Antarctic and Arctic exploring the many human snippets were fascinating. One of the leading officers would stay up writing till 2am , though he had to rise at 5am. As well as keeping his official journal he had promised a good friend he would keep a personal journal. Writers and insomniacs will empathise. I have enough trouble packing for a week’s holiday, imagine packing supplies for four years including live bullocks… I bet they did not worry about catering for the crew’s dietary requirements and allergies. It’s also of note that many serving in the navy had gone to sea at thirteen or fourteen, no snow flakes on board…
When at last you get that Tonka truck you always longed for.
Missing No Mow May? Let it Bloom June is here.
Or perhaps you would prefer Jurassic June.
How about Meandering Monday.
Tuesday Tiny Tale – The Letter
This evening’s story follows on from ‘Late Home’, or you can read it as a stand alone tale.
Go and visit her.
Visit her? You want me to go and visit her Sir?
Yes, today and report back to me ASP. If this woman is telling the truth we can’t let her get into the hands of the press… or the government. Show me that letter again… hmm where is she and where are her two er ‘companions’?
At a Salvation Army shelter, treating them all as vulnerable homeless persons apparently, so at least nobody will be in the least bit interested in them.
Good, good and if they do appear to be telling the truth we can slip them away to my place in the country and I will go and visit them personally.
Which place… and if you don’t mind me saying Sir, what if this is all a hoax, or this poor woman has been duped?
Then we make sure they are taken care of.
Isn’t that a bit drastic Sir, I wasn’t suggesting they be disposed of.
I mean cared For… what was your last position?
Mrs Smith, Mrs Lauren Smith?
Yes and this is Belinda Billings… and Doctor Chowdry.
Cummings, I have come on behalf of one of the people to whom you addressed your letter; I cannot disclose who until I have verified your story.
Fair enough, but how are we supposed to trust you if we have no idea who you are?
Do you know who you can trust?
No, no, even my own husband does not believe me, he just wants a rational explanation as to why or how I went missing for eighteen days, the worst eighteen days of his life. I can’t say I blame him, he was in a terrible state; at least now he’s not suspected of murder. He has managed to fend off the press saying the family need privacy at this difficult time, they are hiding out at his aunt’s in Devon. The Salvation Army have been very kind, but I think they are just humouring us, trying to find Belinda and the doctor on their missing persons data base, no luck for them with that ha ha.
Let me tell the story from our point of view Mr. Cummings. Lauren appeared in our bunker during one of our security alerts and was in a very confused state. She was not registered with us and in her strange outfit we had no idea where she could have come from, she certainly didn’t look like a hunter. Her ID, if it was real, indicated she had come from the 2020s. As the year is 2099, that seemed impossible until I recalled the legend of Lauren of London, who will come to take us back to the past so we can mend the future…. And she did and here we are.
Well Miss Billings I can certainly see why no one believes any of you. What do you have to say Doctor Chowdry?
If no one of importance listens to us our mission will have failed. Gaia saved herself, but she had no reason to care about humans. It was up to us to work out how to live in harmony with Mother Earth and we didn’t. So now we grovel underground, trapped like rats, rats with the minds of gods.
I believe them Sir, or at least it’s worth bringing in every expert you can muster to investigate their claims.
Silly Sunday – Sprightly Spring
You know Spring is in full flight when graveyards brighten up…
When green avenues appear,
Buses go topless,
Flowers and festivals appear,
Flowers open,
Coffee bars pop up,
Life bubbles away,
The Ferry is afloat and…
Fun is in the air.
What do you like best about spring?
No Mow May
Excitement is building as gardeners everywhere measure their grass to see the results of No Mow May.
How tall is a blade of grass?
Will leaving nature alone see the arrival of new species of insects?
Will your regular flowers make a bid for freedom?
No garden is too small to turn into a jungle.
…or a wildflower meadow
There is no reason why you can’t still play with your pot plants and plant pots and dream of entering Chelsea Flower Show. Bespoke bin store with rainwater saving feature created by Strobe Interiors .
( Christmas Trees are not just for Christmas… )
And of course you can never have too many flowers for the bees.
Sunday Short Story – Late Home
This story follows on from previous tiny tales about Lauren, but can be read a a stand alone tale; after all, the people Lauren meets also have no idea what happened to her…
Nobody believed me, why would they, but I had no choice but to tell the truth. I could not just walk back into my life, not when I had brought back two people from the future.
Why me, an ordinary forty year old mother and teaching assistant? I suppose it could have happened to anyone who visited the Ladies at that busy London Wetherspoon, couldn’t find their way out and went through the wrong door into the future.
The end of the twenty first century is far from what I imagined. A perfect storm of situations led to a future that looked more like the past; humans had managed to save the planet, but not their civilisations.
I must not speculate or ramble; I am writing this letter to put down what little I do know in the hope that someone will take notice. I am sending this to experts, those with a voice in the world and the imagination to not dismiss me… King Charles, David Attenborough, the science chap that does that podcast… I just need one of you to answer my letter.
The two people I have brought back with me are an officer called Billings, who initially was most helpful and understanding, though she is still convinced I am the mythical figure Lauren of London. She is so traumatized from her experience of London in 2023 that I’m not sure she will be of much help. The man is called Doctor Chowdry and I think he is what passes for the top scientist among the Bunker People. Scraps of life from earlier decades escaped destruction and in oral tradition knowledge was passed down his family. He is certainly clever as he worked out how to get us back to 2023, though it took him a few weeks and he didn’t quite get the date right.
Thus it was that we arrived back in London on the day of King Charles’ coronation, eighteen days after I left, but in the right place. There were the three of us in the Ladies at Wetherspoon. Luckily a trio of chattering women barged in through a door so at least I could see the way out; I hustled my companions through it before the women noticed one of us was a bloke and we were all dressed strangely. I realised we were late when I saw a missing persons poster in the corridor…
Were you in this Wetherspoon on the evening of Tuesday 18th April 2023?
The flattering photo of me dressed up for the ‘do’ we went to in March looked nothing like the person I had just glimpsed in the mirror. I had exchanged my sackcloth for the bunker clothes the civilians wore in the bunker, but they were hardly flattering.
We had tried to plan how we would arrive inconspicuously, but the main problem was that I had lost my handbag during my narrow escape from the great cat attack. I had no money, no proof of identity and no way of getting home.
Upstairs in the restaurant it was daylight; the place was packed and in celebratory mood. I tried to slip us out quickly, but had time to see a chap reading a newspaper with the front page proclaiming Coronation Day. Outside were crowds of people, though I knew we could not be on the route of the royal procession. Police were everywhere, security I supposed as there were protestors. Then the full implication of my position hit me. My family must be distraught, perhaps thinking I was dead. How could I contact my husband, should I tell one of the police officers? No, they would think I was trouble of some sort, they were already arresting a protestor. I was overwhelmed with panic, but that was nothing compared with the terror I saw in the faces of my two companions.
A woman’s voice behind me spoke in a calming tone. I hung on tight to the others as they flinched at the sight of the uniform.
‘You look like you need help, or perhaps just a cup of tea, a day like this can be very overwhelming. We’re doing refreshments in the hall over there.’
The Salvation Army, hurrah, yes I did need a cup of tea and as they are used to not judging people, salvation was literally at hand. We did not look much stranger than the other people gathered round various tables and as we collected our tea I told the woman I needed help.
‘You help look for missing people and put people back in touch?’
‘Yes we certainly do.’
‘I need to get in contact with my husband.’
‘How long have you been away?’
‘Eighteen days.’
‘Oh, that’s not long, are you able to go home or do you want a third party to speak to him?’
‘It’s complicated and I haven’t got a phone or any money so I think that would be a very good idea.’
So, good people reading this, that is how I was initially reunited with my family, who also don’t believe me. You will perhaps have heard about me on the news, but I plead with you to contact me personally and listen to the story the three of us have to tell.
Eurovisioned
What’s happening this weekend? Nothing? No Coronation, no Eurovision…
What shall we talk or blog about?
So who won Eurovision? Liverpool! I have never been to Liverpool, but I know someone who has; they had a ticket to the final rehearsal on Saturday afternoon and apparently it was awesome. Our television news had been following the lead up to the contest, from the special Eurovision train full of excited seasoned fans, to the full week of action in the city. Even if you couldn’t get tickets to the contest you could still enjoy the revelries and celebrate the first time in 25 years that we were holding the contest. It sounds like Liverpool did us proud.
So who actually won? The lighting and stage technicians… and all the other people back stage you don’t see. The turn around on the stage was sixty seconds apparently. The contest is not just about the song, it’s about the performance. Flashing lights, strange outfits, dancing of all sorts and scenes that couldn’t be described as dancing; all very different from the early years in black and white when singers came on in suits and nice dresses.
But which song won? Points come from judges in each competing country, then the viewers’ votes come in. Sweden’s Loreen won with her song Tattoo. It looked as though Finland would win at one stage, though I fell asleep during all the scoring and missed that bit. Finland came second and Israel third. Ukraine, last year’s winners, whose show it was, came a creditable sixth. And where did the United Kingdome come? Second last with Mae Muller’s I Wrote A Song, which I thought was quite good. Germany were last.
But everyone had fun at this unique party.
https://eurovision.tv/event/liverpool-2023/grand-final/results/sweden
Thursday Tiny Tale -Last Words
Where can it be?
Goodness knows, we’ve looked in all the likely places, but there’s so much junk stuffed everywhere.
Don’t sneer, could be valuables hiding amongst the rubbish.
Ah ha, this could be interesting, Diary 1949 …
’I am determined to write in this every day, so many exciting things happening to me at the moment. Tricia had a new year’s party and her brother chatted to me!!! He is going to call me on our new telephone.’
Oh no, that’s all she wrote, bet he didn’t phone her.
Here’s a hopeful looking envelope…
‘To my grandchildren’
Bad luck on that front Mum…
Open it then.
‘I know everything is electronic now, but newspapers are a wonderful record of everyday life. I saved a newspaper from every eventful day starting with the day Giles was born right up to William and Catherine’s royal wedding; if you’re doing a school project or even a history degree they could come in handy.’
Oh that would be interesting, a newspaper from the day I was born…
Bad luck Giles, we put all those boxes of papers in the recycling bin when we tackled the loft, anyway, you can look them up on line…
Now this envelope looks a lot more hopeful.
‘If you find a pair of pink gloves I bought them on holiday. I remember taking them out of my suitcase, then I never saw them again.’
Perhaps she wasn’t joking when she said there was a secret drawer in that awful old bureau.
Oh look, our homemade birthday cards…
Never mind those, get a tape measure and work out if there’s a false back, or feel around for some secret levers.
We’re not taking it to Antiques Roadshow, let’s try that small panel with a screwdriver.
Well I never, why would she leave a letter to me hidden away?
Open it then, don’t keep us in suspense.
‘My Darling Giles, you always wanted to know the truth; the truth about your father. I’m afraid I have to tell you, hard though it will be to come to terms, my husband was your father and the father of your younger brothers. I know he was very boring, but I’m afraid I did not have an affair with some splendidly exotic chap, goodness knows where you get your good looks from.
Oh at last, you’re no better than us Darling Giles, even if you were Mum’s favourite.
But is that it then, what happened to
‘All will be revealed in the house when I’m gone.’
She said that about ten years ago, probably forgot to leave the clues.
Now we’re getting somewhere –
Last Will and Testament
Thought she said she wasn’t going to leave one.
Perhaps that’s the surprise we were supposed to get. Right, let’s open it
WH Smith make your own will kit
She never filled it in…
Eurovision Eve
May Madness continues… after the excitement of the coronation I realised I did not need to take down my bunting, but just add to it and celebrate Eurovision 2023. Some ribbon from HaberDasherDo and a few safety pins..
...then I discovered Amazon would deliver a flag by 10pm… which turned out to be a bit bigger than I expected.
Teddy has been carrying the Ukrainian flag since Ukraine was invaded last year.
The Eurovision Song Contest was started in 1956 and I doubt those who participated in those early black and white days would recognise the colourful stage productions and strange outfits in the twenty first century. There are many more countries participating now, some newly created borders and a few countries not in Europe… Some countries have always loved it, while in the United Kingdom many of us may have been indifferent or embarrassed by our song entries. Sweden famously produced Abba whose songs have been a background to so many lives and when Ireland hosted the contest in 1994 the interval entertainment of Riverdance took on a life of its own and millions have been thrilled by the many live Riverdance shows.
Last year everything changed when the UK actually had a song people were talking about and seemed to have a chance of getting good scores, Sam Ryder with ‘Space Man’. More importantly Ukraine was was going to enter and despite the awful suffering of their country send a positive message to the world. Their Kalush Orchestra won with ‘Stefania’ and the UK came second. Ukraine should have been the host this year, but sadly that would be impossible so as second place holders the UK was chosen and are jointly hosting with Ukraine in Liverpool.
It is the first time for 25 years we have hosted the contest and for those who have always loved Eurovision and Liverpudlians, there is great excitement … and it’s catching. Whatever you think of the various songs a lot of people are having fun, both locals and Ukrainians in exile here. On the news you can have a break from what is going on in the rest of the world and see happy people gathering in Liverpool. There have been two semi finals and tomorrow is the Big Night...
Will you be watching tomorrow night?
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 