Huntigton's chorea and other problems

Yesterday as most weeks I parked behind the Swan to walk the dogs while Ann went for her hair dressing. A car followed us in, and one of the waitresses got out as I let the dogs out. Byron raced up to her, barking like crazy, and the poor woman visibly jumped in shock, for she hadn't seen him coming. Byron is not aggressive, but is very loud. I then waited in the Swan over a drink and apologised for frightening her.

The restaurant was empty but for one lady sitting alone, who greeted me warmly though I had never seen her before. We began talking, and she explained why she was alone. This was her "respite day", when her husband went for respite care, so to escape the drudgery of cooking she treated herself to lunch out. Her husband used to be an aeronautical engineer and lectured at Cranford, but now has Huntington's chorea, a particularly nasty genetically inherited degeneration of the brain. I knew patients with it in my former career, and just how bad it can be to live with. Now it is possible to predict carriers, but then it was not until it was already manifest in mid-life. One of the medical students I trained with also had a parent with it, and she refused to date anyone or marry in case she too got it and risked passing it on to a child.

The old woman on the table had ordered cod and chips, Unfortunately she flicked a large number of peas onto the carpet, just before the waitress came back in, who promptly trod on them. The woman was clearly embarrased and got down on her knees to clean them up with a napkin.

Today we went chasing across country to see more motor homes. We've not had much luck, but Ann has just seen an advert for another one, so we'll look at that tomorrow and keep hoping.

Edwin called from Naples. He has not had much luck so far. He is on the fifth floor of the apartment block, with a central glass lift to get up to it. There is a charge for the lift, with a slot machine he has to put coins in - surely that must be a first? Then yesterday the toilet lock got stuck (luckily with him outside it, though unlucky if he was desperate), and he had to share with the other occupant. Today he was going to visit the catacombs, but there was a train driver's strike, so he had to visit a church instead. Now we hear that there is to be a BA pilots' strike next week when he is due back, so there may be an enforced extension to his holiday!

In memory of a death

AAAAAEEEEEIIIII!! When on Tuesday a whole swathe of conservative MPs stood with labour to approve a motion against their own government, I knew democracy had died in this country. The bid for freedom has failed and our country is trapped in the eternal cell of the EU. I can no longer listen to the news, it is too depressing. I continue to work virtually full time, and walk the dogs, and listen to music. Last night we watched all the repeats of Extras to try and cheer ourselves up.

4th September

today she died
her voice muted
as is her smile
buried are her odd sayings
almost lost now
recollections rusty
memories musty
not easy to connect
an hour, day, week
when she was near,
she is dead
and now it is as if
she was never here

Annie Elliott 

Ann's new poem is a tribute to her mother, for yesterday marked the anniversary of her death in 1976, so long ago, yet never forgotten. The poem stands, surely, as a testament to all our parents and the friends we have lost. Though memories fade, the trace of the person exists through Ann and MA, the granddaughter Violet never knew, and beyond them through MA's daughters, and before Ann the ancestors we have traced back on the female side for so many generations.

On a lighter note, Edwin left for Italy yesterday for a week in the sun at Naples. He is going Airbnd to an apartment they have rented with a garden roof terrace, where they plan to have cocktails. Because he and Alice will be self-catering, he took a huge packet of gluten-free spaghetti in his luggage. Surely taking pasta to Italy must be the modern version of taking coals to Newcastle.

I get my crown

Yesterday we saw another three camper vans, and for the first time actually drove them. Two were very rough. The third was in good condition, but has had thirteen owners! We don't know why, but it doesn't sound good that it has had such a rapid turnover by so many people.

Back at work today. Being at work does diminuish my image as Earth Father, but if we can eventually find a camper van,  Ann promises to decorate the van with hippie images, and I will be able to work in remote places, and dress the part. Perhaps then I will wear the laural wreath crown.

I had to break off for a dental appointment to have the crown fitted. It has all been measured up, and Dr Singh had a pretty plaster model of my teeth with the new crown sitting on it to show how it fits and lines up with the other teeth. He lifted it from the model, slapped on some glue, and pushed it onto my stump. Job done. Now I have a brand new spanking white tooth among the old yellowing ones, but it feels very smooth and comfortable. Surely the future is not so far ahead but we will be offered new replacements for all our bits that break or drop off – a wonderful thought indeed, though perhaps it will come too late for me.

Hawk strike

NATURE NOTE: In Florida, cousin Ann has texted to say she's fled to her daughter's in New York to escape Hurricane Dorian. Looking through the window, Edwin saw a large bird of prey swoop suddenly onto our lawn and seize a small bird. After a brief struggle, it flew off with the bird in its talons, leaving but a small circular crown of feathers. Outside the window, Ann spotted a dead mouse in the Ladies' Garden, which had the tell-tale tooth marks of a cat in its neck. Death seems to be closing in round us tonight - a sure sign to batten down the hatches and sit tight through the storm ahead.

The Earth Father

Getting the ticket early in the carpark, I used their toilet block. As I closed the door, piped music started and a recorded voice whispered: "Welcome to this toilet facility. This toilet is protected. You have fifteen minutes available until the alarm sounds. You will be warned when your time is up." The music continued, an insistent beat that slowly increased in tempo and frenzy as I struggled to complete before my position was broadcast to the outside world. It was unbelievable pressure.

Ann rarely has breakfast, so I ate alone - except for four German visitors, big in stature so they overhung their seats, and loud in voice and clothing, filling the room with their strident talk. When they finally left, a woman on the table next to me said, "Isn't it quiet?"

Ann at Glastonbury Abbey

Afterwards, we visited the Glastonbury Abbey ruins, the legendary site of the tombs of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. The whole area was so quiet and peaceful even with traffic on all four sides of the walls. I bought Ann a figure for her room I called Gandalf, but was assured it was really Merlin. Ann is more Arthurian than Lord of the Rings, and in Glastonbury I was clearly out of place to bring up a rival to the mystic throne.

Waiting for Ann later in the Excalibur Cafe, I ordered a latte, forgetting that it is a vegan cafe. "Would you like hemp milk in that?" the barista asked. I made the mistake of choosing to experiment. If ever you are asked to choose hemp milk, take the coffee black. It tastes like old hemp rope, rough and unpalatable, and left its vile presence for the remainder of the day.

Glastonbury

Freedom,
is a Glastonbury wind
fuelling lost
hippie daydreams,
a magical mystery
brought from Arimathea,
Arthur with Guinevere
tables we all sit round
and, an awakening
touching souls
scarred by pain
cauterised
to soar again

Annie Elliott 

I have decided that, in the pantheon of legend, I am the Earth Father, though Ann says I am more like the Earth Grandfather. In this guise I sought a new leather belt to replace my cracked and fraying old one, but most of the shops in Glastonbury are so ethnicy and vegan that they shun leather goods, preferring to deal in wool, hemp and cotton. I did discover one leather shop, though their belts were standard plain leather and buckles rather than anything reflecting my new image. Needs must, however, before my pants fall down.

The Chalice Well

Vesica piscis cover at the well head

Glastonbury never fails to show a different face on every visit. At breakfast in the George and Pilgrim I suddenly remembered mid veggie sausage that I hadn’t paid the car park fee, due at 9:00. It was now 9:40. Ann went out with my purse and sure enough the warden was standing before the car writing down my number. Ann worked her magic and the warden even advised which machine to use as the nearest was broken! If I’d gone out I know I would have annoyed him and the ticket would have been enforced vigorously.

Yesterday we made our pilgrimage to the Chalice Well. Normally a place of quiet sanctuary and reflection and total peace, this time it had an air of busy worldliness. In part, this was because of the August holiday with many extra visitors and children running about splashing in the water, but partly too from a sense of change in the atmosphere. Some tents and marquees were up in the grounds, reflecting some secular use, while at the well head, usually the sanctuary of sanctuaries whose vesica piscis well-cover dates from 1919, some guy was doing a karma routine that included picking off flower heads to pull the petals and lay them in circles round his wooden beads. One white one had seven petals, interlaced with another flower's five pink petals, leaving a gross asymmetry. Someone had also fixed two old sweeping brushes wired to a branch above the well head, whose purpose I could not fathom.

Despite the distractions, there are quite sanctuaries with time for contemplation there. I had bought Ann a ring earlier in the day. Suddenly while sitting in a hidden nook away from the noise, some engraved writing became visible. We hadn’t been able to see it earlier in the shop or the sun.

The Cascade and Pools with Ann 

There too a stange dream was broken. I had dreamt of a mammalian bird giving birth to an egg, with an umbilicus emerging from the vulva to give life to the now external egg. Suddenly as we sat beneath the cascading red waters, Ann said "from here, that does look so like a vulva with its red-coloured slit. Sure enough, emerging from the slit the water flowed down a channel towards the  Vesica Piscis pools with their strange overlapping egg shapes, completely like the dream I had had.

Jerry the barber

We both had our hair done in Glastonbury too, unusually. Ann's included a gentle, relaxing head massage. I had an old-fashioned haircut, a simple short-back and side job with Jerry the barber. The place was decorated with pictures of motorcycles and curvatious blondes, and Jerry was covered in tattoos, and talked about his love of old American cars which he built into gleaming show-stoppers. I mentioned I'd been to Cuba, and it was as though I'd been to Mecca, for his dream was to visit there.

Glastonbury

Deja Vu

Walking in ancestors' footsteps
treading familiar paths
in a deja vu dream ‒
a fog-like haze of memory
that comes not from experience
but a collective unconscious
whistling on a breeze
finding its home in a whisper
a quiet mumbling
and silent recollection
of  an accustomed scene

Annie Elliott 

I am taking four days off work! Our first proper break for a while, and we're off to Glastonbury to stay at the George and Pilgrims' for some ethnicy peace. A 15th Century Inn, it was built originally for pilgrims to Glastonbury Abbey, though this was long since ruined under the "Reformation". The Inn doesn't take dogs, and with Ed away to present a paper to the British Association of Victorian Studies in Dundee ("Red-brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blots of smoke": The Renewal of he Gothic in the Railway Space of the 1860s), we have Rae and Malcolm staying over to mind the animals.

The day started badly when I broke a wine glass which splintered to every corner of the kitchen, taking ages to clear up, but finally the last shard was cleared. The dogs always fret when they see the cases packed, but Rae and Malcolm came on time and the dogs were delighted to see them. We went via the A303 hoping to see Stonehenge, but a few miles down it Ann decided we should see another camper van at Burnham-on-sea, so the sat-nav redirected us north to the M4 and Bristol. On the way came the breaking news that Boris Johnson has prorogued parliament. It only adds a week to the time parliament would be shut down anyway for the three-weeks of conferences, but you'd think from the urgent howls of protests that Johnson was cutting all contact with the continent! The opposition say he's stopping time to debate the issues - but they've been debating them for three years, and we're fed up with it.  One MP even claimed she'd made a special study of German politics and the rise of dictatorship. She was virtually calling Johnson another Hitler - it's unbelievable. We are delighted he's got the guts to go for it and get on with it.

A Norfolk Wherry Ale Van
on the road before us

Finally we reached Burnham-on-sea which looked a miserable place, with many glum faces, and a so-called pier that is an insult to a stump. The persistent rain didn't help, and the Camper Van was in poorer condition than the older version we had first seen in Suffolk.

HOT NEWS: My many readers have mentioned that they couldn't post comments to this blog. Though no bad thing in general, I like to listen to what others think, and I believe I have now fixed the comments button so it works! Please feel encouraged to use it as appropriate.

Bin day is sheep day in Hundon

We had our other two grandaughters overnight. Ann asked about one of their school friends. "Oh, she died..." they started to say, to great gasps of horror. "She dyed her hair," they added, completing the story. "She had red hair, but was bullied so much about it that she's dyed it brunette now." Yet another sad tale to add to the-tormented-life-of-gingers. One would think that schools ought to consider prejudice against hair colour every bit as demeaning as prejudice against skin colour, but they don't. For some reason, they seem to think it isn't real prejudice, or these children "can take it".

Putting the bins out

The behaviour of our neighbours has reminded me what sheep we all can be. Our dustbins are emptied on Tuesdays, so last night I put ours out, although no-one else in the road had, making me wonder if they would be collected a day late because of the Bank Holiday Monday. Later that evening, I noticed that everyone on the road had put theirs out too. This morning, everyone on the road still had full dustbins; clearly they had been right and I wrong, but they all copied me! More fool them.

My car is due its 80,000 miles service, so I thought I would treat it to the real deal and phoned Jaguar at Cambridge (our nearest dealer now) to book an appointment. You'd think just booking a service would be a sinch. I was put on hold, but gave up after 20 minutes. I then tried to book the appointment on line, as they boasted this was easy. It was not. The web site would not let me progress beyond entering my car reg, so I gave up on that too. Finally I booked with Suffolk Trade Centre up the road, who sold me the car. Charlotte, their super-efficient receptionist, answered the call on one ring and the car's booked in for next week.

On a lighter note, Sam told us about a plumber mate of his who regularly takes Friday afternoons off. A while ago, he had had a tattoo put on his arm, but the tattoo artist wasn't open at weekends so he went on Friday afternoon. Once he had the first one, he became addicted to them, and now has a body covered in tattoos, always taking Friday afternoon off from work then coming in on Monday to reveal his new addition. He used to go to a tattoo parlour on Mill Road in Cambridge, but Edwin told us it has recently burnt down - the second place there to do so. We immediately wondered if this was intentional arson; perhaps the Peaky Blinders have moved up market and started to practice their protection rackets in Cambridge.