BUTTERFLY

BUTTERFLY 6th July ‘06

After lunch today Joy and I sat outside on the swinging sofa, I love sitting there, in any kind of weather; it's under the porch, and so vertical rain doesn't get you. The rain had stopped and the grass was dry. Suddenly, we were dive-bombed by a butterfly. I've been trying to get a photograph of one all year but they never stop in this garden; they fly through as if their very lives depended on it, so this one took us completely by surprise. It landed on the wheelchair and let me take loads of photos...even turned around in a complete circle for me. Then it flew on to the window frame and showed me its full wingspan from the back. After that it flew round and around me, landing on my skirt, then finally settled on Joy's hand. It stayed there for ages and allowed me to keep snapping away...it moved up to her arm and I continued. All the time the camera was only a couple of inches away; it wasn't bothered at all by the noise of the machine. I couldn't believe this beautiful creature. Why was it so tame? I wondered if it had escaped from a butterfly farm or something.

THINGS PEOPLE SAY 7th July ‘06

A friend of the family sent Joy a book with a great title, 'ALL IN THE END IS HARVEST', an anthology of writings and verse for those who grieve. There are some little gems in here...my favourite is: 'Look to this day!

...for yesterday is already a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow, a vision of hope...'
From the Sanskrit (author & translator unknown)

Thinking about the butterfly; some people will believe that it was the reincarnation of Peter - now he has joined the real people, the dead, he can have his real name - Gent will now be known as Pete.

FUNERAL

I moved to another blog for a while but didn't like it; trying to fit in some things from a later date.

WAITING

I imagine there's a queue...
perhaps a light flashes
when it's your turn...and
it must be worth it -
why else would we wait
with broken and worn bodies?
We do have time to stand and stare.

This man Pete waited and waited.
When he moved he creaked, like
an old grandfather wardrobe,
joints well past their sell-by date.
He'll be glad to march
into the next world, kneel
in that great garden, prune
a multitude of fruit bushes.

The people he leaves behind
will arrive on his new doorstep
one day, and he will down tools, laughing
'I've been waiting for you!' 

A FUNERAL

The funeral was the other day, Thursday, and it all passed without a hitch. Two days earlier, when we were cutting flowers for the florist, Joy had a little weep for the first time. She asked me when Gent was coming and I had to tell her that he had gone, that he was up there in heaven waiting for her. That was the first time it had really sunk in. So we both had a little cry and I wheeled her out to the garden so the others could share in the moment (the others being, the Australian contingent of the family).

She hasn't done anything like it since. She answered questions as if she knew what was going on, and that Gent was really dead and that this was his funeral, but there was no emotion. The funeral service was wonderful. It was done by the local vicar who had seen to Gent while he was in hospital, so he knew him pretty well; and a while ago, the church had got Gent to do a potted biography; everyone was riveted - what an interesting and worthwhile life he led. This was the first church service that I've ever enjoyed; there were a lot of deep silences, where you could spread out your mind, just meditate and relax into the wonderful atmosphere. He did this at the crematorium and the thanksgiving services. All the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren stood up to say something; there were lots of tears but all of them conquered their emotions to make us all smile and laugh at the funny stories and glimpses into the family life. I don't know how well Joy could hear; she has a huge problem with background noise, and seems very deaf, when she isn't normally.

When we left the church at Ottery St Mary, and stood outside, the bells tolled especially for Gent. The sun was beating down and people were patting shoulders and hugging, comforting each other, relieved that it was all over. Joy sat in her wheelchair, smiling and gracious with anyone who was brave enough to come over and re-introduce themselves. I think there was about 150 people there - he was well-loved, and a pretty important man in the area. He had an OBE and a CBE and the title of Brigadier, and he had done so much in his life for a great many people. He will be sadly missed. Joy is aware that there is something missing in her life, but not quite sure just what it is.

Well, now it's just me and Joy. The last of the family went home today and Joy immediately reverted to her usual bedtime, which is as soon as possible - half past six tonight, but she has had a wild time this past week. Some days I couldn't get her to have an afternoon nap, 'No, I don't want to leave all this,' she would say, 'I'm not leaving the party.' We'd finally persuade her a little while later. She is so stimulated when they are all around, but when it gets too noisy she wants to leave. This time last year she couldn't bear to have people in the room; she'd get up and storm off and I'd have to go after her; she'd be in bed with all her clothes on, even shoes. One of her granddaughters got very upset. Joy kept saying to me, 'Who are all these people, why don't they go?' But now she loves it all!

THE RAINY SEASON

I took Joy out in the garden today, to catch a breath of the lovely sunshine before the rain reappeared. It was a wonderful day; we were deluged with rain all day yesterday. Everything was thickly coloured, deep greens and reds, with a splash of yellow and the lilac nodding in the background. I'm going to practise creating a floral tribute for the thanksgiving service in the church; I want something from Gent's garden - he loved it. The weather is so changeable right now and we couldn't depend on getting the main arrangement from here, but there's no reason why we can't have a little something. I've never done flower arranging, but I'm sure I'll be able to create an attractive display.

When we were out there, Joy asked me when Gent was coming home; she wanted him to see his garden. I choked and put my hands on her shoulders, 'Oh sweetie, he's gone,' I told her. I couldn't get the lump out of my throat to say anymore. She does this every day and has to be told again and again, but even then....I don't think she actually believes us. It's not that it isn't sinking in; I think it's a case of her thinking that we're wrong and that he'll be alright, and will rally like he always does.

She's a lot better than she was last month; I think that all that hospital visiting every day had worn her out. I really thought that she was at Death's door, but now, she's not nearly so breathless when walking. I don't know how she'll cope with the funeral - which isn't till 8th June. Just the thought of all those people giving her sympathy and all that stuff; she won't understand. She doesn't even recognise the cards...thinks they're for a birthday or something.

ENTERTAINING

ANTS.....busy...busy...busy

We watched this little group, on our way down to the beach; they were working at the side of the wooden pathway through the dunes. There were three or four of them trying to move this big piece of wood, which would seem like a tree to them!

THE CATERPILLAR

There were loads of these in the scrub grass on the sand dunes. I love the tracks he made across the sand.

A WASHED-UP FISH

If I'd seen this fish die I might have taken it home to cook! It was just lying at the water's edge... the waves were trying to pull it back. The feet belong to Bouncer and Shouts At The Sea.

BANANNA SPLIT

I couldn't finish it! None of us finished what we ordered; the portions were huge. I just wanted the kids to be overwhelmed by ice-cream!

LULU AND HER SHOWERS....

And boy did we need one after a whole day in the heat of spain beneath a marquee with only open flaps as air-conditioning!

MY SPANISH FEET

I took my jewelled Spanish shoes over to Devon to amuse Joy. I sit in Gent's chair and raise the foot rest; she always comments on my feet. She loves these shoes and my blue-painted toenails.

COFFEE AND SHOWERS

Am in this pretty expensive net cafe; 1 euro for 15 mins, and it just clicks off when the time is up though it does give you a minute´s warning! We´ve been helping Lulu with the exhibition. Very busy, and loads of interest in the wonderful showers. I want one. I´m going to have one in my flat in Glasgow as soon as I can arrange it; as soon as I can afford it because I´ve spent it up this last 3 weeks - am scared to look in the bank to see just how much money I don´t have anymore! These showers have steam and whirlpool baths in some of them, and foot massage and music and you can answer your phone hands-free! They have all kinds of jets and rain shower and temperature control. I REALLY WANT ONE.

It´s been pretty hot here, and spending all day in a huge marquet tent is no picnic...and they don´t have coffee anywhere near! We took a kettle with us today and got one cup. When I went to make more later the electric wouldn´t let us; it goes on and off all day. And, apparently it can´t take the power of an electric kettle.

Well, gotta go...time´s up.

THE PASSING OF A GENT

Gent died a couple of days ago...just gently floated off in his sleep. He was in hospital; never got home at all. In the end he was too poorly to be moved. I´m back there on Monday night. Fi is better than I´d have expected, but we both had a little cry over the phone the other night. I find it really hard to talk on the phone at these times. I can talk face to face, usually with the odd choke and sniffle, but the phone just takes my voice away and I can only nod. The funeral will be next week so I´ll have to be there. Another one to add to my already long list.

RE-NAMING GRANDSONS

I spent all day yesterday watching movies on the DVD. There really is more than a bit of the hermit in me. Lulu was out with a nice man, so I had the house to myself all day and night.

At the end of the visit I came up with a new name for those two grandsons: No1 will now be known as BOUNCER because he upsets my equalibrium with all that movement. The other day he actually made me feel sick, and dizzy. No2 is now SHOUTS AT THE SEA; we had an hysterical evening last week as we walked along the shoreline...Bouncer raced way ahead of us but Shouts At The Sea was standing like a boxer, facing the water and roaring at it. I don´t know what he was shouting but it was fantastic. He shook his fists; a little 8 year old in a navy T-shirt and pants, facing the wild waves, and speaking his mind. We asked him what he was shouting but I´ve forgotten now.

It´s scorching today, people in the sea as we passed at 10am. We went to Santa Pola to buy nice bathroom goodies to dress the set for the exhibition at the weekend. Lulu´s got 3 shower units coming over tomorrow, so I think she´ll do well; nothing like real examples to encourage buyers. I thought smells would work on the senses so we got nice dishes to hold perfumed soaps and bath bombs, with pebbles and all sorts. Looking for bright blue towels now.

It´s Chris´birthday and we´re taking her out for a meal tonight as a surprise, to a great little restaurant up in Gran Alicant called La Palma; it does a wonderful Sunday lunch. The decor is modern, spacious and minimalist; very pleasant family-run place, and resonable prices. So, looking forward to good food, but it´s breaking into my hermit-time.

Lush is doing well; complaining about all sorts, but fine really. She might be out tomorrow, then it´ll be all hands on deck to look after her and keep her company. I know that I´m Lush-sitting on Saturday night, because Bitsy has to go back to see to her very sick dog and Bunny is working at the Santa Pola Palace. I promised I´d make her a curry and Chris is planning a cottage pie one day.

Poor old Bitsy; her dog is 15 and in very bad health. The vet thinks he might have a tumour in his leg and is doing a biopsy today. She and I went to Elche to see Lush yesterday and on the way back we saw a little cart pulled by a donkey, on the main dual-carriagway, but the driver was talking on a mobile phone! It just looked so strange; the old and the new world. I didn´t have the camera, and I was driving anyway. Something else happened that I said I was going to put in the blog but I can´t remember what it was now...must ask Bitsy.

Lulu and Chris are going to share a new house from next month, but I´ll keep ours on for June because Carrie is coming, and we´ll have more room, and there isn´t much time now to give the landlord proper notice - I don´t want to jeopardise my 2 months deposit! Now that it´s coming nearer I´m wishing in some ways to stay here, but I know that it´s time to move on. I´m just laying about here watching movies and reading. I really need to make myself work. I´ve been writing in my head this week and the novel has taken another battering; I´ve changed the format again! Will I ever get this bloody thing finished? Well, I might if I actually did any work on it.

Gotta go write now.

REPORTING FROM ALICANTE

I´m in the internet cafe in Alicante with Bingo and the boyz. A lovely hot day. Took them to the castle today, really just for a photoshoot. They loved it. What a fantastic view; 360º all around the city and the bay. Beautiful blue sea today, and clear enough for a good picture. Bingo was as nervous as Carrie when I took them up top; there´s just a low wall around and a drop of hundreds of feet. If that was Britain it would be railed and fenced off like a prison and you wouldn´t get such a clear view. It is stunning. I took them to see the huge, ancient yew trees (well I think they´re yew trees) with all the bits growing down as well as up and out. They look like old grumbly men wearing a multitude of robes draped across their arms.

The kids have had a wonderful time. They´ve done something different every day and watched a new DVD every night before bed, and they´ve been very well-behaved, for them. We´ve eaten out at least once every day and sat around the table every night on our terrace. Sometimes I just like to put pots of food on the table with spoons in so they can all just get stuck in. Got a great photo the other night of curry faces. Will post some photos when I get the chance to take the laptop up to the other internet cafe. Going to be busy helping Lulu with this exhibition she´s taken a stand with for next weekend. Busy helping her work out a logo and business postcards to give away.

My sister-in-law, Sid had her baby yesterday; another boy! I wanted her to have a girl. Never mind - one more man in the world. Lush had her operation on Tuesday and is doing well. I haven´t seen her, Lulu and Bitsy are going today. Bunny has been great; she´s done all the running about for paperwork and legal stuff, and she sat with Lush the whole day after the op, till late. I hope this heals their friendship; they were at loggerheads and barely speaking before this happened.

I called Fi last week and she said the hoist was there and that Gent was coming out on Monday. I´m sure she´d have called me if anything untoward happened.

Got to go catch the bus now, back to lovely Arenales. Bingo is desperate to finish her book. I finished mine last night; a great read. It was written by John Twelve Hawks, I think, might just have to check that...and is the first part of a trilogy, so I´ll be looking out for the next one soon.

THE ONGOING SAGA OF THE PASSPORTS

Poor old Bingo waited and waited for her passport but nothing happend. She called the Scottish office on Saturday and they said that the courier delivered up until 6pm. When it hadn´t arrived by 5pm she called them again and they put her through to the courier. He told her that he had her passport and would be with her before 8pm and to keep her phone on. They called her an hour later to tell her that they´d broken down! The van was on the back of a truck. But they assured her that they´d get it to her the next morning by 10am. She reminded them that she was travelling around noon!

Twenty minutes to ten, they arrive in a taxi. All is well, Bingo informs me. An hour later she calls me to ask what name I put on the ticket for No1 grandson. Wrong name! Í thought you were changing his name,´ I said. ´Couldn´t find a justice of the peace,´ she said. This is 3 hours before the flight! So I had to call the airline; it was too late to just change the name on the ticket so we had to cancel his flight and make a new booking. I only got 10% back on the old flight, but the new flight was actually cheaper than the original so I only had to pay out 28 quid. It could´ve been a lot worse. Again, this bloody trip is costing me a fortune!

No1 grandson is Bingo´s son, and has a different name from the others. But Toctoc has been his father since he was a tiny baby.

Well, they´re here and having the time of their lives. They loved the flight, and a woman gave them 10 euros between them because they were so good. She must´ve been on some of the flights I´ve experienced where loads of kids scream and cry thoughout the whole flight!

Me and Bingo got sunburnt on the beach yesterday; it was a bit cloudy and I was late putting cream on and I didn´t know if Bingo had creamed up or not; she had fallen asleep and got the back of her legs and shoulders burnt. The kids were fine because we creamed them up carefully before we left the house.

The kids played with the little surfboards, wearing their goggles and air tubes, and all the paraphenalia. They loved the water. I took them for gigantic ice creams later and took photos. Just uploaded them to the computer - Í took 75 photos yesterday alone! Got lots of action stuff on the swings and seesaw. I hate posing photos; I like to get interesting shots. Sorry I can´t post any; Toctoc doesn´t want his kids appearing on the net.

We were knackered last night and were off to bed before 11pm, and I think the kids were asleep almost immediately. I´m reading a book called THE TRAVELLER forget who wrote it, but am enjoying it, though it´s pretty sci fi on the physics side. Toctoc would love it, if he read novels. My poor old tired eyes wouldn´t let me go more than a small chapter last night. Bingo has picked up THE WRONG BOY by Willie Russel and is loving is. I loved it too and have been trying to get Lulu to read it for ages.

RANTING ABOUT THE PASSPORT OFFICE AND SMOKERS

Hola....the sun is shining again on spain! Lexy is leaving today so the sun has come back to apologise for the last week of awful weather and she´s grabbed a desperate hour on the beach. the car was like an oven, just the way we like it.

Bingo is bringing my two oldest grandsons out tomorrow. Passport problems abound; they should have got them done last year when I told them! (I haven´t worked out what I want to rename them so they are still N01 and No2) She had to pay fifty quid to upgrade N01´s passport and, travel down to Liverpool to collect it! So, his passport will have cost over one hundred and fifty pounds! And they were all fast-tracked by the post office! Bingo´s was supposed to be in Manchester getting printed, so hers is not here yet either; she called me ten mins ago, but I know that their postman doesn´t arrive till about now. I told her to go ask her neighbours if he´s been. What a farce. No2´s arrived over a week ago! This holiday is costing me a fortune.

We´re off to the quizz tonight in one of the ex-pat locals, Dick Turpin´s. Thursday night is darts night - men against women. The whole pub has to play, it´s great fun. The only thing I hate about it all is that these pubs are so small and the cigarette smoke so thick; I´m watching the clock, waiting till the entertainment is over so I can go home. The other night was pretty bad; even though windows and doors were open, I was surrounded by six smokers at my table alone. It was really hard to breathe all night and I was looking forward to leaving. So, after the darts I was watching the level of the drinks going down, and we´d been joined by a few friends. It was after midnight. I said it was time to go home but Lulu and Chris didn´t want to go. It had been decided earlier that I was driving, so Lulu was pretty pissed. She was urging me to stay for another drink, but by this time I was desperate to get out of there, so I said that I wanted to go home. I began to look like the party-pooper, there was silence and crumpled faces. Lulu took some of Chris´ beer. I told them that I couldn´t breathe, that I´d been watching the clock and really had to get out of there. I felt bad but I couldn´t stay. I then suggested that I might stay while they had another drink if they didn´t smoke...there was silence. Then Chris said that she didn´t want anyone telling her that she couldn´t smoke. I stood up then, and they had to follow.

I felt that they´d put me in an awful position. When you think about it; I´d sat, breathing their smoke for 3 hours but they wouldn´t sit in my non-smoking air for 5 minutes! I´m not imagining this...that is selfish. I spend a lot of time with smokers and never normally mind (whether I catch cancer or not) because that´s life. I´ve never given it all a moment´s thought. Smokers are selfish. These people are my friends; they profess to love me, but they apparently don´t give me, as a non-smoker, a moment´s thought - they won´t give up one cigarette for me.

GREETINGS FROM ALICANTE

Well, I arrived in spain to storms and the news that Lush has fallen and broken her hip! she´s in hospital in Elche. Lulu, Lexy and Bitsy met me at the airport. It was great to see Lexy; I haven´t seen her since last June - she´s so thin. She´s got a skinny arse, just like a bloke; no hips. We just went home and had a few glasses of wine and sat watching the lightening, trying unsuccessfully to catch it on camera.

Yesterday Lulu, Lexy, Bitsy, Chris and I drove through to Elche to see Lush. She was full of complaints. She´s got to get all the paperwork done before they can operate, and they´re a day behind on their list because of the Mayday holiday. So, it should be tomorrow; she´s on a morphine drip now and seems alright. She said, ´I must look a mess.´ I told her she looked okay and took a picture of her with my phone to show her, and she said, ´Christ I´m all double chins.´ I told her that I hadn´t taken the photo so she could say ´Do I look fat in this?´

We left Lush reclining in her traction and drove on to Guardamar to see the showroom that Lulu is setting up for her new business selling the fancy showers. Looking really good. Last time I saw it, in February, it was just a shell of a unit, just bricks and concrete. Now it´s got smooth walls and ceiling, a kitchen, toilet and beautiful shiny tiled floor. Lulu is almost a real business woman. We went next door to the lovely Chinese restaurant, THE WOK and had fab food. It´s a buffet and with the main course you fill your plate with the raw food, take it to the chef and he cooks it in the wok, with your choice of sauce; all fresh, hot and steaming. We couldn´t move afterwards. For sweet I had two icecreams...then Lexy came back with cheesecake, so I had to have some of that too!

Spent the rest of the night in bed with a movie on the laptop; THE COLDITZ STORY I got it free at WH. Smith. I had a lovely cup of Earl Grey tea and settled into my comfy bed...it was only 9pm! Lexy sat downstairs watching IT´S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

Raining this morning...well it has been and the place is full of puddles. Have just bought loads of fruit at the market; a little case of strawberries, melon, pineapple and oranges. I plan to be good, well for this week at least, though I keep having flashes of chocolate in my mind.

DECORATING THE NEW FLAT

What the hell am I doing? If I fall off this ladder I’ll break my neck, won’t be able to work and poverty will sneak in the back door. I like buying magazines without glancing at the £3.50 price tag. I like flying around the world when I feel like it…I like the fact that I have no idea how much my phone bill is! In one of my poor spells I couldn’t afford a 20p tub of margarine, and in another my children gave a round of applause when I put money in the electricity meter!

The paint promises to be Green Tea, and it is very soothing to spread, but I’m really stretching my limits trying to get it along the line of the ceiling considering that I’m only 5’2” and the height of the room is about 2 miles. When I get to the window I’m terrified that I’m going to crash out and land on some poor old woman, just popping out for her pension, so I take a few hours off and have another go after dark; it won’t matter if I flatten a teenager…well it won’t matter to me, though somebody must love them. I want to leave this room at least half-finished before I jet off back down to Devon in my £200 car, and that has to be cleaned out first. I came up here for a rest and can’t get a minute to visit a museum or art gallery for grandchildren and scrapbooking. Actually, I tell a lie; I did pop into town the other day and visited the Museum of Modern Art…and what a load of total CRAP; nothing but dull and uninteresting installations , and no photographs and, they’ve taken out the bicycle clock. I wouldn’t mind if they’d replaced it with something good. I slipped across the road to the art shop and bought some scrapbooking supplies - I think I might have passed the £100 mark by now. I also fell into WH Smith and bought a couple of scrapbooking albums that were on sale. Amazing bargains.

Again I wonder what the hell I am doing, wandering around the world, homeless, rootless when I’m fast approaching sixty, and then I think, I’ve got years to sit doing nothing in some old-folks home, maybe. And then I think, well I’ll just get them all doing arty-crafty stuff and turn the place into a growing concern, selling artwork, greeting cards and performing poetry. I only discovered scrapbooking a couple of months ago and I’ve got everyone around me at it. Tomorrow, someone at the gastroenterology department in the local hospital is going to chuck a camera down my throat and check for inappropriate behaviour of my body against my body. So maybe I’m beginning to fall apart. I have been tidying out some of my life, trying to remember stuff and get it written down for my children. And I have got rid of a lot of junk, though I keep buying more.

Well, I’d better go take a pill so I don’t get acid reflux during the night, especially as I’m planning to eat sausage and eggs in a minute and it’s already after ten. I keep a huge cushion beside me on the bed in case I feel it coming on, then I prop myself up and go back to sleep. So if I eat late, I begin the night propped up, then when I wake up very early in the morning I can get rid of it and slide down into my nice pillows for a different kind of sleep. Sometimes I think I lead a completely different kind of life than everyone else in the world, then I realise that we all do; no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors…and we are all different. I should be happy with my lot, and I really am; I know that behind some of those doors lie worse than little women wobbling at the top of a set of ladders with a tin of Green Tea vinyl silk.

SUPER HEROES

I’ve only got one day to go now then I’ll be off to sunny Spain. I just had an email from  Lulu; that daft Lexy is over there and she’s lost her purse; apparently she and Bitsy were pissed in one – or more probably, a few of the local bars, and someone’s lifted the purse when she wasn’t looking….probably when she was lying in the gutter! She’s too blonde to be sensible.

Still no sign of the bloody hoist and, it’s Gent’s birthday on Wednesday; bank holiday tomorrow so it won’t be arriving then. Joy is very tired; her walking is pretty bad and she’s a lot more breathless when walking than even a few weeks ago. She did the knickers thing again last night. Fi is just going to love this report, and she’ll have to deal with Gent coming out of hospital now. It’s hard to tell just how he is; how long he’ll be around. He usually eats very well when he’s at home, and the one-to-one care really helps him rebuild…but he’s pretty wasted and thin and isn’t weight–bearing; so getting him back on his feet will be a hard job, and it might be that he’ll never get back up there. I hope he gets the summer anyway. And then again, maybe Joy will be the one to slip away first.

My really Scottish friends, Morag and Hamish, have just become grandparents for the first time, and they get a granddaughter right away. Morag has just got out of hospital on Tuesday; she’s got Crohn’s disease, and was in for four months this time. When I first started my travels, she was in a coma; this lasted for four months; it came out of an operation…so then after she woke up so miraculously, she got that flesh-eating bug and MRSA. In the end she was in hospital for about eleven months! I think it’s pretty evident that she is immortal, and cannot be killed. I should create a super hero costume for her.

AN EARLY NIGHT CALL

I walked into my bedroom tonight and heard the little voice on the intercom, ‘Help!’ I dived into Joy’s room; she was lying across the double bed, not hurt, but lost and scared, and wet. When I got to her I gave her a great big hug, and she had a little cry. She didn’t know what had happened, except that she was wet and getting cold. She’d taken off her underwear and pad (which was dry) and wet the Kylie mat on the bed. She said she didn’t remember taking off the underwear and she knew that she wasn’t supposed to get out of the bed. I moved her over to her commode, right beside the bed and changed her nightdress. I was making her laugh now, telling her that everything was alright and that she was a silly old bat. We laughed at that, and I gave her another lovely hug. I got a fresh Kylie mat and tucked her back up again, saying, ‘Keep your knickers on!’ I left her laughing to herself. She is such a sweetie; you just want to wrap her up in cotton wool; she’s like a little precious bundle, so delicate and fragile. I know she’s slipping away now; she is very breathless when she’s walking. Every morning I’m expecting silence to meet me when I go into the room to wake her up.

THINGS I'M NOT DOING

I finally finished Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and it was definitely not worth the hard slog. I will never read another of his books. I quite enjoyed the Karin Slaughter book. My friend Carrie read her first book, Blindsighted last year in Spain and got caught up; she read the sample chapter of the next book at the end and had to run out and find it….did the same with that one and had to run out again to get the next one! I didn’t love it that much, but it was alright; I mean she’s not Wilbur Smith or Bernice Reubens. I’ve got hold of a novel that was written about the Americans taking over part of South Devon to practise for the invasion, Operation Overlord. The people who really lived there, in five villages; three thousand of them, were unceremoniously, kicked out of their homes and placed elsewhere, while the army used real armaments. I’ve got right into it and will probably finish it in a couple of days, unless the telly gets me.

Musician is still in my flat, stinking it out, according to Amazon. Got to get him on the road to getting another flat. I let him stay in my old flat while I was travelling, before I gave it up; he bought a pellet gun and shot up my clock, photographs, the glass panels above the doors, windows and God knows what else…along with never cleaning it or taking out the rubbish. Just underlining the whys and wherefores of my seemingly cruel&unusual methods of handling my son’s up and coming homelessness.

Have managed not to have any chocolate or biscuits or eaten between meals in the last few days, but now I’m thinking of a cup of tea and a whole pile of bickies! Didn’t get on my bike either.

BACK TO BASICS

Well I did get out yesterday, on the 3.30 bus into Honiton. It was a beautiful day; sun shining quite hot…the bus full of school kids, all hustle and bustle. I decided to treat myself to some new clothes; there’s not much in the way of great clobber in Honiton (unless you want to spend a whole lot in the little dress shops) but there is a good cheap shop in the shopping centre. I got 4 tops, 3 skirts and a pair of flip-flops for £35. Some of them I couldn’t get in my size, so had to get the size below and hope for the best. They’re a bit tight but I’m thinking of going on my bike this week and not eating chocolate biscuits or cakes or anything between meals and drinking loads of water. So far so good. If I can keep it up for 2 weeks things won’t seem quite so tight.

I popped into W.H. Smith and found an art portfolio case reduced to £5.99…so I had to buy it at that price. Mine was either lost or stolen during my last house-move…with all my artwork in it! God, how many times in this life do I have to start over?

Very dull day today…so I’ll just get right back to my Karin Slaughter…not that it’s that great, but I want to know what happens next.

ART & LIT

Am in the middle of a Karin Slaughter thriller…haven’t gone back to Captain Corelli yet. Got quite a little stack of books here to read, but only a week left now so I won’t begin anything big, like ‘Wild Swans’ or the Umberto Eco. I’ve become a reader of anything in the past couple of years; when you live in a country where books in the English language are a little harder to get you don’t care about genre, practically anything will do to get your fix. One day I arrived in Alicante to find that my flatmate, Lulu, was reading the same novel, Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres…so we kind of raced each other. Actually, if it wasn’t for that I might’ve given up half-way through. I’ve read three of his novels now and every one of them does that; drives you out of it in the middle. I love history, but he’s doing something wrong, and I can’t just put my finger on it. I’ve never come across another novelist who falls into this trap.

I met Lulu on a TEFL course in Barcelona two years ago. I saved up to pay for the course by doing the work I'm doing now; working straight seven and eight weeks at a time, 24/7 with only a couple of hours off a day. I thought that I could work my way around the world teaching English (better than barmaiding it) but I had conveniently forgotten that I hate teaching! Also that I hate kids!

So, sometime in May 2004, I arrived in Barcelona to spend four weeks in really intensive study. Over the four weeks there were tears and tantrums from most students; we had people from, Australia, USA, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, including: Glaswegian, Mancunian, Barnsley, and God knows what else. The Pheonetic Alphabet class was hysterical; we just couldn't standardise our vowel sounds.

Lulu was the Barnsley Bird. We are exactly the same age, but she's still a party girl, so we didn't see a lot of each other at night; we were in different flats. I shared with Ausie Girl.

After the course ended I went back to work in Devon and began looking for teaching work. I always fancied working in Eastern Europe, so I got a job in Poland, in a little town in the north east called Elk. It was all very interesting, but, the thought of trudging through the snow to the school was not, and I didn't like the teaching methods they were using. Although I had seen a lot of evidence that it worked, it was intensely boring. I almost fell asleep observing my first two classes! I sent an email out to all of the group and told them that I was going to Spain to find a job. I got one back from Lulu, 'Come to Madrid. I've got a car and we can trawl the country looking for work. It'll be fun.' I went straight out and bought a flight to Madrid.

The next day an email arrived from Lulu to say that she'd got a job in Alicante. The strange thing is: I had already chosen Alicante earlier in the year, and had bought a flight which I then cancelled because I got the job in Poland! So, it looks like I'm supposed to be in Alicante.

SOMETIMES SEEING WONDERFUL

This is one of my favoutite photos. It was taken a couple of years ago on the east coast of Devon, maybe Torquay, just can't quite remember. I love the footprints and the uneven line of the cobblestones and the wall.

And on the right is the cropped image of a piece of seaweed. In reality this is a tiny little stub, sticking up from a great pile of the stuff lying across a rock.

This is a view of the sea bottom; an action picture of a mad, bad crab landlord trying to evict the poor old tenant and take over. The water was only about a foot deep and I just held the camera over the top of the water and clicked.

Above right is a close-up crop of mussels; this was my first digital camera and I was amazed at the detail in a photograph. I just kept moving in and in and in.

Another favourite of mine. This is just a piece of wood, lying on a garden path, in all weathers; a garden in Newton Ferrers, near Plymouth. I wanted to use the pattern and colour in this in an arts/craft project...haven't done it yet, but this lovely thing isn't going anywhere.

On the right is a stunning, glowing image of morning dew on the smallest patch of moss on top of a gate post.

I go around this world with my eyes closed half the time; last week I was searching for nail scissors and or clippers and couldn't find any so I went out and bought myself the scissors and borrowed clippers to do Joy n Gent's nails - then I saw both clippers and scissors right in front of my face! But, sometimes I see wonderful and interesting images of the world.

JUST A LITTLE CHAT

I was reading a blog about secrets and came across one which was a photo of a very fat woman, and written on it was, ‘I am eating myself to death because I don’t have a gun’. It wasn’t till an hour or so later that the whole concept suddenly dawned on me; suicide by overeating. How long would it take and how many diseases and chronic conditions would you pick up along the way? I never thought about eating myself to death; although it might be quite evident to some people that I am on that path whether I’ve planned it or not. On one hand it might seem a good way to go but not if you arrive at the stage that you can’t leave the house because your legs won’t hold you up, and you can’t fit in a car, bus, train, plane without having one specially made for you! And, is it still suicide if it takes 20 years?

Amazon told me that she’d had a strange automated message on my landline in Glasgow saying that someone had incurred a debt from a premium line. That bloody Musician! When I spoke to him before this he said he hadn’t used the phone at all. He was always a great liar; even when caught in the act; I once caught him standing on the landing outside his bedroom screaming that Amazon was hitting him - she was way inside the room! And then there was the time he became the pound-coin thief. One morning I was looking for the school lunch money; I had left them all  in little piles on the mantelpiece - one coin was missing. We looked all over the house. In the end I said that there was nothing left but to call the police because someone must’ve come into the house in the middle of the night and taken it. Musician piped up, ‘ Maybe it’s in my jacket pocket’. I asked him why it would be there and he said he didn’t know, ’Maybe the burglar put it there’. He would've been about six or seven at the time.

I was thinking about Roseanne today, and Louise. They were my two loudest, brashest and raucous friends. It’s hard to believe that they’re dead; something Roseanne’s daughter told me came into my head. Her mother said to her, from her hospital bed, ‘I’m never getting out of here’. And she was right. I’m just wondering if Gent is ever going to get out of that hospital; things keep happening that keep him there. I know that he hasn’t got long but the other day it seemed like he might have the summer at least. The youngest son is here for the weekend and Joy and I took the day off from visiting; she’s tired. So I won’t see him and won’t see how he is after yesterday. In some ways I don’t want anything to happen while I’m here, but Fi is such a softie I don’t want it to happen when she’s here. Well, I’m sure he’s alright.

WHERE I AM

The sun was flashing on and off today and I tried to get some good photos. The garden is looking good, some red appearing at last; the camellia is out and littering the ground with petals.

This is the Rhododendron Elizabeth, just coming out.

And on the right here, is my bedroom just behind the bush. This is the front of the house, well, a tiny bit of it.

Thought I’d get some daffs captured.

And here we have the lovely garden. The light’s not going to help create stunning photos but will paint a picture of where I spend half my time. I like this garden; it’s so peaceful; the road is on the other side of the house and the only thing you can hear is the birds, or lawnmowers in summer, or now.

These are Wonderful Neighbour’s pansies and orchids. Beautiful. He took me and Joy for a little tour of his garden when we came back from the hospital today.

Gent was rather tired; he told us that he had been stuck in the hoist and it took a few minutes to work out that he’d been left sitting on the commode a little longer than he needed. He said that they didn’t hear his bell and he’d shouted but they didn’t hear that either. Poor thing. Apparently, they had a pretty awful day in the hospital today, must’ve been run off their feet. No sign of the hoist arriving yet.

Amazon has sinus trouble according to the doctor. He gave her an antibiotic which seems to be working, so she’s alright.

Been talking to my sister-in-law, Sid, on the phone; she’s busy setting up her internet connection, so hopefully she’ll be reading this blog soon and discover her new name.

BEEN BUSY BEEN LAZY

I’ve been busy putting a pile of royal magazines up for sale on ebay. I found them in a little second-hand shop in Honiton the other day; a huge pile, just waiting for me. I’ve been trying to think of something to specialize in; I usually sell first editions but sometimes they are light on the ground. Royal memorabilia would be good. I’ll head for the car-boot sales when I’m back in Glasgow. I want to go to some auctions too – haven’t been to one for years - don’t know where they are in Glasgow now.

Gent is better every day, almost back to his old self – except for all the weight he’s lost. He’ll be coming home as soon as the hoist is delivered, which could be a week or a day. I’ve had such an easy time this work period, just looking after Joy; hardly any night calls and she goes to bed at seven so I have the night to myself. Though she does need constant supervision; she can’t be allowed to walk alone because she tends to topple over now, so I walk behind her with my hands on her hips. She’s really slowing down; when Gent was in hospital last year she could walk out of the house, down the drive to the car, leaning on an arm and with a walking stick, and most of the way through the hospital corridors. But now she’s knackered just walking from her bedside to the breakfast table. I got the district nurse to call this week and take a blood sample from her, just in case she’s anaemic; she eats and sleeps a lot, so she shouldn’t be that tired. Got to call the doctor tomorrow for the results.

Amazon is ill. She was going to the doctor’s this afternoon. She’s got blinding headaches, sore chest and feels more than awful. She had a bad chest infection at xmas…maybe it’s the same thing. I tried to call her a while ago but there was no answer. She might be sleeping, I’ll try again later.

It’s been drizzling all day, damp and dull. I wanted to take a photo of the daffodils under the apple trees the other evening when the light was looking interesting; went in and got the camera only to discover that the battery was flat and needed charging before I can even get the camera to open! That light hasn’t been back since; it’s been dull, dull, dull. The rhododendron out front is flowering; lovely big red trumpets. The daffodils are finishing so I’m thinking that I might not get the photograph I want, I should’ve did it last week, but I’ve been so busy thinking about blogging!

GENERAL RAMBLINGS

This was one of the best pizzas i've ever tasted. Lulu, Lexy and I took a run out to the waterfall park, near Benidorm - I can never remember the name of the place;
it's inland, west of Benidorm, maybe Fuerta or something like that. Actually, it's the waterfall where they filmed the old 60s shampoo advert. It's the one where the beautiful young woman washes her hair in the river under the waterfall. Lexy's hair was a right mess; she'd completely killed it with bleaching it blonde for many years. So, because she got it wet she had to wash it and treat it. Sorry I can't publish the photos, but they're really great. Well we had a fab day. I travelled in the back seat, lounging with cushions and taking photos out of the windows. When we stopped for food it was almost sunset and this was the view from where we were sitting. There is a valley, or gorge just in front of the palm tree, and we watched as the sun set and the lights appeared in the little town across the gorge. It was a beautiful day; very hot and the water very cold. Lexy is a friend that Lulu met on a train in the UK a couple of years ago. Just remembered that she'll be in Spain when I get back there in a couple of weeks - I haven't seen her since last summer. The first time she visited us there, we sent her for bread and she came back with a mad old lesbian. She's worse than Lulu for talking to anybody. Bitsy, is a friend now, and so are her friends, our friends: there is Lush, who likes a glass of wine or two and tries flashing her large breasts at anyone at all; and Bunny, Lush's ex, who used to be a real Bunny Girl; all of them predatory pensioners.

This is The Tape Measure Sculpture. One of the sons of the house here broke Gent's tape measure; it exploded into this amazing piece of art. I wouldn't let them throw it away till I had captured it on film. Sorry it's not right-side-up. I forgot to do it before I loaded it on (I don't know how to delete it and begin again!). I have a thing about odd photographic subjects. I have another one of the sculpture in amongst the wild irises but it would be in the same condition.

Our pool in Spain; it's in a complex, and is only open from June to September; but the sea is just across the road so it's no hardship really. I've got another two weeks to work then I'll be shooting off for three weeks rest. My daughter-in-law, Bingo, is bringing my two oldest grandsons over for a week. I'm so looking forward to spending time with them on the beach. They've never been on a plane before. What an exciting time they're going to have in May.

RENAMING MY CHILDREN

My daughter called me this morning and told me that No2 son was assaulted last night. He’s alright, just a bit battered and bruised, and not robbed. He lives in high block of flats in Glasgow near the Rangers football ground. She said that he was approaching the block when 2 young men and a girl stopped him and asked for cigarettes, then money, then tried to take his bike from him. He’s 25 and usually pretty hyper-sensitive; I am so glad that he dealt with this the way he did - it could’ve been deadly serious. One of them punched him in the face, there was a scuffle, and the girl smashed a bottle and threatened to stick it in him! My son told them he didn’t want to fight them and somehow got away into the concierge’s reception area. It’s all on cctv. The police were called and they were all arrested, but now he doesn’t want to return to the flat; he hated it there anyway. So, now he’s in my new little flat! Him, and his slovenly ways in my nice fresh bed-linen is not a happy image. I’m sending my daughter with him tomorrow to see the housing association and get him sorted out with somewhere else to live. That’s all I need; him and his music blasting the brains and patience out of my new neighbours, getting me evicted before I’ve even properly lived there!

Though, I think he is a little better in the loud music area than he used to be; he has grown-up, ever so slightly. I won’t be back in Glasgow till the end of July but he could make a real mess in that time. He’s definitely not staying there all that time. I know I sound harsh, but I have reason. I’ll feel better if he goes to live nearer his brother, up at Loch Lomond; he spends a lot of time there anyway. He drives my daughter mad most of the time so she’d prefer it if he was over there.

I suppose I should give my children names; this blog is about my life and I don’t want to publish other people’s activities so all living friends have new names. The dead are real.

I hereby name my daughter AMAZON; No1 son will now be known as TOCTOC; and No2 son can only be the MUSICIAN – he plays keyboards.

EXCITING THINGS COMING UP:

The last few pages of my Wilbur Smith A Sparrow Falls

Time off - out tomorrow! One of the sons will be here so I can spend a couple of hours in Honiton (one of the nearest small towns) spending some of my hard-earned cash – probably on more books, in my favourite charity shop. By the way, I got £21 for my little book of sea shanties on ebay. It’s on its way to San Francisco.

DIARY EXCERPTS FROM SUMMER 2005

Gent was quite upset today because he discovered that he couldn’t even prune his fruit bushes. He thought that at least he could do a little of that. Last night he had me reading extracts from a gardening book on pruning red currants and blackberries; something about laterals and leaders. He drags himself about the garden, in terrible pain from arthritis in his hips and knees especially. It’s hard to watch him. Being blind is just an added irritation. He’s 94 now and is aware that every month that passes he will feel more pain and his joints will stiffen so that eventually he won’t be able to get around at all and will be forced to sit in a wheelchair for any movement outside. He just loves to be out in his shorts and sandals, feeling the sun and breeze on his legs,  which are now a nice shade of brown.

Gent did something yesterday that in some ways surprised me but, in others not at all; he is a man after all. He took Joy a walk around the garden, and down the side of the house where the fruit bushes are. I watched them, thinking that they would stay there. I was worried because there is only a narrow strip of lawn there and it slopes down into the path below. They both have walking frames, and Joy is pretty frail and unsteady. I gave them ten minutes and was about to go round and see that they were alright when they suddenly arrived at the front door, which was open. He had taken her around the house, putting her in danger. When I accosted them he laughed and said that he’d gone round with one wheel of his wheelie in the ditch. I was struck dumb at his stupidity. I’m sure he’d have berated and prostrated himself if anything had happened to her. He is usually such a gentleman, and deserves his title of Brigadier. I am, as always, amazed at the stupidity of men.

NEW DAYS

Gent has turned the corner; on Thursday night we were all on alert, waiting for a call from the hospital. They’d asked me if we wanted a night call. When Joy, Wonderful Neighbour and I walked into his room that afternoon we thought he’d gone. I picked up his hand and called his name, several times, there was no reaction. Then he moved ever so slightly. He is very thin; the skin on his face has nothing beneath it but skull. I hardly slept that night, kept thinking about him and Joy, and in the morning was dreading the phone ringing. It did ring eventually, but the voice of the staff nurse was cheerful; she said that Gent was up and sitting in his chair and calling for new batteries for his shaver. Good Friday was a bit hysterical after that. I was afraid to call the family, didn’t want to scare them. In the end I did call and got my happy voice in quickly to give them the good news. He looked amazing that afternoon. Saturday not so good, and then today, he seems completely different; there is a fundamental change, he is definitely over that imminent-death hurdle, and on the mend…well, as far as he can mend in his condition, at this stage. But it means that he can probably come home soon, and do his fading away there.

There is no knowing how Joy is going to react to his death. The last few days she has been saying that he’d be alright, that he’s always alright in the end. I did have a little talk with her on the Thursday evening when we got back, trying to prepare her for the worst but she was determined that he’d still be there next day. She doesn’t have much left, in the way of sequential thoughts; I worry that she’ll wake up in the mornings after he’s gone and ask where he is…then either Fi or I will have to remind her!

FULL A HELL

My ex reared his ugly head again yesterday. And for the second time he discarded his children. Suddenly last year there was a silence from him; no reason apparent, just rejection. My sister-in-law, Sid, called to tell me that my daughter was breaking her heart. That’s the only thing in life that can move me to murder; someone upsetting my children…and for it to be that man again! So I called him. He said ‘fuck off’ and hung up. I was stunned; was not aware that we had fallen out - we spoke to each other sometime last year and there had been no argument.

I can only assume that he has gone mad or someone is meddling; telling stories and lies; there is always someone at it in big families. He has a girlfriend, so maybe he is just trying to shrug off his past to please her - he did that before too. In the end I sent him a text message, ‘ur children n I wil never bother u again tho what we did to offend u is a mystery. Ur loss.’

I am so laid back these days that I am almost horizontal. I’ve lost all my passion; I let people argue and debate and don’t feel I have to join in. I let them discover whether they’re right or wrong by themselves. But I come alive when he upsets my kids. I want to kill him, stab him with blunt objects, gouge his eyes out with a spoon, bite off his head and pan his face in with a hot, cast iron skillet!

LOST

I can’t get him out of
my mind…is racing

all I can see is vile
vile anger grinding

my teeth, trembling
when I think of

my children in tears
and no explanation

we feel guilty
and innocent

a silent year, then
‘fuck off’.

Like a child
I can’t understand -

not knowing why
is a hard lump

my throat’s
choking back tears

impossible to speak
without screaming

kill him dead
KILL…

But no…
too expensive;

he must live
with his loss.

ATTACHMENTS

This Lilly is a long-boned woman with legs like skewers and empty breasts lying on the furrows of ribs. Her smile comes from an old heart, strong beyond reason. She smiles at laughing visitors who kiss, kiss, kiss, planting babies in her lap and presents on the bed. She tells them that she’s had lunch, but the menu escapes her. Food appears like magic: chicken is fish, porridge is soup and everything is beautiful. I’m her daughter-in-law, ex, yet I’m more present than her oldest son, my ex. There’s a kind of club of us, EXs; they just can’t seem to get rid of us. You see it’s a huge welcoming family, and when there are children to complicate things - the family just gets bigger with every new relationship. The daughters seem to hang on to their men whether they like them or not, but the sons just move along and the ex-wives follow on regardless; children slip and slide through the myriad aunts and uncles

The old Lilly was swamped; a vast, slack-skinned woman, hidden in layers of old muscle and blue-flowered polyester. Fourteen children darted in and out with wives and husbands; grandchildren flapped hands at mince with onion and vegetables, mince without. Boiled potatoes – no potatoes, steak pie, spam. Fat chips – thin chips buttered bread, bare bread, tea, no jam. Liver for William, rabbit for John, licked-clean dishes stacked the sink, smells ran up walls, dripped off stairs and settled when she sank into her broad armchair. She was born to be a mother and besieged by everyone’s children. Now she is surrounded by women and the grandchildren they bore her. She never knew she was the key to all those relationships and now as the last days slip by the space she lives in grows huge.

I am only beginning this trail. I wonder how many friends I will lose when my children fall out of love.

HOW LATE AM I?

If I sat on my exercise bike
my view would be
of bold and confident women
soft and rounded but not bearing
great bellies and arses
like mine and my mother’s.

They would walk with long strides
and get where they’re going in a flash;
like I used to…when I were a lass
a woman, a young mother.

My destination would be a future
that was wrapped around my past….
the figure I was then would sail this ship
in style, with panache
and a fabulous wardrobe of smart
smart trousers, and suits
and dresses that would show off
a sharper chin and
my old legs that everyone loved.

TIME PLEASE

Gent is knocking at that door again. Joy was very tired today, and couldn’t go to the hospital to visit him. Word from the staff nurse is that he is, very poorly. I was a bit worried about Joy and that tiredness so I’ve asked the district nurse to call in tomorrow and take a blood sample; maybe she’s anaemic or something.

I’m selling a little book of sea shanties on ebay; it’s at £16 now with almost 4 hours to go. I like this bit, when the bidders come to life. It was at £1.70 yesterday. I haven’t sold anything for a while; mostly because I’ve been travelling, but I used to sell a lot of old books, first editions and collector’s items. Now that I’ll be spending more time in Glasgow I think I’ll take it up again. I just love trawling through old charity shops. Those that have been modernized really annoy me when they charge too much; I talk to myself and gasp at their prices - I’m old enough to get away with spouting my opinions on their pricing policy.

BEST LAID PLANS

I made a falling-apart fruit n carrot cake; it had sweet potato in it instead of carrot – pretty damn nice actually, though the sweet potato seems to have pretty much disappeared.

Last few days Gent has swung from death’s door to coming home to very poorly again. We couldn’t take Joy to see him today because he has some kind of infection and they don’t know what it is yet, and don’t want Joy to catch anything. He’s been put on antibiotics today because of a urine infection, he probably got from the catheter; they think it might be a side effect of the antibiotics. He was so happy yesterday when the doctor said he could go home for Easter. The occupational therapist came today to see what we would need to accommodate this new Gent. We measured their bedroom, and made rearrangement plans, then the cleaner and I emptied chests of drawers and got rid of furniture we don’t really need in the room. And the son tried to get a new bed base to accommodate the hoist, with no luck. I don’t think they’ll let Gent out now anyway.

I’ve been crocheting a blanket for Fi; I make these blankets while I’m working and force them on family - running out of family members so have started on friends and colleagues. Joy and Gent got a rug each for their xmas. This is a photo of one I made earlier for my nephew; he wanted it to be red, white and blue - he's a Glasgow Rangers fan. The colours aren’t right in the photo, the red isn’t that orange, must be the flash.

This is a great job; I get to sit and watch telly, doze in the afternoon, and create rugs, artwork, photographs, write, read and many other things depending on the client. I began crocheting when I was looking after a woman near Plymouth; she spent all day watching telly and wanted me to sit with her. I like being productive so I did the rugs while watching daytime TV and ended up with a Repetitive Strain Injury from pulling at the wool!

MY LIST

1. Born in Glasgow
2. We moved in with my father’s mother, the TYRANT
3. The TYRANT dies
4. Left school at 15
5. Maternal grandmother dies
6. Worked in a boutique then an electrical engineering factory
7. Met Roseanne
8. When I was 19 my father died
9. Stayed on with my mother for 6 months
10. Worked in Largs, then Manchester
11. Got my first flat in Glasgow, Polokshields
12. Worked in North Berwick, then Manchester again
13. Roseanne and I met our first husbands, in Manchester
14. Got pregnant
15. Hitchhiked up to Glasgow to tell the mothers
16. Went back to Glasgow to have my first son
17. Got married in Glasgow
18. Went back to Manchester with baby and hubby
19. Went to Somerset to visit hubby’s family
20. Went back to Glasgow then split with hubby
21. Got a house of my own when my son was 1yr old
22. Moved back to live with my mother when he was 3
23. Met my new man at Roseanne’s new year party
24. Set up house with him
25. Got pregnant
26. John Lennon died
27. Gave birth to second son
28. Pregnant again
29. Both our divorces came through
30. Decided not to get married again
31. Gave birth to daughter
32. Moved house several times that year
33. Got a job in Grosvner hotel and met Carrie
34. Chucked hubby out
35. Left job
36. Went to live in Newcastle
37. Introduced Carrie to my brother Joop
38. Got a house in St Cuthbert’s village in Gateshead
39. Carrie and Joop got a house there too
40. Joop became a raging alcoholic and violent
41. He beat up Carrie and broke my nose
42. I packed her off to Glasgow
43. Got a flat in Newcastle
44. Carrie and her daughter shared the flat with us for awhile
45. Still working in Swallow hotel in Gateshead
46. Left the hotel and worked in local pub
47. Brother-in-law dies aged 33ish. Brain haemorrhage
48. Went to college and did GCSEs
49. Did Highers and left the pub
50. Discovered creative writing
51. Our boozin’ buddy dies aged 32ish.
52. Had my first poetry published
53. Working with tenants’ association
54. Got paid to set up youth drama group in Benwell
55. Set up my small press
56. No 1 son in a lot of trouble with police
57. No2 son in trouble at school
58. Did A’level theatre studies
59. Someone wants to kill No1 son
60. Flat wrecked
61. Moved into temporary council house
62. Roseanne, my oldest friend, dies at 40
63. Got council house in east end of Newcastle
64. Teach a poetry class at Newcastle Uni
65. Began my degree in drama at Gateshead college
66. Classmate dies after long struggle with cancer
67. Bree and I get acting work
68. My sister-in-law Sid’s new baby dies
69. We move to Glasgow. my mother dies
70. I have to commute to Newcastle to finish my degree
71. Spend 3 days a week in Newcastle, with Bree or Carrie
72. Sid has another baby
73. Carrie moves up to Aberdeen
74. My mother-in-law Lily dies
75. I graduate at Sheffield university, with guests; old school pal, and my daughter
76. Daughter won’t go to school; I get a night in Govan jail
77. I begin working for the Pearce Institute doing care work
78. No1 son living with a girl, they have a son
79. I do some teaching for the WEA
80. The druggies smash up my car
81. Start work at the Glasgow Psychic Centre
82. Meet Herman and Tilly
83. I get done for driving without a full licence
84. Get a nice big flat in Paisley Rd West
85. I have a dinner party to celebrate daughter’s 16th and my freedom from parental responsibility
86. Herman and I set up a postal Psychic business
87. No2 grandson is born
88. No2 son gets us evicted from the flat and I don’t take him to the new flat with us
89. I get him organised with a hostel and lots of food
90. Daughter gets a job at a big hotel in North Devon
91. I take her down there and stay the weekend and see her settled
92. Got a new flat from a housing association, much cheaper
93. Also doing some market research work
94. Carrie’s husband leaves her
95. Took a flat-mate and got her a job with the PI
96. No3 grandson is born
97. Flatmate leaves
98. Start working as an Appropriate Adult for social work dept
99. My daughter and her boyfriend come to live in Glasgow
100. They get a nice little flat in Govan
101. Start HND in Ceramics and Pottery at Cardonald College
102. 9/11 happens
103. My daughter has brain haemorrhage and operation
104. Brother-in-law dies aged 40
105. Daughter-in-law pregnant again!
106. Went to Paris with my friend Herman
107. My daughter gets pregnant
108. No4 grandson arrives
109. No5 grandson is born by caesarean section (because of brain haemorrhage)
110. Passed my driving test
111. Brother-in-law dies aged 38
112. Working on a play with Bree
113. I give myself a date deadline to travel
114. Buy a car, pack it up, take a couple months off work
115. 1st august 2003 I leave Glasgow for Devon
116. I camp in a tent all by myself in a field in North Wales
117. Visit the Spiritual Church in Birmingham and get a message
118. Spend the night in the car in Exmouth in Devon, with a view of the sea
119. Get a job waitressing for a week in a big hotel in Exmouth
120. Start a live-in care job for an agency
121. Run all over Devon working one week here two weeks there
122. Loadsamoney!!!
123. Daughter-in-law is pregnant again
124. Buy my first laptop
125. Buy a TESOL course in Barcelona
126. My first granddaughter arrives, at last
127. Get a teaching job in Poland
128. Leave the job in Poland and go to Madrid
129. Meet up with Lulu from the course and get a teaching job in Alicante
130. We rent a fab 3bed house at the beach
131. Leave teaching and go back to working in Devon
132. Travelling back and forth from Spain and Devon to work
133. Buy a new, lightweight laptop and give the old one to No2 son
134. Go to Budapest for Bree’s hen party
135. Writer friend from Newcastle dies from breast cancer aged 47
136. Bree diagnosed with breast cancer
137. College friend, Louise, dies with breast cancer
138. Newcastle for Bree’s wedding
139. Bree has mastectomy and re-build
140. Several new great nieces and nephews have arrived
141. Don’t know if my brother is dead or alive
142. Newcastle for Bree’s 40th birthday party
143. Daughter's relationship breaks up
144. She takes over my new flat (it was originally hers anyway)
145. My old couple both die and I return to Glasgow
146. Back to work; Torquay
147. Daughter's ex steals their son
148. Court battle begins
149. Daughter's flat goes on fire
150. I return to Glasgow permanently
151. Living with N02 son
152. Return to work at the Psychic Centre
153. Happy Happy Happy

USE IT OR LOSE IT

Just finished Harry Potter; pretty good. Read it in three days, not bad for a big book, but then it’s not what you could call deep and meaningful - it’s not going to change my life. Not going back to Captain Corelli yet. Had a nice day out the other day and bought a little pile of books in my favourite charity shop that has 50% off their books. Got an Umberto Eco, an Anita Shreve, Andrea Badenoch’s first novel, and Andre Dubus 111. I remember it was mentioned on Richard and Judy, House of Sand and Fog. I got those 4 books for about £1.60, which is pretty good these days of charity shops pricing themselves out of business….well business from me. I was really happy to find Andrea’s book; I knew her in Newcastle years ago when we used the same writing groups and workshops. She died last year from cancer.

Haven’t done a lot of reading in the past month; when I’m in the UK I end up couched in front of the box; in Spain I’m on 3 books a week. I really should be doing more writing than reading but life is just so fab with your feet up and a good book in your paw.

Gent looked fantastic today - just when I thought he was fading with such genteel elegance. He was alert and looking forward to coming home, eating crackers and cheese I’d brought in, and wine gums, then a bit of chocolate! He just keeps coming back. I’m tempted to say thank goodness, but when you remember all the pain that he experiences every minute of the day, it might be better if he is allowed to slip away; 95 is a good, long life. I’ve heard that if you tell someone who is very ill, that it’s alright for them to go, kind of give them permission, they can slip away peacefully. I think he keeps hanging on for Joy; he doesn’t want to cause her pain.

I’m using my life, making the most out of every breath I take; even when I am being bone idle I’m having the time of my life.

JOY'S JOURNEYS

A noise awoke me in the middle of the night; there is a baby monitor in my room so I can hear if I’m needed; just the tiniest noise, a click that shouldn’t be there. I got up and went in to see if Joy was alright; she was walking towards the door, stark naked, but using her walking frame. I asked her where she was going. ‘Looking for you,’ she said, but really, she’d forgotten why she was out of bed. I was grateful that she was quite awake and hadn’t fallen over. Oh the tales I could tell about this woman and her late-night wanderings.

She hasn’t got out of bed by herself in months, well not since she fell out of it in the middle of the night. Like this time, a noise woke me up; I could hear Joy coughing and choking, gasping for breath. I leapt up and ran into their room; she was hanging off the bed, her feet still tucked in and her head stuck in the metal loop of the safety rail that is an aid to help her get out of the bed. Her chin was right through the loop, her throat pressing into the side. There was blood all over the place because her knees were skimming the carpet and she’d banged her arms and face. Gent was crying from his side, 'Can I help. What can I do?’ I told him to stay in bed; he couldn’t get out of it on his own anyway, and being blind there was nothing he could do.

I got her untangled and sitting on the floor leaning against the bed. Nothing was broken but there were quite a few wounds and a lot of blood over both of us. Joy’s skin is so fragile that even a little box of tissues dropped on her leg causes it to split. I tried to clean up the wounds but the skin had wrinkled back off such big areas; one on each side of her knees and upper arms. It was a hospital job. I called an ambulance and got her comfortable, and reassured Gent. They had her back before dawn, all patched up. Since then she’s stayed in bed all night, well-tucked in, and, the space in the rail has been filled in. Also, she’s gone from one urine infection to another, and they’ve kept her weak in the legs so, her getting up in the night by herself is a sign she's getting better.

One night last year, when Gent was in hospital, something woke me. I got up to check on Joy; she wasn’t there. I looked around but couldn’t see her. I went back to the bedroom and looked on the floor at Gent’s side of the bed, not there either. Back through the silent house again and there she was, sitting in the dining room eating breakfast. I thought, with a start, how did she get the milk? The fridge is in a little back utility room which is a couple of steps down, and also the reason that Gent fell and broke his thigh-bone. When I looked at what she was eating, she had marmalade in the cereal! and banana. I used to set the breakfast table at night. She was amazed when I told her that it was only 3am.

The carer’s bedroom is right next door to them but it used to be upstairs on the other end of the house; this is when they were both a little more mobile, maybe about 9 months ago. We had a bell that Gent could press if they needed anything in the night. Early one morning I heard Gent calling me; it was 5.30am, I jumped up and ran downstairs. He was standing outside their bedroom door, holding on to the wall. Joy had fallen and he had forgotten about the bell in the panic. She’d got up to use the commode, as usual, and fallen. He had been calling me for half an hour and of course I couldn’t hear through all the walls; it’s an old house and well-built. Then he’d got out of bed and felt his way around the bed and over to the door so he could open it and call me. Joy had broken her hip. After that, one of the sons and I changed the rooms over. I’d been saying since I first arrived here, that the carer needs to be next to the client. Then we got the baby monitor. I think that saved Joy’s life the night she nearly strangled; Gent was only aware that something was wrong when I came into the room; he must’ve been in a deep sleep.

TWO DEVON GARDENS

This is Joy and Gent’s back garden


This was in February this year. We woke up one morning to find the place white with snow; it was all gone by lunch-time and there was no snow in the front garden or in the road outside. I went to the local shop and the only snow to be seen was in some of the gardens!

The blackbird in the rhubarb isn’t real.

In three years I’ve only seen snow in Devon twice; it didn’t stay more than a few hours.

In the year I've been here I have to confess that I have never put food on this table for the poor birds; it doesn't cross my mind. I took this photo from the back door, which is in the dining room. I sit there every morning and eat my breakfast, look out at the weather but never think to feed the birds. Shame on me.

Another Devon garden I loved

Two years ago I was working near Plymouth; we had daffodils and wasps in January!
This is the view from a garden down near Plymouth; a little village called Newton Ferrers. River at the bottom of the garden, full of boats and children windsurfing in the summer. Accross the river is Bridgend and Noss Mayo, beautiful places, tiny streets, hardly room to turn your car; quite often you have to reverse for someone coming the other way. I worked here for the first year of my freedom; 4 weeks on and one off; worked like a maniac all year then bought my first laptop, and a 4 week TESOL course in Barcelona. In the second year I ran around Devon with my car piled to the gunnels with all my junk; well not all, 'cause I had put a lot of it in storage in Plymouth.

On the map, this is the little nick to the right of Plymouth.

The view from this side of the garden is of Noss Mayo. these houses on the river are selling for around three-quarters of a million quid. The British go mad for river and sea views. I'd love to have a house with a boat tied up at the bottom of the garden; but I'd love even more to have fairies, and a couple of trees with little doors cut into them, and windows.

THE SHOP at Newton Ferrers sells most things, though there is a separate butchers shop, and the omnipresent estate agents.

MONDAYS ARE GOOD

Gent has rallied; he looks a whole lot better. We had been thinking, this is it. Wonderful neighbour took me and Joy down to see him today. Ever since I began working with them the ritual has been to take tea-making things in a basket to whichever one of them is incarcerated. Hospital tea is just disgusting, luke-warm brown gunk. He was sitting in his chair at the side of the bed, looking alert and normal; as if he was sitting in his lovely new chair at home. He holds Joy’s hand and she can’t eat her lemon finger because she has her tea in her other hand, so she bends her head down every now and then to take a little bite. We usually only stay half an hour or so, both of them get tired, and find conversation hard - even at home they sit together in a kind of silence. Gent likes to watch the news on TV at 6 o’clock but Joy can’t bear the noise. Last year, when she was better than she is now, she used to storm off and go to bed. I think it’s the case that she just doesn’t like Gent’s attention to be away from her.

I had a phone call from my daughter today. She told me that they were at my great niece’s christening yesterday; during the party afterwards, in a pub function room, a young man ran into the room and attacked one of my nephews with a huge knife! It was 4.30 in the afternoon and the room was full of kids. So uncles and aunties dived in to pull him off and manic mayhem went off like a bomb. The barmaid and my daughter herded the kids, all screaming, behind the bar and pulled down the grill. Apparently it was like a scene from ‘Psycho’ with the knife flashing up in the air and stabbing down into the crowd around him. Amazingly, no-one was seriously hurt; a few cuts spread around. The police charged into the room with batons waving. My son-in-law had grabbed a pair of legs sticking out of the fray and pulled out one of my brothers-in-law…he wanted to go right back in; he was the grandfather of the newly-christened baby. Luckily, the said baby and her grandmother had left the building with a pregnant sister-in-law earlier. I forgot to mention that all this happened in Glasgow, on a Sunday.

The hairdresser came today and I got her to trim my hair as well. She is the cheapest I’ve ever known; I’ve met a lot of travelling hairdressers. Every now and then I get her to cut my hair while Joy is under the drier. I wash and dry it myself so she only charges me 5 quid. I’m growing my hair so I don’t often look in the mirror - it’s a difficult time. I’ve kept it very short while I was in Spain ‘cause I’m basically lazy; all I’ve had to do in the past couple of years is run my fingers through it: now I have to use a hair drier and a brush! I draw the line at fannying about with a mirror and styling, though I did colour it the other weekend. I was going to a party in Newcastle, so thought I’d make some kind of an effort, but I don’t like myself this colour; chestnut brown – too dark for me. The reds are too unnatural and modern and I’m too old for them. I think I might have to go blonde, or maybe kind of strawberry, which is the colour I really am because of all the white hair salting my natural red.

READING AND WRITING

Thinking that I should get some writing back out there in the poetry mags, I wrote a poem for a competition about love; I can’t really remember what it was like, being in love. When I read of all that madness I begin to wonder if I was ever, really in love. Just like my memories of old granny, the tyrant, I only retain the bad stuff. They said they wanted poems on both falling in and out of love…I naturally chose the latter and created this rant below:

HAMMERED FLAT

My head is full and bursting
with glimpses
of long-sleeved blouses and light-weight
jumpers
arrayed at eye-level;
a regiment at my right hand.
Any one of them would fit
my situation.

In my line of fire
the back of his head smirks;
it dares me
to reach for blunt objects
poison darts…
carefully planned alibis, and
mysterious gangsters
from a murky past.

I picture rooftop parties
and mountain picnics,
his startled shape, flailing
on the wind, like
an inebriated seagull
tumbling and squawking
at the woman with her hand out…

not saving, but waving.
Cheerio then… bastard.

Captain Correlli’s Mandolin…again am stuck in the middle, and have started reading other books; I always do this with his novels. When you begin them you are captured and charmed by the characters and the settings but soon slowed down by the history lesson. I like history but there seems to be something stilted about the way he uses it in his novels; I’ve read three of his now and this happened in every one. When I turned 40 I stopped reading books if I got bored half-way through; the first book I discarded like that was ‘Oscar and Lucinda’. Again, charmed at first but bored flat eventually. So I’m not going to read him again.

In the last couple of years I’ve got into Wilbour Smith; his books are fantastic. You are getting a history lesson in a novel but it’s well-fictionalized. You just can’t put them down; a great read. Also in this time been through the Jean Auel series, ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’. What an amazing read they are, though the sex gets a bit gratuitous at times; but then again maybe that’s because I’ve completely lost my sex drive and, subconsciously, don’t want to be reminded of it. I was really pleased to hear that ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ won a big prize last week; it's one of the best books I've ever read, though I think it should have ended earlier than it did. I’ve got the last Harry Potter with me, think I’ll dump the captain for now and get into that.

NIMBLE FINGERS

Poor old Gent is stiff with arthritis; the pain must be mind-numbing. Once he’s in bed he can’t get out again, so at night he is supposed to wear a condom catheter; this is the latest thing in bladder technology. When he came out of hospital last year he had a bag of them and the staff nurse showed me how to use it. It looked easy, and was, with the ones I got from the hospital  but, I was presented with what I can only imagine is a cheaper version from the chemist which were nowhere near as pliable. I just couldn’t get this thing on. There is Gent, all padded up in pillows for the night, and me trying to stuff his tackle into this little plastic, corrugated funnel. Then I’m supposed to roll it up the shaft and fiddle with double-sided sticky tape to hold it in place! The one the hospital gave me was much softer and once you began rolling it up there was a sticky substance already there, and it was suddenly on...and a very clever thing it was too. So I ended up using pads. I did complain to the chemist but they sent me the exact same stuff.

I work back to back with another carer; we’ll call her Fi. She can use them and is amazed that I can’t. Because Gent has to sleep in a propped-up position now, he has some little pressure sores on his bottom, which the urine is not helping. The staff nurse called me the other day and asked me to send in the conveens and bags we still had at home. I was happy to hand them over (some people won’t give away medical stuff but I couldn’t use them anyway). I was ecstatic to hear,  from Gent, that three of them couldn’t get the thing on either! I didn’t feel so bad when 3 professional nurses had trouble fitting them. The staff nurse told me yesterday that in the end they put in a real catheter for the duration of his stay with them, or until his bottom clears up. Poor old Gent hasn’t even had a chance to try out his new mattress at home; the family got him one of those with the memory foam. I think his bottom got so bad because he was sitting on a hard mattress for 12 hours. I was sitting on mine last night, setting this new blog up, for just a couple of hours and I was crippled!

REPORTING FROM DEVON

This is the beginning, my first blog entry. I did plan to do this last month…as you can see below, but I didn’t get it started, so I thought I may as well keep the Spanish stuff in, ‘cause it’s all part of the……no, I just want to make everyone who is or was snow-bound, aware that there really is other weather in this world.

I’m back in lovely Devon, looking after my old couple. He is still in hospital; went in last week with a chest infection. The hospital has been closed with that diarrhoea (can’t believe I’ve remembered how to spell that) and vomiting bug, so we haven’t been able to visit him. They’ve been married almost 60 years and call each other ‘My darling’…they are both 95 years old and the sweetest people I’ve ever met. I should give them a name, let’s say that she is a Joy and he is a Gent. So it’s just me and Joy in the house and she goes to bed as early as she can get away with, which gives me the whole night to myself (I can’t go out) to laze about watching telly and hiding from chocolate biscuits. I have an exercise bike in my room but it sits beside the telly with the seat unpolished by my ample bottom…though I am really trying to give it some thought.

Was a little worried yesterday because the hospital called and said that we should come down. He’d seemed a little ethereal and angelic the day before, and they described him as unresponsive. So I woke Joy up from her afternoon nap and stuffed her in a local taxi (our friend and neighbour who usually takes us in on a weekend trip) hoping that Gent wasn’t on his way up the heavenly stairway. He looked flushed, wearing a cardigan over his PJs, and there was a knitted, patchwork rug on the bed (very badly sewn-up). I wondered if he had a temperature, but they said he didn’t. He seemed alright though, voice not wavering or fading and no sign of the chest infection.

It seems as if he might get over this, but the fact that he had a mini-stroke (TIA) the week before just underlines this year as, probably his last. 95 is a great age to achieve, but if he hadn’t had the year he had last year he might’ve made the ton.

MARCH ALREADY


I’m sitting in Spain, soaking up the lovely Alicante sun while snow sweeps the UK. I arrived just 2 days ago after working for 3 weeks 24/7….so I deserve it! When I was here last month it was pretty cold and wet; I became a hermit and stayed in bed with the laptop and loads of DVDs only getting out to make tea and food and visit the bathroom. Yesterday wasn’t quite so warm but at least it wasn’t snowing or raining. Today the sun was hot and the sky blue, and I was prostrate on a mat on my terrace, keeping company with some kind of huge insect; maybe an enormous cricket or something like it. But we didn’t bother each other and there’s plenty of room as long as there is no biting or stinging going on.

At the moment I am working in Devon as a live-in carer and living in Spain the rest of the time…kind of 3 weeks on 3 weeks off, or whatever suits my fancy. It’s a great life and I’ve got the best of both worlds, where the weather’s concerned; Devon is usually very mild and summer stretches forever compared with Glasgow summers (if you blink you’ll miss it!). I drag my trusty laptop around with me and write, read, footer about with photos, watch movies, play music, surf (I have an account with AOL so I can plug in anywhere). I have bits of arty stuff, wool and embroidery threads so that when a creative thought or idea hits me I can do anything…except pottery and darkroom developing. But it seems I miss them and my grandchildren so much that I’m in the process of trucking back to Glasgow, for a year or two at least.

I took myself off on a photo shoot down to Santa Pola, a couple of miles from here, Los Arenales, which is just a few miles down the coast from Alicante. Very Spanish; no hotels or football supporters or British drunks. Had a little picnic in the car waiting for the sun to go down; got some fantastic stuff on my new 8 mega pixel Samsung Digimax V800. It’s a nice little camera but in a lot of ways I think I preferred my Kodak; the only thing that bothered me about it was that the lens cover was always slipping off.

RECENT HISTORY

I’m a granny who ran away, finally grabbing the freedom I'd always wanted. In the end, when I was approaching 49, I had to give myself a deadline, set a date. I’d been ranting for years about this freedom and what I was going to do with it, so I wrote on the kitchen wall ‘1st August’ and tried to clear out some of my clutter; every time I left the house I took a carrier bag of books and gave them away. These were the very books Herman and I had lugged from the old flat to this new one only a year before, and the bookcases had been weeded out then too.

Preparing to leave was exciting but in the back of my mind there was this feeling that it wouldn’t really happen, that something would drag me kicking and screaming from my plans. My family probably didn’t believe I’d go either but, the great day arrived and I packed up the car, hugged two of my children and a grandson (I’d already said goodbye to my other son and his sons the day before) and suddenly I was driving out of the street, away from sunny Govan and grey Glasgow, down the M8 to the M74, heading south to my future. All I knew was that I was heading for Devon; my daughter had worked there for a year and I’d visited a couple of times, been so impressed with the mild climate and the people that I’d decided that Devon was as good a place to start as any. Exeter seemed to be the point I was aiming for.