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".