Michelle remembered

 

Michelle remembered

Ann's sister, Jane, contacted me unexpectedly a little time ago to ask if I would paint a portrait of her daughter, Michelle, who died a few years ago. She was a beautiful girl, full of life and ambition, who loved all things Japanese and spoke the language well. She also worked for GCHQ/MI6, though naturally we knew little of that side of her life, other than at her funeral, two coaches came up from London and Cheltenham each filled with people to honour her memory. One of the chiefs from MI6 delivered the eulogy, telling how her work could never be acknowledged, but that many people owed their lives to her. However, I have attempted to portray her gentle grin, her deep brown eyes, and her clear complexion. She is against a soft blue sky with encircling of cherry blossom, and partly hidden by soft curtain of hair. I have even sent for a frame for it: the first canvas I will have framed.

Ann is in London. She went yesterday with the boys, a friend of theirs and her mum, to see Moulin Rouge, booked nearly a year ago but delayed through lockdowns. Today they have visited the Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum. Now Ann says she is on her way back, but won't say where from, so I remain unsure when she will be back, or if she will have eaten. Once when she went off with the boys I cooked a simple supper, but they came in with a take-away meal. The house is very empty without her.

The omen crow is hovering

A halfway rest in the Nuttery

Whenever I see the hospital doctors (rather too often these days), one question they ask is, "how much exercise to you do?" I tell them, I try to walk the dogs each day, perhaps for 20 minutes walking half-a-mile, for I am a slow walker. But these days, I try to choose walks where I can sit down halfway round. Yesterday was sunny and warm, when Clare Park gets crowded, so I walked up behind the Swan. there are a couple of split tree trunk benches where I can rest when it's dry. I don't like to take selfies, but I did here to capture the moment of tiredness and my gratitude for whoever made the benches and kept the woodland for public use.

I am, I know slowly dying, a complication of being nearly eighty with two cancers, one of which has metastasised, and with my organs slowly fading. I cannot do much physically, and my mind too is slowly deteriorating as I take longer to grasp for the words I want or to remember things. I am not afraid of dying, for to paraphrase the carol, "In that deep and dreamless sleep the silent world goes by." Indeed, it will go by, unheeded by me and commented on by others, some still young, some still to be born. Yet I resent the presence of death circling round like the omen crow in my poem about Copernicus, The Timid Hero, from Girders in the Sand: 

Through hazy, damp grey vapours’ swirling chill,

An omen crow descended silently

Then waited on a framing window stone,

Grey in grey mist about a weathered tower.

I did not, of course, have myself in mind when I wrote this, some thirty years ago, yet now I feel I was describing Copernicus awaiting death with percipient clarity, yet I resent this crow for I enjoy life and would love to experience more of it. Indeed, returning to the Swan carpark, I had a pint of shandy in the warm sun and enjoyed it hugely, with the added virtue that the consultant had told me I must drink plenty to keep the kidneys working. 

Jetsom

I have never been so alone,

so cast out 

unkempt,

disregarded,

sitting on a rock,

not the beautiful mermaid,

but a barnacle

clinging to the remains of life.

by Annie Elliott

Of course, it is Ann who takes the brunt of this, not only in having to run around and do so much more, but from the agony of watching my illnesses develop. In this, she stands alone and I feel her pain, though the cause of it and unable to relieve it. Soon she will be alone, and already she thinks of the things she will have to do that hitherto were my job. That this happens to one half of all married couples is no comfort. To tell her, "he had a good innings," is salt in the wound: I never have liked cricket, so don't use cricket metaphors. But I must end this morbid piece; I'll be writing my own obituary next, and perhaps pre-recording it, so at least my memorial address will be words I have pre-approved.

A week of multiple failures

A bad day on Wednesday with high fever and numbness in both hands. Next morning, we phoned the oncology nurse who said to come straight in via A&E. They ran a batch of tests and sent me to the oncology assessment ward awaiting their decision, then admitted me overnight. It seems I have AKF (acute kidney failure), so was given high volume fluids through a drip and started on antibiotics. My immunotherapy session, due this morning, was naturally cancelled, though there is vagueness about it being causative.

lip service again

don't tell me 

everything is going to be okay

because it is not,

don't patronise

or condescend

keep your platitudes

for your own grieving

I only need honest friends.

by Annie Elliott

I arrived on the ward without even a book, let alone clothing, toothbrush or pyjamas. The hospital still bans visitors for 48 hours (presumably they are magically safe after that period), and Edwin has a heavy cold, so kind Andre crept up to the ward door where I stood waiting, towing my drip stand behind me, to sneak it open and take a bag of things from him. Ann was not allowed to see me at all, after leaving me at the door of A&E. So often, the caring person is assumed to be alright and getting on with life, and gets too little sympathy. Ann has been through much recently, and lives in the dark shadow of more to come. It cannot be an easy burdon, so often bourne alone.

The oncology ward was crowded with nine beds in my bay, filled with men who looked older and more ill than I, and the nurses were kept busy. With age comes a degree of detachment and acceptance, almost resignation in many cases, to an inevitable outcome. Much harder must be nursing on the adjacent ward, which I noted was "Teenage oncology"; that and the paediatric oncology unit must be emotionally exceptionally draining, and take a special kind of nurse to deal with the emotive nature of those cancers. 

Mistletoe at Addenbrookes

For various reasons, MA is unable to see Ann on Mothering Sunday, but was going to take her for lunch yesterday as a treat. Unfortunately, Ann lost even this treat as she suddenly had to come to the hospital to pick me up. MA hopes to take her next Friday to make up, so hopefully all will go well. Waiting in the sun for Ann, I noticed a huge ball of mistletoe in one of the trees at the entrance to Addenbrookes, easily visible before the leaves of summer. I had noticed that mistletoe is very abundant now, possibly following two years of lockdowns and a lack of Christmas demand. In Druidic mythology it occurred in the Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe, and evidence from bog bodies suggests its Celtic use was medicinal. The Romans associated mistletoe with a way to the underworld, but also with peace, love and understanding and hung it over doorways to protect the household, and mistletoe continues to be associated with fertility and vitality. All in all, it is an appropriate if accidental symbol over Addenbrookes.

After many years' silence, my son Dan got in touch to suggest we meet up and try to repair an old rift. He suggested I visit London this weekend, but I am still too weak to go far, and will be unable to travel to or across London, so the reconciliation has been put on hold.

The world news grows daily more alarming, with Herr Putin rattling his nuclear sabres, and demented Biden managing to open his lips to tell us the US is prepared for a first nuclear strike. The MAD world (mutually assured destruction) has risen from seventy years of dormancy as a fresh spectre to haunt our dreams. Nowhere is safe from such lunacy. War creates nothing more than poets to lament the dead; only working together with mutual support ever generated peace and prosperity, and such mutual trust is rapidly dissipating. I believe no one appreciated how delicate the world's interconnectedness is, or how quickly it can be broken. At this rate, we all face utter devastation, with a real fall into impoverishment and loss of hope in the world not seen since events such as the great plague, or the Hundred Years' War.  

We celebrate Andre's birthday and the boys' new home

Ann relaxing

 Edwin and Andre invited us over for the afternoon for the double celebration of Andre's birthday, and the housewarming. The house is looking immaculate now, clean brick and old flint on the outside and warm and welcoming inside, set off with their usual flair for tasteful decor. Ann immediately claimed the cushioned window seat, created by the massive thickness of the walls, while I sprawled on their three-seater settee next to the nibbles. 

Two other couples, Brazilian work friends of Andre, were also due. The women arrived first, having come from Cambridge by train, and not long after the two very fit men also arrived, both having cycled a distance of some 30 miles. Food was served from a help-yourself buffet, with a great choice of quiches, cheeses and salad stuff, beautifully prepared and presented. Thank you, boys.

Mark Rylance has long been one of my favourite actors, and yesterday we saw him in his new role as the Phantom of the Open, another British true-life comedy about a Barrow in Furness crane driver who in late life was suddenly inspired to take up golf as a "professional". Brilliantly entertaining, and well worth a trip to the cinema, I recommend it. Later, in Prezzo, I found voice mail from an agency asking me to call back. I did so, but I also had to leave a voice message. Five minutes later, another agency rang to see if I was available for a job. I said I was, and would send my CV. A moment later, the first agency rang back to offer the same job. The pharma company had just put it out simultaneously to both agencies. Not sure that I will be able to manage it though, for even if they overlook my age, I cannot, and feel I will be unable to do more than a couple of days a week now.

Coming home from Sainsbury's today, Ann got a message that our bank balance had altered. "Did you withdraw some cash?" she asked. "No," I said, "I just filled up the car!" Such is the horrific price of diesel now that it is making a noticeable hole in our finances. Ann has also ordered a refill for the oil tank, so we dread to see what that bill will look like. Thank goodness we are suddenly in a mini-heat wave, with temperatures today touching 20 deg. C. 

We fly the flag for Ukraine

JK Rowling - True Woman

I have put the finishing touches to a portrait I have done of J.K. Rowling, taken from a press photo of her. I am titling it True Woman, much to the annoyance of the woke brigade. Also, I am progressing with a portrait requested by Ann's sister, Jane. It is a memorial portrait of Michelle, her daughter who died so tragically a few years ago. Naturally, I want this to be a worthwhile memory of a beautiful girl, so I am taking especial care with it, and bring it in for Ann to judge at regular intervals. She kindly points out where change is needed: a cleaner curve to the cheek, a narrower and shorter neck, a less ruddy lip. It is taking a lot of time, but will I hope be worth the great effort, and a portrait I hope Jane will be pleased to display.

Two estate agents visited yesterday to assess our house. The main problem is the huge cost of running our home, with council tax, heating oil, water rates and electricity even before we start spending on ourselves. They each flattered the decor, liked the size of the rooms, the location and the cross-country views. They both asked what we were looking for when we move, so we described our ideal property: smaller though still with room for a study and studio, old and quirky, with all-round gardens, quiet and isolated, rural with trees around, off road parking, and almost anywhere that we could afford. I think we suddenly realised that - apart from smaller and old and quirky - we were almost describing our own house. Certainly, looking at the market, there is nothing available that looks even half suitable, and even smaller properties in need of upgrading seem to be going for almost the same price as ours even before we add in estate agents' fees, removal costs and stamp duty. We are definitely going to have to rethink this whole retirement business.

Sewing the flag

As mentioned in a previous blog, our Chinese-made Ukrainian flag came without any means of attaching it, so I have sewed a cord into it, and today we were able to fly it in support of that devastated country. A brisk breeze ensured it was proudly waving above the saloon. 

Today I had a professional haircut. Not usually much to write about, but it is two years since I have been, relying instead on Ann's good attempts and me hacking it with scissors before the bathroom mirror. At least Ann once worked as a teenager in a hair salon, so everyone thinks she must know what she's doing, although as she keeps reminding me, "I was only a Saturday girl taking the appointments." It's amazing how much one can learn just by being round people who know what they're doing. Kelly, the hairdresser, has a reputation for clumsiness, once spilling a bowl of water over Ann, and often dropping her things. Everyone is still wearing masks in the hairdressers, and at one time I thought she was going to cut through one of the elastics, sending my mask pinging across the salon, but she managed to swerve and miss it. She does a good job, though, and I look much better than when I went in.

Flying the flag

 

Support for Ukraine gets delayed

Floods in Clare Country Park

There was heavy rain yesterday through much of the day, and the sky was dark as a winter storm. This, we were told, was due to "Sahara Dust", and sure enough the windscreen was running with rivulets of red water, building in streaks across the bonnet and doors. This morning, it was clear and warm again but the house windows and all outside surfaces were coated in a dirty red film. The river at Clare was running high, blocking the path with its flood waters.

I met Ann in the Swan for lunch when she emerged from the hairdressers. Ann has been cutting my hair for nigh on two years supplemented by me attacking it with scissors and a mirror, but today she has made an appointment for me to see Kelly, her own hairdresser, who happened to have a cancellation on Saturday. It will be strange indeed to look in the mirror and see a tidy head.

Enjoying lunch at the Swan

We have taken the first steps to downsizing, with two estate agents coming tomorrow to value the house. As part of the process, we went to Newmarket earlier in the week to view a potential house by the technique of "drive by". Alas, it was right on a main road, so we left to walk the dogs in Thetford Forest. I must be getting fitter, for I walked a full mile, albeit at a slow pace and on good level ground. But I am encouraged, and will try to do more to strengthen the limbs and lungs.

On the domestic front, our flag pole had broken in the recent gales, so today I have replaced it with a more sturdy version. Ann ordered a Ukrainian flag to show our support for that beleaguered country but it came, with typical Chinese workmanship, minus any fixing hole or tape at the top blue end. Our support will have to wait a day or two until we can fix the flag. 

Walking with the dogs in Thetford Forest

Sunday lunch by the sea

The Seafront at Frinton

The Bath House pub in Walton-on-the-Naze serves one of the best Sunday lunches we have found. We have the nut roast option, and it is superb with perfectly cooked vegetables to accompany. It is a fair drive to do casually, taking the best part of one and a half hours to cover 48 miles down slow winding Suffolk and Essex country roads, but well worth a visit. We got there early and they were able to 'lend' us a table provided we were out by 2pm, but the place rapidly filled and they ended up turning away several families, so I recommend booking in advance if you want to go there. 

Sadly, we noticed a 'For Sale' sign up outside. Not sure if the current owners are struggling, or just want to retire, but it must have been a difficult couple of years with the Covid restrictions. Whatever, I guess the chef will change with the new owners, or perhaps like so many pubs we pass nowadays, it will become just another bordered up shell. 

Walton is a fine town with its long pier and the famous tower where I walked the dogs. It also has a marina, though it is hidden inland and opens onto the River Twizzle rather than the sea. Later, we drove out through Frinton, a stuck-up little place that thinks too much of itself, but where I walked the dogs a second time. Frinton is a very tidy town, with a neat row of tidy High Street shops, and a pretty green overlooking the sea, but it lacks charm or even mystery. The streets pretend to be American, with "First Avenue", "Second Avenue", etcetera in monotonous straight rows. Strange to compare it with Jaywick, only a few miles further down the coast, which was labelled by a TV documentary as "Benefits on Sea", and is a dilapidated conglomeration of poor housing where one can buy a three story house with a balcony and a garden opening directly onto the beach for a relatively low sum.

Berlin welcomes Ukrainians

The boys are now back from Berlin, and Edwin starts his first day at a new job in Ipswich. He was quite nervous, but Andre kindly drove him all the way and took him for breakfast first to bolster him for the day to come. He sounds to be enjoying it thus far, though, so we wish him all joy and success with it.

Spring is in the air

The first leaves of spring

Touches of spring are around us. The hedgerows are brightening with blossom and the willow, among the first, is cloaked in fine green budding leaves. The garden birds are nesting and Ann even glimpsed an early swallow above the trees. 

Edwin has taken Andre on an away for a surprise weekend in Berlin. He only found out the destination in the boarding queue at Heathrow.

For Herr Putin, the season brings his Spring Offensive. A full blitzkrieg against the defenceless women, children, invalids and  the aged in the cities of Ukraine. 

Yesterday I had a phone call from the offices of IKEA responding to my letter to them. I had recommended they consider the old Debenhams store to bring IKEA into East Anglia. The lady was very courteous and thanked me for my great interest but apologised that they would be unable to ease my evident love for their stores. They need a bigger population than East Anglia can provide and won’t be opening any new stores this year having just dropped plans for one in Sussex. She said I would just have to continue my love of IKEA shopping by travelling to one of their big southern stores. Little does she know me - I haven't been to an IKEA for nearly twenty years, but thought the boys might like a local one now they live in Bury St Edmunds. The grandchildren too enjoy taking Ann to IKEA once a year for a fun day out.

Yesterday, too, I had a call from one of the old companies I used to work for asking if I was available for urgent cover work, as their physician was leaving at short notice. I am available, but they have also placed an advert and requested the help of an agency, so they have a few CVs to consider. 

Just a quiet weekend

A spring day at Gorleston-on-Sea

It is spring, with trees in bud and blossoms bursting out all round. Alas, in our garden, there is a great gap where the fencing man ripped out the heavy ivy that had covered the old fence. Mum's old bird table, where Ann faithfully fills bird seed dispensers each day, used to swarm with small hedge-row birds that nested in the ivy, but have now disappeared and the bird table is deserted. Determined to try to woo them back, we visited a garden centre on Saturday to buy some replacement hedging. I get too breathless to dig now, but we got a friend in the village, keen to earn a little extra, to dig them in: two varieties of ivy, and some New Zealand shrub that is supposed to grow quickly.

Life is certainly much quieter since I am winding down at work. A visit to the pub or a meal out represent the limit of our adventures at present, and we had a fine day out at Gorleston-on-Sea at the weekend, with a good lunch in the Pier Hotel. I cannot walk too far now, even with my stick, but I enjoyed a Sunday afternoon shuffle along the front. Even driving tires me now. Coming back from staying with Ben and Kaz in Wales was exhausting, and I spent most of the next day in bed recovering. 

Ann's sister, Jane, made an unexpected request for me to paint a portrait of her daughter who died so tragically a few years ago. Jane does not use the web much, and I don't think she can have seen many of my pictures, nor does she ask for many favours, so it was a surprise for her to ask for this. I will naturally do my best to oblige her, but Michelle was such a beautiful girl, so full of sparkling life yet with so many hidden depths that it will be hard to do justice to her memory. 

Today is International Women’s day. Nowhere is this more appropriate than in Ukraine, where there are two million more women than men, many of who are learning to fight, lending the Ukrainian resistance to Herr Putin’s invasion a strong female face. Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, posting on Instagram this week, paid tribute to the women of Ukraine, saying she “admires” and “bows” to her “incredible compatriots”. “To those who heal, save, feed... And those who continue to do their usual jobs – in pharmacies, shops, on transport, in utilities, so that life lasts and wins,” she wrote. “To those who take children to shelters every day without panic and entertain them with games and cartoons to save children’s consciousness from war. To those who give birth in bomb shelters.” 

Death

They do not see the tiredness
the lack of hope,
they do not see the apathy -
the loss of self,
they do not ask
and do not try to seek
the loneliness and finality
of the ice cold grave
and the never ending sleep.

by Annie Elliott

Ukrainian women’s magazines illustrate how drastically life has changed. They now offer advice on how to give birth underground or register a baby in the midst of a war, with instructions to chop off acrylic nails so that you could hold a weapon if you needed to. It's not just active combat – a number of women are working diligently to provide care or supplies for their military, such as this group making camouflage nets and learning how to use a Kalashnikov. This is women’s equality carried to the extreme of war.

World history is unfolding

Herr Putin

With the fall of communism and the ending of the first Cold War, MI6 turned its might towards the new threats coming from the Middle East and the rising power of China. Now, the axis of threat has turned again, and they may be forced, like some Le Carré novel, to bring some of their long-retired Russian experts back into the intelligence fold. Before the invasion of Ukraine, many commentators were dismissing the presence of 100,000 troops massing on its borders as "shaking a stick", and were convinced Herr Putin would never really move in to the kill. The threat from him is now all too real for the west to dismiss. The man shows many traits of the unhinged, driven by isolation and paranoia but with the backing of massive fire power to carry out his wild threats. A dictator in the mould of Hitler and Stalin, he appears to have reduced all around him to quivering, fearful yes men, too frightened to offer any balanced opinion. Such instability in one man is fearful. He must now see the whole Western world as against him (which it is), and will convince himself that his original fears were fully justified. As opposition to his wild behaviour grows, he will feel more and more trapped in the world of his imagination, and will become increasingly convinced that his only solution is to take on this new challenge. The suggestion that some brave person will be come forward to lead others within the Kremlin to restrict Herr Putin's capacity to issue military orders is, I suggest, fanciful. There is support for Putin among many of the Russian populace, and history suggests that dictators who control the whole body politic (think Stalin and Hitler) do not get removed by internal revolt. I fear his reaction may be to trigger a pre-emptive strike somewhere in Europe, and we may be led ineluctably into more than a Cold War.

Decisions

Soon, for the first time,

it will be my choice

and I will decide whether

to come or to go

or flee or stay,

or even walk away,

but for once

it will be up to me

and I will know...

by Annie Elliott

On a more relaxed note, we visited the boys' new home again yesterday to do some more "odd jobs". I repaired the gate after its damage from the storms and hung another hook in their bedroom. Meanwhile, Ann and Andre sewed heavy curtains that the boys had bought that look good but were too long. Later, in a lovely thank you gesture, they took us to Bury's only Michelin star restaurant, the Pea Porridge, for a very enjoyable evening.

Loss of Ukraine and a new fence

I visited Ukraine four years ago, when Edwin persuaded me to go with him to see the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv in 2017. We had a wonderful visit, staying in a fine hotel in the city centre and seeing a few of the sights, such as the home of Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita. We went to a grand opera house for an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov called The Tale of Tsar Saltan, which contains the famous Flight of the Bumblebee. This was an afternoon performance in Russian, and attended by a number of school children who seemed to really enjoy the performance. We also went to a nightclub, enjoying a number of drinks, bursting at the seams with lively young people, but they took pity on me and offered me a seat. There were even trips to Chernobyl available, travelling to the site by ex-army vehicles, which would have been a good experience, but we lacked sufficient time for the excursion. The Ukrainians we me were without exception warm, lively, modern and welcoming, and it was a joy to visit their country. 

I continue working for a pharmaceutical company until the end of the month. We are in process of preparing for a clinical trial, due to start soon, and for which we will need to recruit patients willing to volunteer for said trial. Beside the UK, we had planned to recruit in two countries in Eastern Europe: Ukraine and Moldova. Suddenly, the consequences of war and invasion by Russia against a peaceful European country are rammed home as we have been forced to drop both countries from our recruitment strategy, as the walls of Europe are forcibly wrenched down by a brutal tyrant.

The new fence, before and after

The fence facing our rear window has been covered with a dense coat of ivy since we moved in twenty years ago. I occasionally cropped it with the hedge trimmers, like any hedging, but generally it was a solid green wall with birds popping in and out all day, and it caused us no trouble. Our neighbour has recently had two new fences put up. A few weeks ago, in an unusual move, she invited us round for coffee and happened to mention that her third fence, which is our border and our responsibility, was only held up by the ivy, and wobbled in the wind. She was concerned that it might fall down, and when I looked I agreed all the posts had rotted so we said we'd get it seen to, so yesterday, the men came round and replaced it . Ann loves her birds (along with her love of trees), so we did ask if they could preserve some of the ivy to allow it to grow again. Unfortunately, when they came to remove the old fence, all the roots of the ivy were actually on the neighbour's side, and came up in a big clump as they cleared the ground. So now we have to look out on a stark bright fence with no birds or greenery, rather than our beautiful shady green screen. We will have to visit a garden centre to buy some screening hedging and encourage it to grow.

The boys are in their new home

The boys enjoy Ann's stew

I am bad at taking selfies. I invariably cut someone off at the neck, or include my fingers, or manage to include myself as a giant with everyone else shrunk to tiny extras in the background. So, when we ended up inadvertently at the boys' house yesterday for a first visit since they moved in, I opted for a simple tableau with myself excluded. It's much simpler, and more certain of success.

How did we end up at the boys' house? They only moved in a week or so ago, but with both working long hours and unable to take time off for the move, they have had to squeeze in arranging the furniture and unpacking their many boxes as best they could in the few hours available. Andre had borrowed my drill to put up a coat hanger, but yesterday afternoon I got an 'advice' call asking what to do next, as the drill bit would only penetrate for half an inch before hitting a literal brick wall. I said perhaps I had better come over to look at it, to which they readily agreed. Ann had spent the morning slow cooking a vegetable stew, all prepared with fresh ingredients peeled and scrubbed by her own fair hand, so she suggested bringing that over as well. Again there was no hesitation in getting their agreement, to which they suggested bringing a bottle of milk and Ann added a dessert. 

For the next hour, they worked like crazy to make the house presentable, throwing boxes in their cars and generally cleaning and tidying. It was worth it. We had a lovely evening in a spotless house, everything in its place, and beautifully arranged. It is a very old house, of flint and brick, and facing one of the original town walls of Bury St Edmunds. Indeed, the roads here are called Westgate and Southgate Street, from the days when there were real town gates, and Bury also still has its Northgate and Eastgate Streets. The house walls are so thick, they form a snug window seat where Edwin likes to perch, and the house is silent, despite two main roads and the roundabout close by. The dinner, with side dishes prepared by Andre whilst I put up the coat hanger, was wonderful. Now they want us round tomorrow for a couple more jobs: to mend their gate which broke in the gales, and to put up a hook in the bedroom. Now my pharmaceutical work is finishing, I may be able to branch out as an odd-job-man.