Helpfulness, hysterics and hindrances

Hudgies in Clare

Hudgies is a general store in Clare that bills itself as "Ironmonger, Oil & Colourman." It is set out like a period piece in some historic street museum, but is very much alive and thriving.  I have yet to ask for something Mr Hudgie does not have somewhere in the dark recesses of his inner sanctum (I always think of him thus, though it is not his name). He was once a high-flying fund manager with HBSC, based I think in Tokyo. Many people I know who made their money and retired early used to dream of running a small country pub, but this shop was his dream, and he plays the part to perfection. He wears a faded brown cotton warehouse coat that would be a shoe-in for Open All Hours, and he has a small black dog curled up in a basket beside him, perched on a stool.

This week, I asked if he had any glue capable of fixing the hard plastic of our fridge door handle which had broken off. He produced a tube called "Hard Plastic Glue" - and it seems to work a treat. I also asked about the best way to stop my leaky kitchen tap. "Vaseline on the washer", he advised, and didn't even try to sell me a tub. That too seems to have worked, and thus far the tap stays dry.

Ann's cousin Alan is staying with us again for a few days. He is the founder member of SAD, the Society for Acrimonious Divorce, and was back in the UK for a court appearance to try and finalise his divorce to Iris, the Trinidad women to whom he has remained shackled for two painful years since their separation. In court last week, she broke down in hysterical screams and shouts, lying on the floor, her midriff exposed, kicking her legs wildly. The judge tried in vain for fifteen minutes to calm her, then called the usher who was equally unsuccessful, and the proceedings came to a halt until she had burnt through her fury. At last, Alan got a relatively favourable judgement, and is hopeful that the whole miserable business will soon be concluded. He has vowed never to remarry, and we are sworn to remind him should he look to be straying from this vow.

We also had a few friends over for an informal wine and cheese evening. Most of them we invited verbally, with a telephone call. I invited our neighbours across the road personally when I met the husband in the street. After some debate about whether it would be appropriate, we also invited our next door neighbour, Linda, whose husband is still confined to a nursing home following his stroke. I had not seen her face-to-face for a while, so dropped a card in with the invite. When she came, she told us the other neighbours would not be coming, because they had not had a formal invite. I said no one had a formal invite; it was all quite last minute; she got one because I didn't see her. Ann asked how they knew. "I went over to ask if they were coming," Linda said. "My card was so pretty, I showed it them and asked if they had had one." She paused. "Oh, I hope I didn't stir things." 

Buying a motor-home (2) and (3)

On the domestic front, the kitchen tap had developed an annoying drip, so I replaced the valve with a spare I had. Now the drip has stopped, but it has started to leak from the handle and is drenching the draining board. I have sent for another valve, and hope that will finally cure it.

Overheard in Sainsbury's this morning, a father told his son he had "big ideas". The boy answered without hesitation, "When I was little, I had little ideas. Now I'm big, I have big ideas!" He was only about five, but is clearly going places.

Shopping has never been my favourite sport, but today I find the going heavy and am glad of the trolley to lean on. I seem to get tired too easily. and was glad to lie on the bed for a short while when we got back. We looked at Mobile Homes and caravans on Wednesday and again yesterday, but we still can't decide which we want. Some friends steer us one way towards the vans, but then another group say I'll never manage a caravan. Most of them are very tat or very expensive.

Ann's hairdresser in Clare is one of the clumsiest people we know. She invariably slips with the spray and drenches Ann's top, to the point where Ann deliberately puts on older clothes to visit her. Ann asked if she had ever nicked anyone's ear. "Oh yes, a few times," she said. "Once I cut part of the lobe off. It didn't half bleed." This time, she told Ann her father had fallen off a ladder and fractured his collar bone. It must run in the family. She also mentioned a Camper Van her husband's friend had converted himself. He bought an ordinary van for about £500 and put a mattress and primus stove in the back. He successfully toured France in it, and brought it safely back.

Filling a role

Ann has gone to Cambridge with Mary-Ann and the girls, on a shopping spree. Thus left, I continue with writing my new short story, and get my own lunch. This invariably comprises gorgeous Italian plum tomatoes on toast – a simple, tasty and nourishing meal that I take with unhealthy salt and lashings of butter melting into the toast. If Cameron and George Osborne had threated a shortage of Italian tomatoes as part of their scare tactics to frighten us into Brexit, it might have had some effect. As it is, though tempted to stockpile by buying a dozen tins at a time, I will ride out the storm. Let them do their worst: I am sure Italian tomato farmers will be only too pleased to reopen their trade links to a country where their produce is truly appreciated.

On a scale of one to ten, my acting ability is close to zero. I cannot remember lines or act in character of dialect, and to see me tread the boards would be the dread of any audience. Yet somehow, placed in any situation, I have a wretched tendency to assume the role of the moment. In Yorkshire, Scotland or Ireland, I lapse into a pseudo patois as though a native striving to sound false. In business, I wore an ancient suit that might have served some local councillor on a bad day. As a sailor, I loved to strut the decks in my nautical cap, issuing orders with the nautical language I was keen to master. As a manager, I issued instructions without consultation or any real expectation that they would be followed, and as a country doctor, I wore tweed jackets and pretended to a knowledge and certainty I could never possess.

Now I am officially a cancer victim and doing little paid work, I see myself lapsing into the role of retiree: shuffling about, lying under a blanket in my chair, drinking hot milk and going to bed early as though willing myself to be a caricature of an old man. At least I am aware of this failing; now I must resolve to do something about it, to pull myself back from this brink and take on some new challenge. I will keep my eager readers abreast of how this turns out, but in the end only they, as external observers, can really comment on my progress or decline. I have made a start to be both more energetic and more creative. I have cut the lawn (a small lawn but requiring vast reserves of energy on my part), and I have started a new short story. All my stories, and many of my poems, came in dreams, and for this one too I woke in the night at about 2 a.m. with the story complete in my head, and immediately went to the computer to capture it. I know from experience that, left till morning, it would fade and be forgotten.

Put this diseased rabbit out of its misery

Lying in the dark, I hear the soft whooshing in my ear of each pulse beat. It is reassuringly in a regular sinus rhythm, not too fast, though probably a harbinger of blood pressure, stenosis or aneurysm, thus does the mind work at this early hour. The incessant tinnitus has eased and it is the only night sound above the gentle snores of Ann, for the birds are not yet singing, nor is Sunday traffic out. I leave my snug bed for the inevitable call of nature, breaking my sleep each night. It is like an alarm clock and the most reliable part of my body. Thus the strident sounds of age do greet the day.

A friend of Edwin's has decided they don't wish to be addressed by either gender, he or she being too restrictive. I am not sure if they wishes to be addressed in the plural as "they", or in the truly gender-neutral of "it". Ann thinks they have a good point, though. She believes gender constructs are purely of human origin, and we'd all be better off if everyone were neutral: just "people", with no differentiation by gender, race or religion. I can see her point, but carried to its logical conclusion, names and modes of dress would equally become neutral. We should meet people as equals, and address them in purely neutral terms. We could make friends without knowing anything of anatomical gender, and if we chose partners, we might not discover their gender until they shared our bed. Books like Men are from Mars, Women from Venus might be retitled Some are from Mars, Others from Venus. It makes for an interesting concept.

I try not to comment on Brexit, but occasionally the anger bubbles up like an erupting volcano. Our government is running in circles like a tormented rabbit infected with the parasitic virus of myxomatosis, screaming with pain. Our only hope now is that the EU will put a gun to its head and take it out of its misery. Now I am angry enough to have joined the new The Brexit Party, the comeback party of Nigel Farage. It will almost certainly lead nowhere and peter out, but I feel impotence in any other protest at the moment. Even the Labour party meetings I have attended refused to discuss it.

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Please send a comment if you have opinions about the new Brexit Party, or wish to join the gender-neutral debate.

Mail comments to: grandad.john@2from.com

Buying a motor-home (1)

It should have been easy - the brief was to go online and find a few local places that sell second-hand motor-homes - but it was never more difficult. The old jalopy that I drive sits under a great maple tree and is regularly encrusted with bird excrement (I am being polite for this blog). Therefore first thing this morning, I went to the local carwash to spruce it up ready for the day's jaunt. The carwash started its splash routine, jerked into life, then promptly stopped. I waited a few minutes, but was reluctant to open the door in case it suddenly started again, so drove out to park up. I went back into the shop to report it, but the man said, "you shouldn't have driven out!" I pointed out that in that case, they should have clear directions pinned up about what to do when there's a machine failure.

But back to our search for a motor-home. We specified within a radius of 30-50 miles, but still they come up in Devon or Aberdeen. We specified a certain price band, but invariably they hope one can stretch the budget to meet their prices, usually double our price limit. Finally we narrowed the search to four places in Suffolk. The first specialised in caravans and had only one motor-home, beyond our budget. The next two were either new sales, or very pricey, nearly new vans that were gleaming monstrosities, far bigger and dearer than we want. The last place boasted a family business in continuous operation for 45 years at the same site in Stowmarket. The sat-nav first led us to a caravan park near by, which we trudged round in the cold drizzle, but it had no vans for sale. When we finally tracked down this wonderful Stowmarket site, it had gone into receivership and closed down. Someone had entered a comment that we only found later: "well why didn't you close down your website too!" Amen to that.

Yesterday, Ann and I bought me a new coat. It doesn't sound much to write about, but for me clothes shopping is always a major trauma, and I need Ann to coerce me and to help choose. As usual, I bought the first one I saw, which was more than I usually pay but is very smart. I immediately wore it and carried the old one away to dispose of. It was well quilted and not in bad condition, but it had grown a bit tight on me, and the zip had a habit of popping open sometimes when I bent down. Walking back to the carpark while Ann continued shopping for herself, I used a narrow alley that looked threatening even in the day. Wedged among the detritus between the large commercial dustbins was a nearly-new sleeping bag, doubtless hidden by some homeless person while he went begging, so I hung the coat up on the dustbin beside the bag for him to find. If he wants it, I hope it proves useful.

Good news

Grandad John Celebrates

Yesterday, after a week of fearful anticipation, I went in for my first follow-up cystoscopy. I had barely given my name to the receptionist when I was called in by the two young GU nurses and told to drop my pants and lie on the couch. They inserted the anaesthetic cream then – without giving it time to take effect – pushed up the fibre-optic cystoscope, inviting me to look at the screen and see for myself whatever they found up there. The pain is intense, though, like the largest needle inserted inside and poked about, so most of the time I had my eyes screwed shut and my fists tensed up. The news, however, was good - no sign of recurrence, and minimal residual inflammation after the radiotherapy! So I am a free man for another three months. This illness has divided our friends and relatives into two camps, those who came through and gave support and practical aid, especially to Ann when she needed it most, and those who didn't.

Selfie in the Bell as we celebrate

We went on to look at camper vans as a possible way of enjoying Britain on the cheap, then for a celebratory meal in the Bell that evening. At the next table was a family, two boys, their mum and the step dad. Only the man was talking through the whole meal, and I had my back to them, so didn't know the boys or the mother were there until Ann told me, once they'd left. The Bell has been nicely updated, with a reasonable though pricey menu. The food was tasty, but very rich and filling, leaving me bloated, with bouts of diarrhoea through the night. The penalties of rich living when too old to enjoy it; moral: enjoy it while you may.

Today, we went to see the newly released "Keeper", the story of an ex German POW, Bert Trautmann, who went on to be the first foreign player signed for Manchester City. It showed the depth of prejudice against the Germans after the war, which I well remember from my mother who hated the race. She was Lancastrian, where the film was set, but had spent four years as a nurse in Leicester Infirmary during the intense bombing of that city and Coventry, and knew at first hand the horrors brought by that war. The film brought out the usual negative reviews of the critics for an upbeat, romantic film, but we love what they call "cheesy" films, and enjoyed it, and the countryside and accents of post-war Lancashire brought back memories of the visits we made to my grandparents at that time.

Some family history

I delved a little deeper into our genealogy, and have uncovered my 5-greats grandparents: Paul and Ann Moorhouse, married in 1782. Ancestry continue to make more documents available on line, and this came from a photocopy of the baptism record for my 4-greats grandfather Roger Moorhouse, leading to the church marriage registers in Goodshaw Chapel near Rochdale. 

Edwin has a friend who works for a couple forever fighting. The wife is in hiding from the police for assault, and now the husband drove his Bentley into work - literally - crashing it through the wall of the office! His friend was lucky not to be in its path.

We've just heard news that the wife of our neighbour over the road has died. She had severe dementia and declined quickly, before being admitted to a respite home and getting pneumonia. Next door, our other neighbour remains paralysed by his stroke, and is still in care. Ann continues to write her deep, disturbing or moving poetry. She also writes humorously, though more rarely these days. I include "Unisex" because it amused - we need to lighten up a bit to take us away from the parlimentary wreck of the Theresperus.

Unisex

It won't be very difficult
to know who has gone before
as women wee on the seat
while men pee on the floor!

Annie Elliott