I hear no bell

Ask not for whom the bell tolls - it tolls not for thee. About two years ago, I fitted new wireless doorbells to the front and back doors, each with a different tone, and with a shiney white plastic box that plugged into the mains. About two months ago, they both stopped working, so this weekend I decided to treat them to new batteries. There was one problem though. When I searched for the bells, they had disappeared. Someone had taken them out and hidden them - there is no other explanation. Ann and I searched every shelf and cupboard, and behind the books in the hall where the bells had been, but discovered nothing. Neither of us have taken them out, and we can't think of anyone else who might, or any reason for their going, but it did explain the lack of functioning bells in the house.

With the intention of cutting our losses and starting afresh I bought two more bells from B&Q, and fixed the first one to the front door. It didn't work. It works perfectly in my room, but never when it's screwed to the wall, so I gave up and tried the second bell. Again it worked perfectly from anywhere in the house when I carried the bell push about, so I screwed the backplate in place, pressed the bell push home, let go, and it fell off! The little plastic tag that clips it in place was broken off, so there's no way to fix it. So this afternoon, I went back to B&Q to buy some glue and a simpler bell. Now I just have to wait for the rain to stop, and in the meantime hope visitors will use the knocker.

Winning and losing

Ann had a day in London yesterday to meet her friend Sylvia. They meet in the M&S bridge cafe of the Westfield Centre where they can chat for three hours over a cup of coffee. Ann thought they ought perhaps buy a second cup, but Sylvia never wants two, so they make it last. They are not the worse offenders though: some people were on their laptops over a cup of coffee when they arrived, and were still there when they left. It is rather hard on the cafe when it's lunch time, and some people come to eat but can't get a seat. But not so bad as one pair Ann noticed, who bought a cup of coffee then proceeded to eat their own sandwiches from a Gregg's carrier bag.

Sylvia is a tiny woman from the far north of England. She always dresses elegantly and – though in her seventies – is as energetic as a woman of half her age, and always able to cap a story with another. When finally they went shopping (or more accurately, looking at all the clothes that wouldn't suit them), Ann mentioned she has to be careful because of her 'fat legs'. Ann's legs are not fat, but it is something she has always been self-conscious about. Sylvia immediately replied that she's always been self-conscious of her skinny legs ever since a teenager, when a boy told her: "the last time I saw legs that thin was when I was putting rings on my pigeons!" Sylvia has lived in London for most of her life, but quite apart from any debate about leg size, this sets her firmly in the North. What teenager in the South East would keep pigeons?

We rose early to watch England lose the world cup. After their brilliant win against the All Blacks last week, we looked for miracles, but you can only play the best game ever once, and it looked as though everything had been used up with that magnificent win. The Springboks ran rings round them, and certainly deserved their win. What sort of sportsmanship do England show though, when they refuse to wear their silver medals? For most of those players, being second best in the world is likely to be their best ever life experience, and they spurn it! Wales or Scotland would have loved to be second.

 "For when the One Great Scorer comes

To mark against your name,

He writes - not that you won or lost -

But how you played the Game."

Their attitude is diabolical, and a miserable example to the rest of the country, but fully in line with the modern attitude which seems to not accept that life has runners-up, and we can't all win everytime. It used to be enough to take part - play up, play up, and play the game! Now, it is accepted that to lose is to become yet another remoaner.
To add to today's loss, Middlesbrough lost against Derby, their eigth loss in a row! Now there's a loss we can moan about — wouldn't the Boro love to be second in the league right now.

Hairy tales

At the hairdressers for a tidy and a trim with Julie. She does a very good head massage, and could probably make a good living doing that as a side-trade. I appologised for the horrible scurfy rash in my scalp, but she kindly said "bits in the hair are no problem unless they move!" She entered hairdressing late, having worked as a manager with M&S for years, but her second husband was a hairdresser, and she started working with him as a manager until someone offered her training for her NVQs in hair styling. She was usually mistaken for a teacher rather than a pupil, and one of the girls in the class had just left school, and had been in the same class as Julie's son. I never before realised how much hairdressers had to learn beyond the wash and cut. She had to take written exams on the chemicals and allergies, on health-'n-safety, and on recognising infestations. Hence her insouciance at a mere bit of dandruff. But she was excused the maths course because she had an 'O'-level in maths.

In the chair opposite, I could hear another client boasting to one of the other hairdressers, "I've been letting my hair grow. I haven't been to the hairstylists for years." The hair was down nearly to the shoulders, and coloured bright yellow blonde. The hairdresser started combing it back. "You've been having a snip at it, haven't you!" she accused her.

Happy birthday

Happy 25th Birthday Edwin

Last night we celebrated Ed's 25th birthday. Edwin had just come back from Haworth the night before, cycled to the station to catch the 7am train to Norwich where he was teaching all day, and finally cycled back to their flat in Cambridge at 7pm to get ready, so we couldn't eat before 8pm, and we had the restaurant to ourselves. But a very good meal, and a pleasant time for all. Carluccios even took our birthday cake to light the candles and bring it round with plates and cake forks for all, and provided a free bottle of wine! The food and choices are excellent, so we hope they don't go under like so many of their rivals.

Families at war

Families at war
not thinking of consequence
just fighting for the upper hand,
not the higher ground
but bittersweet revenge,
and the innocent are crushed
as in any military conflict
left in a bloodless coup
behind a barbed wire barrier
that nothing can break through

Annie Elliott 

On Saturday, we'd had a different meal - a takeaway Chinese delivery - with Rae+Malcolm and Robin+Yvonne. They are all good friends, and honest with themselves and each other, generating a remarkably open atmosphere where discussion flowed freely and problems in families and politics could be aired without taboo or censorship, or coming to blows. Between us I think we put the world to rights, and it is always relaxing to be able to talk without too much concern in case the other party takes umbrage. Ann, as always, sums up our several family conflicts and problems with a pithy poem. She always speaks to a far wider audience than her immediate circle, for her poetry has a universality that captures human frailty everywhere, without boundaries of time or place, and she has a large and international following on her Wordpress site.

Hospital visits, then and now

A busy week keeping the Health Service employed with two visits.
The first to the respiratory laboratory to breathe hard into pipes and tubes, all recorded on modern screens with hidden computers calculating tidal volumes and expiratory rates. Nothing dramatises the huge change in modern medicine since I was a student, when we breathed into moving cylinders that recorded our breathing by scratching a line on a carbonised piece of paper, which we fixed by spraying with hair lacquor.
Second to a dermatology clinic, where I stripped to expose the extent of my dreadful rashes. They are now my greatest torment, keeping me awake at night, and even waking me with their terrible itching, so I wake scratching and bleeding in the bed. It is a monster that has taken over my body, demanding attention and grabbing me by the skin on any part it fancies, leaving wheals and sores. It is an embarrassment to myself and my family as I desperately battle against the temptation to poke and rub. In company, I end up sitting on my hands, or suruptitiously pinching myself hard to distract from the pain of the irritation.  The consultant was sympathetic fortunately, and has prescribed some stronger cream and an antihistamine to ease the irritation, plus an appointment to the allergy clinic in case there is anything obvious causing it within my environment.

St Thomas Hospital Nightingale Ward

Ann has found a series of old black and white documentaries from the film archives, and showed me one on the health service in 1958, 10 years after its foundation. It was fascinating to watch, but apart from the equipment, little seems to have changed. Then as now there was a strange rivalry between the GPs and the hospital consultants; a gaggle of trainee doctors followed on the ward rounds, with little hope of becoming consultants themselves;  and still there was bed blocking by the infirm elderly, and a desperate plea for more money and hospitals to cope with the backlog. People say it is the envy of the world, but in that case, why has no country in the world adopted it themselves? Perhaps they prefer to pay for private care, or go through the strictures of insurance claims. Or perhaps, like so many in the USA, they prefer to die untreated, rather than suffer the indignity of anything that smacks of socialism or care by the state.

Holidays at home and abroad

Rosie and Matts prepare a spread

This week is hard, as we are looking after MA's animals while they are on holiday, which requires us to visit three times a day to deal with fish, hens, guinea pig and dogs. However, Matthew and Rosie are on holiday too this week, and came down from Kings Lynne to prepare a fantastic spread for us. They have begun special diets and shared them with us, using vegetarian and gluten-free ingredients to prepare a magnificent curry with rice, noodles and special vegies. They brought, prepared and cooked everything, and even cleared away fully afterwards. We are indebted!

For ourselves, we have chosen a New Year holiday to try and make up for the holiday we lost last year, when our lives were interrupted by my radiotherapy. Hopefully this year will run more smoothly, and we will have a long, warm break in a foreign city where we can chill out and forget work and worries for a while. Here's to Singapore and a great New Year.

Shopping in Birmingham and London

Kurdish anti-Turkish protests

Cutting through the grounds of the cathedral in Birmingham this weekend, we found ourselves attached to a large and vocal protest. The Brummie Kurds were making their protest against the Turkish invasion of Syria and brutal massacre of the Kurdish population there. They were shouting in Kurdish, working each other up with repetitive chants of hatred, culminating in burning the Turkish flag to great cheers. Later, Ann took me through the world's biggest Primark where I was easily persuaded to buy a Peaky Blinders cap (minus the razor blades).

Next day we travelled to my brother and sister-in-law's house to see them and their children, plus our great-nieces and nephews. We went via the old Coventry Road, to pay homage to Ann's childhood home. We stopped for a drink at the old police station, now a pub called The Old Bill and Bull. Ann recalled the last time she was there as a teenager, after her younger sister ran away from home and ended up in the care of the police.

Ann at The Old Bill and Bull

At Richard and Chris's, we were able to meet Ben and Kaz and Luke, as well as R&C's side of the family, so it provided a good get-together. Next day, we came to London for one night in preparation for my meetings next day. Tired of eating out, we decided to make a picnic in the room, so visited Marks and Sparks foodhall, where I waited to pay while Ann disappeared to visit a few shops. In the queue ahead of me, a man was arguing with the girl on the till about the cost of the items he'd bought. He had seven items, and the bill was £7.30, which didn't sound excessive to me, though I don't know what he bought. The till girl was young and pretty, but completely unable to speak. She rang the bell to summon the supervisor, then wrote down in laborious capitals the customer's complaint, for her supervisor to deal with. She gave me a soft complicit smile, then checked me through as the supervisor patiently went through the other man's seven items, pointing out the correct price of each until he agreed it was correct.