The Service is Resumed

Writing a blog is hard work. Not just the time spent on writing, but also the mental drain of having to think, and trying to generate coherant chunks of clear prose from vague, nebulous thoughts. For the few readers I seemed to have, mostly family, it hardly seemed worth the effort, so the blog ceased for this long while, until I recieved an unexpected email from an unknown reader who describes herself as "a passionate advocate for cancer awareness and support".

She has asked me to promote a site for cancer support: Resources for Cancer Survivors. This led me to revisit the blog, and I suddenly found a good number of comments (mostly positive!) which for some reason the site had not forwarded to me, and I have now added them manually to the various articles. So appologies, if you, dear reader, had contributed a comment and been ignored! It was not intentional. One reader, for instance, commented: "Its been awhile since you last posted, Jhon. Is everything alright? I love reading your blog and although I have been just a silent viewer for much time I cannot help but feel the need to check in right now. Best wishes." I did not realise I still had an audience; yet last month, even with no new posts, I seem to have had 688 visitors, and over time nearly 60,000 reads of my blogs. I am encoaraged therefore to try and write a little more.

The unknown person who asked me to promote  Resources for Cancer Survivors made me think about support generally for people who suffer. With my usual suspicions about unexpected emails asking me to click on a site, I naturally checked it through very carefully before clicking blindly, but the site is genuine, though situated on the website of Mystic Meg. I suspect she must get many questions from people affected by cancer as much as by problems in their love life, though for the young the problems of love can be every bit as painful. 

Nobody in this life has a pain-free existence, whether physical or mental - we all experience suffering in some form, and at some time. The question then is, where do people turn for support? For some, no doubt, it may be Mystic Meg, or the Tarot, or other suppliers of words of universal or vague comfort. For many, it may be family or friends, and if you have such support (as I do), be very grateful, and don't forget that they in turn will need your support: be not slow to provide it. Some may turn to vengeance, seeking to alleviate their pain by transferring it to those they believe were its cause. Others turn to religion, seeking balm from silent prayer or mesmerising clapping or chanting. That is good, and should not be despised by empty agnosticism that may offer no solace. Whatever one's belief in the reality or otherwise of faith, I do believe that there would be fewer suicides of these desperate, lonely, people could join some group offering support, be it of prayer or simple words of comfort.

For myself, I seem to be in remission at the moment. At the last scan, the melanoma had stopped spreading and even seemed to have regressed a little. I do have good family support, for which I thank them. I also know a lot of people were praying for me in their various homes and churches, and I thank them too. But I was also started on a new treatment for atopic dermatitis a year ago, and I suspect this may have had unexpected beneficial effects too. I have therefore written a paper on this drug, and enlisted the support of my dermatologist who has agreed to add his name to it. We hope to get it published next year, possibly in the British Journal of Dermatology, in the hope that it may mark a new option in the management of metastatic melanoma. I will keep the blog posted about any progress with this.

Andre and Edwin in the choir

On a more cheerful note, we trogged north through the snow at the beginning of the month to visit family members. I try to make it in daylight now as I don't like driving at night, but it's good to still be able to make the journey. Then on Sunday, we went to a carol service at the Methodist church in Bury-St-Edmunds, where Andre is choirmaster and Edwin sang a tenor role. Afterwards, they treated us to a welcome, warming Indian meal.

Celebrations and consternations

Ann on the roof terrace of the Thames House

 Again, we oscillate between good news and bad. Dan and Faye have looked after a house on the Thames during the owners' absence, and on Thursday they invited us to stay for a night. Cardinals Wharf on Bankside sits between the new Globe theatre and the Tate Modern. It is a house of three stories plus a basement and a roof top terrace, where we enjoyed tea in the sun overlooking the Millenium Bridge and St Pauls Cathedral, while watching curious passers-by walking along the embankment. The house is very old, and has survived the blitz and massive redevelopment over the centuries across the rest of London. The basement is on the site of an old inn where it is said that Shakespeare may have trod the same flagstones after his stints treading the boards of the original Globe.

Welcoming the grandchildren

Then on Saturday we welcomed a good crowd of thirty plus to our "Heave awa'" party, celebrating my survival twelve months after the oncologists pronounced that I only had a year to live. Mind you, sometimes it has seemed touch and go, especially with the pains I now get, possibly from gall bladder inflammation, but they're controlled with good pain killers. Ann too continues to get breathless and coughs badly with her heart failure, but we're hopeful that it will be controlled once she gets some treatment. The doctors' repeated strikes do not help.

Today, Bronte is ill. She has a massive swelling in her abdomen about which the vets can do little, and she too is on Metacom, the canine equivalent of ibuprofen. She has had periodic diarrhoea and incontinence for some time, but today she has lost her appetite and been repeatedly sick. We will take her to the vets again tomorrow and let them decide her fate. Then, to add to our problems, both cars have developed a fault in sympathy with each other. The windscreen wipers on Ann's car have become erratic, stopping mid-wipe and leaving us blinded by the rain and wondering when they will restart, so I dare not risk a dirty motorway journey with them. And today, a warning light has come on in the Teguan, which our garage man diagnoses as a glow plug failure; these are things that pre-heat the fuel before the engine will start, so as we don't want to end up stranded miles from anywhere, I may need to get it fixed urgently.

Some really good news, and one small problem

One brilliant piece of news this week: Edwin posted: "Andre asked me to marry him, and I said, 'yes'." Edwin had had an onsite workday when Andre joined him so they could go to Tiffany's to select the rings. They were met by appointment and treated like royalty, with champagne and a full assessment of just what they hoped for. The rings were boxed and gift-wrapped, then they strolled across the Millenium Bridge when Andre went on one knee to pose the eternal question. They then followed the Brazilian tradition of wearing the ring on the right hand during the engagement, to be swapped to the left hand on marriage. Edwin's has a small diamond to tokenise the engagement ring, while Andre's is a heavier solid gold affair.

We were thankful for this wonderful cause for celebration as I, alas, have little news to celebrate otherwise. No one wants the gory detail but, in outline, my gut oscillates from constipation to diarrhoea like Balaam's donkey: it can't make up its mind. For three days, it went on strike refusing even to work to rule. I offered it more carrots or anything else it fancied, but it protested with bouts of severe colic until my body, in protest, spiked a high temperature. At that point, we decided to try to get professional help or support. The doctor's surgery of course just uses a metallic voice to announce: "If it's an emergency like a stroke or heart attack, phone 999. For anything else, phone 111." Ann duly phoned 111 and went through a complex series of multi-choice answers, half of which seemed to refer her to flow charts online, and others to sending her a text message. It is not easy switching constantly between screens on a small phone, or trying to retrieve texts, and Ann was finally abandoned in a labyrinth of complex, contradictory instructions. If this happened to Ann, who was a research officer and used to train students to use computers, what hope is there for lesser intellects; the whole complex business seems designed to deter people from using the system. Then, we thought, we have been given an emergency number for the hospice who are now supposed to be responsible for my care. Alas, it is a hospice where cancer only exists between 9 and 5; it was now 5:30pm, so another recorded message reported that the lines were closed. p

Ann had taken wine at lunchtime so was reluctant to drive; we therefore asked Edwin if he could ferry us to the Emergency Department (ED) at WSH, which he duly did, abandoning a dinner with Andre, their minister and his wife at which they were discussing wedding plans. That is true sacrifice. Ann came to sit with me, although a notice announced, "Wait for triage nurse, 2 hours. Wait for doctor, 4 hours." Later, that notice changed to, "Wait for doctor, 6 hours." It was therefore 01:30 a.m. when I was assessed with a provisional diagnosis of 'hepatic enlargement with possible inflammation of gall bladder and pancreas secondarily to hepatic metastasis of the melanoma", so the registrar decided to admit me to a ward for observations, and to await the result of a CT/PET scan I'd had earlier in the week. By 3:30 a.m. I had been waiting in a hard plastic hospital chair for 8 hours. Edwin too was waiting with me, having returned from his dinner and driven Ann home. Then three chairs without armrests became vacant to I moved across and tried to sleep lying on these. 

Waiting for a bed at 4:30 a.m. after 9 hours at WSH

By 4:30 a.m., the ED outpatients was filled with people dozing in chairs, also waiting for admission. My aches and tiredness had become unbearable, so I went to the front desk and announced that, clearly no bed would suddenly become vacant now, so I wanted to go back to my son's and sleep on his spare bad. The receptionist said, if I discharged myself, I'd have to go through the whole process again when I came back. I said, I wasn't intending to discharge myself, but after nine hours I couldn't stay on those chairs a moment longer, so I merely intended going out for some fresh air and a rest, but would be back in the morning to take my place in the queue for beds. After a moment's reflection, she said she would see what they could do, and led me through the ambulance entrance to the emergency assessment bays. Most were already filled with other people waiting beds, but she found one at the end still vacant, so I could finally get a couple of hours sleep in relative comfort on a trolley in ED. Edwin had brought a flask of tea with him, which was brilliant as no other drinks were available.

It is often reported that it is the elderly who demand hospital attention. But the ED at West Suffolk Hospital was mainly filled with young people; people who, as a GP, I would mostly have assessed to have minimal serious illness but wanting minor treatment or reassurance. Now, GPs are grossly overpaid for doing less and less work and minimal hours. GPs are paid according to the number of patients on their lists. My first solution to the resource problems of the NHS would be to change this scheme and pay general practioners strictly for each patient they attended, with double pay for out-of-hours consultations. This would immediately shift primary care back where it belongs: in the community, and it would relieve the A&E departments of much of the minor care they are obliged to provide now, most of which is neither accident nor emergency.  Despite this, care and professionalism by the staff at WSH was first rate. Doctors, nurses and ancilliary staff without exception treated every patient with consideration, care and respect: young or old, trivial or serious, drunk, depressed or moaning, or even handcuffed to police officers.

At ten in the morning the consultant came round who agreed with the registrar, but thought I should be returned to the dermatology department as they had organised the scan and could take over my management. In the meantime, I was to go back home and treat the pain with paracetamol. Yipee!!

The dominos of an interconnected society

We have a wonderful local bookshop in Clare, where Kate welcomes visitors, recommends selections, offers to gift wrap presents, and offers hot toddies at Christmas. Walking past the other evening, though, we noticed she had set out a row of books like dominos on the shelf in her window and, like dominos, one had slipped and knocked over all the others, some tumbling onto the display below. Such is the nature of modern society - rows of tightly bound units in which one fall brings all down. Edwin and Andre returned from three weeks in Brazil to the chaos of rail strikes, the August bank holiday traffic jams,  and a UK-wide failure in air traffic control (ATC), with routes falling like Kate's domino books. We learnt of the failure just before setting off to meet them, but it had occurred when they were over half-way across the Atlantic with no possibility of return, so they were one of the flights prioritised to land at Heathrow. Waiting for the boys at Terminal 3 we were among a crowd of people sitting on cases or jamming the cafes whose flights were cancelled or delayed when the ATC people had to land planes more infrequently under manual control, and their flight wasn't delayed by even five minutes. 

Mary-Anne is exceptionally busy these days, working as postmistress plus having to ferry two teenagers to Bury or Sudbury for work, or college, or to visit or stay with friends, and she likes to spend time at the weekend with Sam and the girls. Although she only lives a ten-minute walk away, we hadn't seen her for over five weeks, but Ann had asked if she could look in to let the dogs out during the day,  if she had any free time in the afternoon. Ann was still in her nightie to clean the house before getting dressed when MA phoned to say she was out walking her dogs and would call in now before we left. I was out getting the car emptied and checking oil and water ready to get the boys, so Ann had to rush to get dressed leaving the hoover in the middle of the floor and nothing done, but it was lovely to see MA again. 

Getting old definitely requires a change in outlook. I have to pace myself even for small jobs such as cleaning the car and checking the tyres. Doing even a limited amount of work demands I sit down for a regular break and have to carry things out in small stages. Walking the dogs, my route seems to get shorter and shorter, and favours routes where I know there is a bench so I can sit half way round to recover. Luckily, Byron will often find a ball lost in the bushes, so I can kick it for him to chase. Bronte merely follows wearily at my pace now, so she doesn't need much exercise and prefers lying down all day. They say people grow like their dogs; certainly, Bronte and I seem to be on convergent paths.

Another profound change is the need to wee at night. Every two or three hours, I wake feeling the urge, and though not much is produced, I have to make myself go "just in case". I sometimes dream I need to wee and am in a building somewhere in an embarrassed state, wearing just a shirt or pyjama top, desperately looking for a toilet. These dreams wake me very quickly. Even worse, the rare times I dream I am actually weeing, either in a toilet or in a pile of sand or mud somewhere. Such dreams are frightening as I dread the thought of incontinence, and I instinctively reach down as I wake to check I'm not soaked; happily, it is not happening yet, but I have a box of man nappies in the cupboard ready should I need them. Bronte, too, leaks now during the day and we have to make her wear doggie nappies now in the house. Luckily, she quite likes them and stands happily to let me pull her tail through the hole and Velcro them on. She parades in front of Byron as if to say "look what I've got," and he looks wistfully thinking we're favouring her. They probably make her more comfortable, as they keep her legs and fur dry, but even in this way we are converging.

Irreversible ablation treatments

Ann's pulse has ricocheted from heights of 186 bpm (beats per minute) to depths of 46 bmp, sometimes over periods as short as an hour, since she went into atrial fibrillation (AF) twelve months ago, leaving her exhausted and she often needs extra sleep through the morning or afternoon. Electro cardioversion is a crude method of attempting reversal of AF, basically by sending a massive electric shock through her chest under sedation to stop the heart, and hope it restarts in a more natural rhythm. A previous attempt to reverse it failed, so Ann was started on even stronger drugs which didn't help much but brought their own unpleasant side-effects. Yesterday she had another blast of high voltage therapy, but this time it seems to have succeeded; the heart is mostly in sinus rhythm (SR), though still with bouts of AF. Because of the junior doctors' strike, Ann was the only patient brought onto the ward that morning, so she was attended by the great man himself (no, not God this time). The receptionist looked up from her empty desk to greet Ann, "back again?" and three different nurses kept coming in to see if she was comfortable or wanted another cup of tea. It is too early to tell if she will be less exhausted, but this morning she is back in bed with the heart moving between SR and bouts of AF, which confuses her Apple watch monitor that reports it as "inconclusive".  The next step will be ablation therapy, which means the deliberate obliteration of the natural pacemaker in the heart wall. 

Hundon football team play on a steeply sloping field opposite our house, which means that for half of the match, each team has to run uphill towards the opponents' goal. A few years ago, they moved up a peg from the lowest village league to enter the Cambridgeshire village league. I watched as they swung the ground round by ninety degrees to play across the slope rather than up and down it. They also had to install fancy new goal posts with proper nets. I watched as the groundsman explained they had to break up their old goal posts (a simple cross piece on two uprights) to comply with FA regulations requiring their complete destruction. This change means that hard hit balls go into the hedging at either end, and Byron can be relied on to fish one out on his regular walks round the field to run off with great glee holding the invariably punctured trophy high before him. He then gets his exercise by dropping the soggy bag at my feet to be kicked a few yards away for him to chase.

Ablation therapy for Hundon football club

Alas, Covid seems to have destroyed the team, which never reformed as players moved on and were unable to bring younger people on board. The clubhouse became dilapidated, and now is being smashed down. Walking past the destruction I am reminded of how we, full of hope, play across the field of life only to end in lethargy, despair, and final destruction. There is an air of terminal sadness as I walk on. They talk of building houses on the field; this would double our limited village housing stock but its future seems uncertain.  The town of Haverhill continues to expand and has crept up the hill to flood the fields beyond on its way to coalesce with Keddington, an expanding village between us and Haverhill. They have laid in massive water and sewage works outside Keddington ready to service its gross enlargement with nothing to stem this expanding concrete wall and the constant ablation of our life-sustaining arable and green country.

For a moment as we stepped from the car into the underground carpark in Bury for my eye test, I thought my eyes had gone completely. It was total darkness - all the lighting had failed and not a carlight or even emergency light was switched on. The automatic car headlights had guided us in, but now we had to switch on our phone torches and grope our way to the exit door. The ticket machine was still working though, and took our money willingly while lit by the torches. Then Edwin phoned to say that one third of the whole of Brazil was under a major power cut - it was just a strange coincidence for the rest of Bury was OK though, Brazil was set off by outage of one power station in an overloaded system; the car park was just one switch had been triggered. Strange, though, that there is no emergency lighting.

Nature's destruction

 My office is upstairs, facing east. It is where I continue a low level of work for the company I have supported for twenty years; it is where I have written all the cosmology papers I have had published, and where I write my short stories or poetry. In winter, the sun rises far to the south, before slinking off close to the horizon. Gradually sunrise moves round until it hides for a while behind our neighbour's house before peering over the roof, then continues its move northwards to rise behind a mature lime tree, flecking my room with its leafy shadows imprint of shadows before finally reaching the wide horizon of the distant hill. 

Lime trees can reach a height of 150 feet, the tallest broadleaf British tree, and live for 500 years; this tree was old, and well over 100 feet in height, and Ann and I loved looking out on it. It was the last of a row of trees dividing our properties, shelters for a variety of birds, and home to bat colonies which teamed out at dusk to brighten the fading sky. All these trees were butchered one year when we were on holiday, leaving a blank view of the house next door; only the lime tree remained. Coming back this morning, we were met by our neighbour, Lynda, who boasted that the tree was coming down. The sin the tree had committed to invite this destruction? It shed some of its leaves in Lynda's garden and she couldn't be bothered to sweep them up! Ann was too tearful to stay and ran inside, and I turned without comment to follow her. Lynda's feeble cry as we walked in, "Oh, I've upset Ann." The woman has no idea how valuable that tree was; the last of a great number of limes, from which one of the houses down the hill was named. To look at the constant activity of the birds it supported was a mark of continuing life; its form broke up the distant skyline; and the passage of the sun past and through it marked the seasons. Ann and I both love trees; I used to lean my cheek against some huge, rough oak and stroke the contours of its rough bark, watching the acorns form, ripen and fall. My father admired the different woods, working their grain with affection and understanding. He would not allow us to put shoes on a wooden table, and believed in touching wood for luck, sensing the spirit of life they represent. Even the bat colonies had returned finally to this remaining tree.

Destruction

We have a large sycamore to the side of our house. It needs regular pruning, and its leaves fall on the side garden, the drive and over the fence into the back. Each year I sweep them up, and find it therapeutic to be able to do some light gardening and see a direct benefit by way of a clear drive and lawn, unlike most gardening which is backbreaking and often seems to give little reward. In addition, birds mess the cars from its boughs, but we would not dream of cutting it down to save a little work.

Somehow, the loss of this last tree, over one hundred feet high and probably two hundred years old, home to bats and squadrons of  insects and birds, represents something deeper: the loss of life and continuity, the end of an era. So many people round Hundon have destroyed their trees; it is a sad village for encouraging such destruction when the whole world is crying out for reconstitution of the natural order.

POSTSCRIPT: Edwin and Andre left for a three-week holiday in Brazil to stay with Andre's family, leaving their empty house for us to spend the day away from the sight and noise of the broken landscape. We returned in the evening and another neighbour tapped on the door. She came specifically to see Ann as Lynda had met her and said how upset Ann seemed and  she was upset too as the tree blocked her view of the row of houses beyond it. The upshot of the disagreement was that Lynda was named a bovine beast, so they comforted each other in the grief Lynda had caused, inspired by the cherry tree which, in Japan, symbolizes new beginnings and good fortune; life-affirming ideas that embody a positive and resilient nature.

Psychotherapy

 Hundon has a village shop selling basic essentials, and a pub that's open four-and-a-half days a week, but all other amenities are a drive to Clare, Haverehill, Bury or Sudbury. Kelly, our hairdresser, works in Clare and Ann has relied on her for many years. There are several hair stylists in Clare, and Kelly had worked in one of the bigger salons before setting up on her own. She has an air of calming reassurance that makes the visit a pleasure as well as a necessity, and I now always try to go to her too, having abandoned my regular cutter in her old salon. I have started a portrait of Kelly hovering over Ann's scalp, but it doesn't seem to come right; I made the figures too small and they seem buried in the dull background wall, but I also took inspiration from Kelly for my new poem, Psychotherapy.  

Psychotherapy

The dark grey chair hears her troubles:

Lost dreams, threads of fraying hope, thin wishes,

Voiced despair, absorbed like fallen hair 

hitting the ground unheard; 

swept away to indifferent oblivion.

On the wall a giant clock, 

black against the white cell wall, 

sweeps away each second, 

timing the closed session to its allotted ending.

Her hands, professional, calm, relaxed, reassuring, 

massage as the hair is washed, worked, cut, curled, set and sprayed,

Absorbing sound like a velvet curtain while problems slide past.

John H

Yesterday I was able to cut the grass, which had grown hugely with all the recent rain but finally the sun has returned. Too long for the mower, I could strim it down to a manageable level. The battery-powered strimmer gives me a hint of old rural life, when most of Hundon laboured on the surrounding farms, scything the crop. It is a satisfying motion that induces relaxation and contentment like a physical psychotherapy, and I only needed to sit once for the whole lawn, unlike when I mow it and need to sit several times with a drink of Crabbies to revive me. 

Near the pond, a frog jumped out before my approach but hopped away to scramble on the patio, risking the sun before my blade. He won't be able to hide in the grass now but will shelter under one of the rocks skirting the pond's brim. I love frogs, their lythe shape, their amphibious lifestyle, and their wonderfully exposed lives: from bursting out as a clump of swelling spawn, to displaying openly their quiet development of head and wriggling tail, and the sudden growth of legs and loss of tail and gills as they continue to evolve, unlike the hidden changes of mammals. The tadpoles do not fare well in our pond, for the fish see them as fresh ready meals and few survive. We stocked the pond many years ago when I first dug it with a pair of goldfish brought proudly home in plastic bags from the fair at Long Melford, supplemented with a few others from the garden centre. Two or three have grown large, and there seem to be new fry every spring, somehow keeping the numbers steady.

The lone frog reminds me of the cruelty of some boys who boasted of 'blowing' frogs. This led to an edict from the headmaster that any boy caught doing this would be caned, but I always wonder if such behaviour is a pre-requisite for men who go on in other regimes to become torturers or vicious jailers or perform other acts of cruelty, now relieving their inner torment by destroying trees or shooting wildlife, or persecuting weaker people.

Alba Donati's New Book

The boys are off to Brazil for three weeks soon, so invited us round for a farewell meal. Andre prepared a Nut Roast Wellington in a perfect puff-pastry envelope even decorated with pastry flowers, all worthy of a top prize. We didn't get back till midnight. Ann continues to have debilitating bouts of tachycardia but insists on continuing her housework between sessions of lying down. Hopefully the repeat cardioversion booked for next week will be successful.

I've just finished Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati. This too, like all books that grip the imagination, is psychotherapy. The beautiful descriptions of landscape, events and people carry me to those mountainous regions of Italy and illuminate them and the characters as though I am among them. Donati, too, shares her love of books and scatters recomendations like dandilion seeds, feeding new ideas for reading. If I were younger, I would have gone on a pilgrimage to Donati's little village in the hills just to sit among her books and draw in the air. But when I was younger, I was materialistic, full of other ambitions and pilgrimages, so it is only now in the serenity of years that I can discover the calm of words beyond medical notes and scientific texts. Such is the way of our unbalanced lives.

Andre becomes eligible to be a Brit

The weather continues its atrocious way through August as it began in July, with the wind switching from the N.W. to the N.E., bringing heavy rain lashing my windows at the back instead of those at the front. It is cold and miserable, and I must seize any brief moment I can grab to walk the dogs. The pigeons sit huddled on the roof tops looking miserable, yet in the distant sky a lone swallow swirls about, no doubt trying to dodge the rain as he hunts for his feed.

The Sainsbury's delivery man has just arrived, bringing the first batch of drinks for our Heave Awa' celebration. He is wet and cold, but says it's not too bad when he dries out in his van between deliveries; the worse time is when he gets totally drenched and doesn't dry out all day. The celebration is only six weeks away, but Ann is reluctant to order too many drinks yet in case either of us is ill or doesn't make it. We take a break for toast and tea, now the bread has arrived.

 Andre has been in the UK long enough to qualify for citizenship, and this week took his "Life in Britain" test in London to complete the process. Sample questions were: Which two houses fought in the Wars of the Roses? Who was given the title of Lord Protector? What king was defeated by Oliver Cromwell during the Civil War and hid in an oak tree before escaping to Europe? We all tried the practice tests, and while Ann and Edwin passed, I confess I failed. I also failed my mock driving theory test when Andre was practicing for that, but I suppose I could swat up a bit if I really had to take it again. Thankfully we don't yet have to retake the driving test every couple of years; we really need our cars, living here in the sticks with no shops and not even a bus for transport. I suppose we'd have to rely even more heavily on Amazon orders  and take a taxi for vital appointments.

Lucy said Andre needn't have taken the test to become a British Citizen, as she would marry him. She would then be called Lucy Suzzy, which amused us all, but made me think of an alternative twist: gay man comes out of the closet and confesses to being secretly hetro, leaves his partner, and runs off to marry partner's sister. It would certainly be unusual. Edwin may be able to quote such a story already being extant, otherwise I offer it to any budding authors.

I had an online meeting yesterday with someone in Indiana who'd read one of my papers and wanted to talk about its relevance to his own work. Chris is a young man with wild hair and a straggly beard, fresh from his PhD so he knows much more physics than I do and is far more up to date, leaving me reluctant to return his call, but he was easy going and the chat was general. He's left academia to work for a start-up of his friend's father; it's one of those enterprises that will either crash and burn rapidly or else go on to make the founders rich, but he finds it too demanding and time-consuming so is already looking for another job. I wished him well and hope he keeps in touch about his future paper. 

Heave Awa' Celebration

Barbie Ann with Pink Flamingo

Having seen Oppenheimer, this week was the turn for Barbie, with Edwin's insistence. He treated us to the tickets then led us in, to a sea of women in pink with fancy cowboy hats. It was surprisingly good, and certainly thought-provoking. I can well see why it gets so many rave reviews. It remains an interesting conjecture, why they are so often bracketed and seen together as BarbyHeim. One is so thought-triggering as we recall mayhem unleased, the other a light, frivolous bit of nonsense; but Barbie too contains some surprising depth, with a serious approach to women's lack of full equality in the US, and a nod towards death and imperminance. 

The accepted wisdom states that "There is nothing so certain as death and taxes." But last week, we received a miracle: a hefty tax rebate! Such things never happen to us, and it was totally unexpected, but it brought into focus the corollary that perhaps I will get an extension before my death sentence. It will be recalled that, on 16th of September of last year, the oncologists told me the cancer had spread widely, and they could do nothing further for me. Consequently, they didn't want to see me again and signed me off their books, with the cheerful parting aside, "you only have twelve months." It is not yet twelve months, but we hope to celebrate the occasion with a "Heave Awa' Party", to which all are invited. This is named after the occasion when an ancient tenement building collapsed in 1856, killing 35 people. As workmen were clearing the rubble, a voice called out to them, "Heave awa' lads, I'm no deid yet!" and they successfully pulled a young lad clear, the only survivor. We hope we are not tempting fate or retribution too much by planning this celebration too soon, but I've told Ann that if either of us don't make it, the survivor should turn it into a wake, as everyone will already have made preparations to come.

I have managed to cook another dish. This time, I prepared a tomato and cheese bake with fusilli pasta, and it wasn't bad. I had originally planned it for Ann's birthday six weeks ago, but on the day she said she'd rather go out so we ended up at the Swan as usual. I still had the ingredients though, so didn't have to buy anything new. The mozzarella cheese was well past its sell-by date but still looked pure white and didn't smell bad, so we risked it with no obvious ill-effect.

You are still here...

Just for a moment
you are still here.
Maybe next month
maybe next year
we will mourn
a salt-flavoured tear
for one who gave more
than most people dare.

Annie Elliott

A rediscovery of driving pleasure

Ann's new car is a dream; it rolls along silently in battery mode, while cutting in seamlessly to recharge as needed. Although no larger than the Polo, it is roomy with plenty of head height, and more features than anyone has a right to. I am wading through the manual, but probably will not fully master it before it finally gets sold on again. I particularly love the regenerative breaking; the realisation that slowing down recharges the battery rather than heating the atmosphere is very satisfying. Also, we are getting nearly 60 m.p.g. even with just local stop-start driving, so we are looking forward to taking it on longer journeys, perhaps north to visit the family once Ann has had her next cardioversion.

For her birthday last month, the boys had given Ann a Lego set to build her own orchid. We are pleased to tell them it has finally been completed, and has a place of honour on the piano.

In the north, news that Rosie was admitted to hospital with acute appendicitis. By the time they took it out, the tip was gangrenous and she was lucky it hadn't ruptured with a full peritonitis. Happily, she is back home and recovering.

Alan, Ann and J in the Swan

Ann's cousin, Alan, came to visit this week on his break from his Portugal house move. He regaled us with tales of the many fraught problems entailed by property law in Portugal. Neither Ann nor I relish interminable legal tangles these days, so we agree that a move abroad is not on the cards, even given the tax advantages and better climate - but even that is debatable with the brutal heat wave inflicting southern Europe this summer. Here in Britain it remains cold and wet, but at least we can simply don an extra jersey, and there is less chance of wild fires spreading across the fields to engulf the house! 

Congratulations to Edwin who continues with his Taekwondo, and got his first belt last night. We remember how good he was at Karati when he was younger, so I'm pleased he has found this sport to excel in. 

Car-hunt capers

 We always called the county, "Bent Kent" because of the many strange, inexplicable happenings we witnessed, such as vans parking on the far edge of Tesco's carpark and a dozen disorientated people emerging, or the vans parked on a layby back to back with their backs open for the transfer of strange objects, or the house opposite ours being raided by the police at 3:00 a.m. on several occasions for drug running, or the helicopter that landed on the lawn of Miriam Margolyes' holiday home after we'd rented it for a week as part of a drug-running scam. On Sunday we motored down for a short break there, and sure enough it lived up to its name. We stayed in the Churchill Hotel on the seafront, with a balcony view across the harbour. Ann sat at the window watching the world go by, and suddenly she was spell-bound by a strange tableau being enacted on the beach. A group of Pakistani or Indian people were gathered behind some rocks, mostly out of sight, but including some women in saris. All carried bags or cases, and they waited there for some while as it grew dark. A car then came crawling along, passed the group, and then reversed to line up with a gap in the wall. One man got out and came back carrying a large box, then went back to the group and took individual flash photographs of them all before they followed him to the car and were driven away. We still wonder what they were doing there.

Morelli's Ice-cream - a sharing dish

Our stay in Kent was enjoyed in some of our favourite spots, including Morelli's Ice-cream parlour in Broadstairs, Margate pier head pub, and Herne Bay front. 

Apart from this diversion, our time was well used as Ann continued her car hunt in Canterbury. We came round to considering the possiblity of a Renault and saw two possible ones. It seems a good car, ticking many of our boxes, so Ann continued the search yesterday when we got back. Today we went to another garage at Sawston and saw the ideal compromise car - a Renault Clio - put down a deposit, and suddenly Ann has a car again! Vindis Motors were very fair, even agreeing to replace a scatched rear windscreen, and the car - a hybrid - drives like an ideal motor. Vindis himself was an interesting Chech guy who came over in the war, flew Spitfires with the RAF at Duxford, and ended up as a flight leutenant before using his discharge money to open his first second hand car dealership. They still have his gold-plated Rolls Royce in the showroom. Definitely worth our trip, and earning a toast to happy motoring at the Globe on our way home.

Ann has a new car!

A week of many incidents

 Ann has a new passport. It didn't expire until January of next year, but we'd heard such dire stories of delays that she sent for it early. Miraculously, it only took five days, and the online application was smooth and easy. The only real difficulty was the photograph - their site allows us to upload a photo and reports its quality as a meter reading. My several attempts kept going into the red scale and failing, but finally we got one that just scraped into the amber as "acceptable" and posted the application. We then got a message to say even this photo was rejected! And advising us to go to a proper photo-booth, or a professional. We therefore went to a photo-booth in the post office, but the result was so lamentable we didn't even try to send it. Finally, we went to a more expensive booth in Tesco which communicated directly with the passport office, so we didn't even need to scan the photo to get it to them and, at last, it was in their green band and the passport came through a couple of days later.

On Monday, Ann went into Addenbrookes for her cardioversion. Under heavy sedation, she felt no more than dull blows to her chest as they blasted her with 300+ volts of electric shock. As she recovered, she felt her heart still banging away erratically and, looking at the cardiologist, she said, "it didn't work, did it?" He ruefully agreed, before saying he would like to try cardioversion again in six weeks after starting her on a new, stronger medication with numerous potential side-effects. Ann's heart rate has varied betwen a high of 180+b.p.m. and a low of 35 b.p.m. Luckily, she is still allowed an occasional wine - in moderation - which eases the pain of two great, red burn marks on her back and chest. 

Tuesday took us to the vets for Brontë, who has been "leaking" slightly for a little while.  Ann cut off all her bum-hair to stop it being soaked and Edwin found some doggie nappies on-line, which we sent for. They certainly work and she seems to wear them with a certain swank, as though she has something special which Byron doesn't. The vet couldn't find anything specific, but suggested she may be hormone-deficient, so now we have to add HRT to her food each day.

Last week, too, I had my now annual cystoscopy to check for any recurrence of my bladder cancer. The girls doing it commented, "it's a long way up!" which I suppose to be a generous comment, but it reminded me of the nurses at St Thomas' Hospital when I was a student. They kept a notebook in which they recorded penile lengths of anaesthetised patients, to see who would get the week's record. Happily, though, they also declared that there was no sign of a recurrence, and want to see me again in a year. Sometimes, my body feels like a racetrack between two cancers. At the moment, melanoma is definitely winning while bladder seems to have stalled on the starting grid.

Ann is on the lookout for a new car. We went into Suffolk Trade Centre to see what they had in and Ann got a quote for her car. To my surprise, and, I suspect, to Ann's also, she spontaneously accepted their offer before she found a new car, so suddenly we're down to one vehicle. Now, every day is spent looking on-line or visiting showrooms. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of used cars; after twenty years of being our go-to, even Suffolk Trade has an almost deserted forecourt, and is being put up for sale. We continue the search.

Scientific Spirituality

Edwin and Andre entertain Theo

We had a warm fathers' day: warm in the presence of family as well as a meteorological sense. Lucy, Andy and Theo stayed above The Globe in Clare, a remarkable flat built into the roof of the 16th century pub, while Edwin and Andre came to share the day with us. Theo loved the two boys, who enjoyed entertaining him - Edwin by telling stories of ancient Greece, and Andre by making an Origami bird whose wings flapped when the tail was pulled. Little Theo was entranced.

If asked what I believe in, a rare enough question, I would describe it as Scientific Spirituality, a faith more akin to science than religion. It is driven by a spirit of inquiry, not dogma. It is open to individuals to seek, but does not wish to convert or proselytise, though it rejoices when someone genuinely wants to know how something really works at the deeper level. It accepts people for whom they are, not for what they believe. It seeks to encourage not to punish. It has no group organisation nor church, yet is taught in nature's harmony. All the distractions of the world, our concerns with status, fame, the latest laptop or phone, are but empty moments when compared to the experience of inner peace and the calm revealed by the unifying wholeness of understanding and wonder at the miracle of the natural world. 

Scientific Spirituality does not preclude religion, or organised prayer, or group worship. But it does preclude religious exclusivity: the insistence that there is only one way, the intolerance of alternative thoughts or beliefs, the insistence that one book or one person's opinion holds the key to the Universe to the exclusion of all other thought. All religions may lead to Spirituality, but without the virtue of Scientific inquiry, they become rigid and exclusive rather than seeking to be open, expansive, and inclusive.  Girders in the Sand was my attempt to bring the historical development of Scientific Spirituality into context, through centuries of spiritual development paralleling scientific advancement, building toward the frontiers of universal understanding. 

On Sunday, Edwin and Andre were formally welcomed into the Methodist church in Bury St Edmunds, which they have been attending for some time. Ann and I went to witness this, with a lovely lunch of snacks provided by the congregation in the hall afterwards. Between them, they certainly bridge the concept of Scientific Spirituality.

Any death inspires reflective thoughts, even so modest an end as our Guinea pig, Bartok. Following his death, I penned a few thoughts, leading to the poem The Empty Cage.

The Empty Cage

For briefest moment, behind wired bars,

Some creature stirred -

Lent sight and movement, warmly furred,

more than food or drink metabolised: 

Imprisoned here, by whims and chances bound,  

A vast complexity of artful wonder

Given for a moment to our pleasure - 

Then death, its ailing body ripped asunder.

I, too, with complex form appear

To talk and dance awhile in chances’ cage

‘Til age and death soon everything will take;

In these tight bonds I can but hopeless rage.

John H. Marr

A delayed birthday meal, and memories of Florence

Outside the window, a thrush grasps a devil creature, or snail, and is busy thrashing it against the pavement until the shell flies off and the thrush triumphantly flies off with the morsel to its nest. Byron lies moodily in the heat, unable to pace round his old friend Bartok the guinea pig. Ann has placed an advert for the cage on the Hundon Facebook and someone is coming for it this afternoon. Edwin had been working all day in London on Ann's birthday, so last night he made up for it by taking us to a new restaurant in Bury - The Lark - which served the most unusual but delicious combinations of food. 

With Andre's family in Florence

We returned from our Florence trip last week, but it already seems a distant memory. Having determined this may have been our only chance to meet Andre's parents, Ann fought the consultants to try and get her treatments sorted before we went, but circumstances were otherwise, so we went "at risk". Andre has the most wonderful family, very close and affectionate with each other, and welcoming us in as part of their group. They had rented a capacious, six-bedroom apartment in Florence, and invited us to stay gratis with them: his parents, two sisters and their husbands. All are greatly talented, but although the parents speak a little more English than we do Portuguese (i.e. a few words to our zero words), we got by mostly by universal body language and translations by the children. 

Andre told us of his grandmother, a dramatic character who, unless her children phone her regularly, says "no one loves me anymore. No one cares if I'm still alive!"  She believes the plants in her garden protect her from evil spirits. When her fern died, she said "Someone must have wished me ill. My fern absorbed the hate and sacrificed itself to save me." She had been born on a large farm and was her father's favourite, but he had a vendetta with farming neighbour. The grandmother fell in love with the neighbour's son, but her father said if she ever married him, he would kill him and his family, so she married someone else under duress, but still talks about her lost love. Then Edwin then told us of the mother of a friend of his who was having a big birthday celebration and deliberating over who to invite. She finally made the choice based on the postage used to send her Christmas cards. If they used second class stamps, they clearly thought of her and posted their cards in good time, but a first-class stamp meant they had forgotten, and posted the card at the last minute, so they were not invited to her special party.

Andre's father is a pastor and said a moving prayer before we left, wishing for health and save travel, which was much appreciated. The family walked each way into the centre each day, and Ann walked once or twice but I used taxis, although only a couple of kilometres. I am not a great admirer of multiple, seemingly repetitive, pictures of the virgin and child, so the contents of the Uffizi were a little wasted on me, although to see the originals of so many paintings such as Botticelli's “Birth of Venus” known only through art programs or modern pastiche was worth the effort of the long, hot, crowded corridors. But the David of Michelangelo in the Accademia Gallery is breathtaking in its monumental scale, its symbolism, its sculptural beauty, and the shear artistry of the representation. 

We also visited the Museo Galileo that holds many of his experiments and inventions, things I had only seen pictures of in schoolbooks when we were learning basic physics. Again, to see the originals was remarkable. To comprehend the originality of calculating the parabolic arc of projectiles, or the arrogance of thought that could demolish belief in the earth as the centre of all creation by demonstrating the heliocentric system with systematic observations, is inspirational to the power of thought to change the world. Galileo had his equipment built by the finest craftsmen of Florence, so even a demonstration of the path of a rolling ball is made of elegant wood with inlaid marquetry and polished brass.

Galileo’s Parabolic Demonstration Apparatus

Ann celebrates a special birthday.

Happy 70th birthday

Yesterday was Ann's seventieth birthday - significant in years, and worthy of celebration; also noted to be the hottest 13th June since records began. Edwin, alas, was working all day in London, but Mary-Anne and the two girls came round unexpectedly and we shared a cake and broke open a bottle of Prosecco. Because of her heart problem, Ann has not been drinking lately, but did let slip she would like a Prosecco to toast the day, so I slipped out just after seven o'clock to walk the dogs and buy a bottle. I finally got to the counter of the Co-op with the bottle in my hand, but the girl took it from me and said, "we aren't allowed to sell alcohol until eight o'clock!" so I went back into the park for a second dog walk, grabbed a cup of coffee from the platform cafe, and waited. Finally, at two minutes past eight, I could take another bottle through the checkout.

To say I am good at speeches is to say a rubber duck is good for going out to sea. The best I could offer was how much Ann meant to each of us and long we had all known her, "Especially you, Mary-Anne," I added without thought. "Yes," she said, "all of my life, actually." I had intended to cook a meal, and even went on to Tesco to buy the ingredients but for some reason, Ann chose to prefer a meal out so we settled on Carluccio's, but they turned us away as they no longer serve food after seven p.m. but at least Byron's Burger Bar opposite was open, and their veggie burgers were delicious. We could even take a desert there - but coffee was too much, as they don't serve hot drinks. No wonder everything in Bury is shutting down. But overall, it was a very good day.

Today was less happy. Our guinea pig, Bartok (all our animals are named after poets or scientists, or heroes from opera), has been wilting in the heat for a few days. Yesterday, he lay down all day not eating or drinking, and Ann put ice bags in his cage to cool him, but to no avail. I looked for him in his hidey-hole this morning but he had died in the night. Byron loved that guinea pig, spending each day running round the cage or even nudging it if he was hiding. When we brought in fresh grass, Byron would run ahead to tell Bartok in some way, and he, Bartok, would start an excited squeaking before I even came back in through the door, so I had to shut them into the room while I carried the cage out and emptied it. The ground was too hard for me to dig easily, so later I took him in the car to a country field, and hid him in dense undergrowth to return to nature as I muttered a few words of remembrance over him. 

Then we had to go yet again to Addenbrookes for Ann's cardiograph. She should have had her cardioversion this afternoon, but got a letter to say it was postponed because the doctors were on strike; and sure enough, there they all were outside the hospital waving their banners. "Oh look," I joked, "there's your cardiologist. Perhaps we should drop you off here for your next consultation." We feel sympathy for their low pay and work conditions, but at times like this it does impact on the health of real people and very real suffering, as Ann gets so tired and breathless now.

My mother

My mother has grey halr,

A small, button called a nose,

Her skirts are long, flouncy,

Always wearing cardigans pink and grey,

She wears gold hoops in her ears,

And pearl necklaces, sometimes real,

Sometimes not.

She wears black, leather shoes and patent,

Her hair is short, and sometimes curly,

Sometimes not.

She wears a smile,

Unless tired,

Then her forehead, like a writhing sea,

Grows into a mountain,

And her lips, the opposite, grow down.

She is patient, mostly,

And tall, elegant, rarefied,

She loves life,

It does not always love her,

She has a kind, non-apathetic nature,

And sometimes that's a fault.

People can take advantage of such a nature,

And, like the threshing machines thrash it,

Take her nature and abuse it,

Still, she is my mother and as my mother she is loved.

Edwin Marr

An update for Ann

 Ann had yet another 'routine' hospital appointment yesterday. She has had them every week for a long while and, although keen to support her, the doctor seems to do nothing more than I did as a general practitioner - he orders an ECG, talks a while asking how Ann is, then tinkers with the tablets and tells her to "come back next week". But the atrial fibrillation does not improve, and Ann's health has not improved. She is constantly tired, breathless every time she gets up to do anything, and can feel her heart fluttering. This time, the new tablets certainly slowed her heart - from over 120/min to sometimes less than 50 beats/min, but still in AF and Ann has felt terrible. This time, they kept her in outpatients to await the opinion of a cardiologist, who finally agreed to send her up to the ward again to try to stabilise the heart. I came home to sort out the dogs, then went back in the evening to take her things in. It seems they want to attempt cardioversion on the ward today, to try and return the heart to normal rhythm, so we all hope this works. When I went into outpatients to find Ann, the consultant came out to talk to me. "She is determined to go home Friday," he said, "she said she'll discharge herself if we don't let her out!" Yes, knowing Ann, she will for she is determined to go to Florence to meet Andre's parents, who have invited us to share a house there. 

The consultant's name was Dr Flynn, but when I looked him up online, I kept getting references to Dr Flynn who is grandad's doctor in Mrs Brown's Boys. He was very chatty, asking me about my career, and then telling me of all the problems AstraZeneca was having at their new Cambridge site. Seemingly, five streams run underground off the Gog Magog hills, but were dry when the AZ survey was done. Once the building was up, the basement flooded as soon as heavy rains came. Also, the glass roof they planned was too heavy, causing the roof to collapse. But he did also assure me he'd spoken to the cardiologist and explained that Ann had to leave on Friday, "come hell or high water".

A new entrance - our badger hole

The Back-To-Nature campaign, with its emphasis on rewilding, has given we armchair gardeners the perfect opportunity to indulge in the type of gardening we love most: creating a nature garden. In the case of our front garden, this is developing well with high grass and wildflowers filling every space. It is certainly good for insects and wildlife, for only yesterday I had a call from our neighbour to tell us there was a large hole under our hedge and offering to meet me outside to show me. He didn't need to show me - coming round the corner towards him, I nearly fell in it. A great cavern of a hole, delving deep beneath the hedging and turning to twist round a corner into darkness. Outside, a huge pile of earth with stones, tree roots and general debris heaped upon the grass and scattering across the path. This was without doubt a large animal - presumably a badger. It had disturbed a nest of bees in the hedging, and the confussed and angry things were buzzing round the hole and attacking the spade when I tried to fill it in. Sam too had seen the hole when walking his dogs, and said there was another one further down the road; he is a true country man and says the badgers deliberately target the bees for their honey.

A concert from Ukraine

Birgitta Kenyon is a choral workshop leader, helping to build new choirs in schools, and to support existing ones. Besides supporting schemes for Parkinson's Disease, Senile Dementia, and a new Summer School for Young Carers, she was equally well known on the cabaret scene, with such numbers as Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer in her persona as A Girl Called Fred. One may then imagine her surprise when she discovered two Ukrainian refugees in her home town who were exiles from the Ukrainian opera house. She immediately set to work to organise a concert to support the Ukrainian cause, and this brilliant evening showcased their work, a mixture of folk melodies and classical arias. Birgitta was accompanist and included some piano pieces to sandwich the singing. She was a performance in her own right, constantly jumping up and down from the stool to raise or lower the heavy piano lid, flexing her muscles, selecting loose music sheets from a huge stack to spread across the stand, wedging them with tissues to stop them fluttering across the keyboard and pausing to wipe her brow, yet never missing a beat to what must have been unknown music to her. The tickets had waited for five months pinned to my cork board: Edwin and Andre's delayed Christmas present of a concert in support of Ukraine. This, then, was the background to a wonderful entertainment, though inevitably tinged with sadness as we remembered the brothers and husbands left to fight there against a brutal invasive force. 

Edwin and I had been to a Ukrainian opera before when Ukraine won the Eurovision. We had flown to Kiev for the competition, and next day Edwin bought tickets for a Rimsky-Korsakov opera in the opera house there, a truly memorable performance but this time the singers sang nothing by a Russian composer.

Andre, Edwin and Rachel come to stay

Andre's sister flew out from Brazil to stay with them for a week before they all go to Rome to meet up with her parents. On Monday, Ann and I went to the pictures in Bury and bumped into them by coincidence as we came out of the cinema, so we shared a meal. Rachel is a stunningly beautiful girl with a degree in chemical engineering and is now manager in a large aluminium smelting plant in the north of Brazil. On Saturday, the three of them came to stay overnight before their flight out. She has good English, especially technical English, but occasionally misses a word. For some reason, our conversation turned to the French people and their willingness to enter ménage à trois. Rachel described the extra woman as "the man's mattress" that caused much laughter but in which she joined happily.

Yesterday, we got to Heathrow comfortably (Andre was driving), but coming back I stopped at the South Mimms service station for a break. I have been there many times before, but this time missed the carpark entrance and ended up on some tiny wandering country lane ending by serendipity at a pub called The Stratford, where I thought I'd better eat as they were serving all day Sunday lunches, which was much better than any fare I might have found at South Mimms.

Philosophy in Traffic Queues

Have you ever considered how road traffic is an analogy for our life-journey? I have been driving for 62 years, and the one thing that stands out is how, in general, traffic flows more freely when drivers control their own flow. Roundabouts and give-way signs are generally much freer than traffic lights, and most people are sensible about letting waiting cars enter in turn. I remember once, at Pfizer in Sandwich, we had one main entrance with cars approaching from each direction so there were inevitable holdups to get in. The management employed a traffic consultant from Liverpool University to advise on ways to ease the flow, so one morning a traffic light was installed to regulate entry. That morning, traffic was backed up in both directions right out to the main road at either end; nothing could move and the whole block of offices was effectively shut. By lunchtime, the system was switched off and the normal morning wait went back to its customary ten minutes, with the right-turning cars filling the gaps between the left-turners.

Many of our Suffolk lanes are wide enough for but one car, yet sensible use of the passing places generally ensures a smooth flow of traffic rather than a snarling tailback from two drivers refusing to give way. Roundabouts, too, generally flow freely as people sort themselves out even in heavy traffic. The roadworks on many motorways have advanced warnings up to two miles ahead of roadworks and lane closures. People interrupt the flow irregularly as they pull into the inside lane until there is basically one queue, but always some annoying pomposity shoots past us all to force their way in at the head of the line. The best roadworks have a sign: "Merge in turn", and this produces equal queues that both move forward steadily without provoking directed anger. Taking away basic responsibility for driving removes the need for thought of others but paradoxically increases our frustration and anger with others, leading to horn rage, bumps, and fights. 

The Oilman Cometh

Our oilman is freely philosophical with his greeting. Early on Monday, moving rapidly from the cost of oil and inflation, he opinionated that all the problems of the world are caused by people "gobbing off". By this, he referred to Putin and Ukraine and European interventions with the resultant inflation, but basically, he is right. At every level throughout our weakened society, problems are exacerbated by people more willing to bad-mouth than good-mouth their family, neighbours or excitable strangers. My mother was fond of the old adages, one being, "a soft word turns away wrath" whenever my brothers or I had raised voices. So much trouble, so many fights, start from a harsh, unforgiving word. Never has it been more evidently true: war is the destroyer of worlds; harmony can build mountains. And in families too, so much more can be achieved, so much is general happiness increased, if we could only forgive and offer praise and encouragement, rather than critisism and complaint or, in the oilman's phrase, "gobbing off".

A stirring Eurovision night

A precious new book from Brian Bolland

Ben and Kaz came over on Saturday morning to celebrate our Eurovision defeat with Edwin and Andre and us. While Andre set about organising food for the evening, Ben and I strolled down to the pub with the dogs for a quiet drink. Ben is a huge fan of Brian Bolland who lives in our village, so he asked the landlord if he ever came in. Ben has amassed a huge collection of comics from the early '80s onward, and Bolland is the comic-collector's favourite illustrator. Seemingly, Brian comes in regularly and the landlord knew him well, so gave Ben a copy of Brian's new book, Bolland Strips. It is a delightful story of two memorable characters: a bishop and an actress, but told as a straightforward relationship rather than the subject of old jokes. Very imaginative, and inevitably beautifully illustrated.

When Andre told us he would organise the food for Eurovision, he did not go half measure. I lost count of the number of dishes he prepared but, including English pork pies (selection of meat and vegetarian) and Ann's English trifle, representative foods from perhaps sixteen countries. After that, the competition itself was an anticlimax and the songs seemed to merge one into another with a certain sameness of beat and instrumentation that washed over my numb ears in a torrent of sound. The colour and costuming surprised the senses, though, and I think the points must have been awarded for those flickering, epileptic designs that best impressed the judges. 

Eurovision Food Hall

Edwin and Andre left next day mid-morning, as Andre was booked onto a Zoom chat with his family to celebrate international Mothers' Day, which Brazil follows although the UK and America go their own way. Ben and Kaz stayed over till the afternoon, allowing us to watch the Middlesbrough/Coventry match as part of the playoffs for promotion, a complex procedure which Ben explained but is still probably beyond me, but it ended with a draw, so they meet again later in the week for a rechallenge.

Ann had yet another hospital appointment. Her AF remains poorly controlled, but they could offer little advice but to tinker with the tablets and await an indefinite appointment for an echocardiogram before they can proceed with anything more definitive. Once, GPs were proud to be called "The Gateway to the NHS". A&E was strictly for emergencies: people who'd fallen out of trees, or brought in by ambulance for a suspected heart attack. Now that wize gateway has been smashed with the outpatient clinic basically a glorified GP practice to which Ann has been going once a week for a check-up. Even busy pharmacists are being paid to do GP's work, and so many people complain they can never see the GP the only solution to the NHS crisis is to completely close all GP practices and attach them to hospitals, such as Addenbrookes and West Suffolk, where the GPs could take on a new salaried role as outpatient triage doctors. So bad and slow is NHS care, we are now seriously considering a private cardiac appointment. Ann's compulsory payments into the NHS over the years would far outweigh even expensive private care! 

Unexpected visitors

Richard and Chris are welcomed

An unexpected call from my brother Richard to say he and Chris would like to drive over to take us to lunch. We immediately said, "Yes please!" and booked the Half Moon Inn at Belchamp St Paul, a wonderful old, thatched pub overlooking the village green, with a good selection chalked up on the blackboard and all finely cooked. Ann had a hair appointment late in the day to which Chris took her, so they enjoyed a good session with Kelly in her new salon. 

We then watched a short film Ann had recorded, "Look at Life: Rebirth of a City" about Coventry's regrowth from the ashes of the war. Suddenly Richard called, "Pause it there!" It was a shot of the newly developed circular indoor market built to replace the old outdoor street market, and on a large stall at the entrance was a sign, "J, Cooper". The stall, selling fine china, had been owned by Chris's grandfather, and there in front, busy with a customer, was Chris's Uncle Arthur who had taken over the stall. Just inside, but out of sight, her father too was selling chinaware. The film was from sixty years ago, and an amazing coincidence. Richard used to help drive a van  and set up the stalls for them at the country's biggest china fare in Cambridge. Their stall was popular with Romanies who delighted in the brightly coloured goldleaf decorations.

Ann remains unwell with her heart condition. The blood report came back suggesting cardiac failure, and indeed she was coughing all night despite several pillows. She remains on the list for physical treatments in addition to the many medications, but it may be a long time judging by the state of the Health Service. 

My own leg pain has eased considerably. I have now diagnosed it as Meralgia Paresthetica, which is limited to one specific nerve, the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. This seems to get trapped in the femoral canal - probably from sitting too long hunched over a keyboard. The whole nerve has now given up, leaving a patch of total numbness over the outer thigh but minimal pain. Fortunately, it is a purely sensory nerve with no motor fibres, so there is no accompanying weakness or paralysis. Numbness I can live with. Unfortunately, age dictates that my legs seem to get weaker each day anyway, so it gets harder and harder to stand up without using my arms, or to walk any distance at a reasonable pace. Because Ann was admitted twice from A&E outpatients, she has now packed hospital bags for each of us to take whenever we visit the hospital. It is very much a toss-up which one of us might need our bag first.

Chris and Ann

But while I remain mobile, I am grateful for what I can do, and this week I have a new, invited paper published in the journal, Galaxy.  I submitted it in November last year, but the reviewers wanted a number of changes that took longer than expected, and finally it is there in their Special Issue: A Trip across the Universe: Our Present Knowledge and Future Perspectives. My paper is a review of Galaxy Number Counts. Looking out into space in any given field of view, modern large telescopes see ever greater numbers of ever fainter galaxies per unit area as they continue to probe deeper, seemingly without limit. By counting the number observed at each depth, we can lay some limits to the shape of the Universe and its expansion history.