Grumpy, Sleepy, Bashful and Doc.

Is it me or is it a little creepy that for the last four days here in UK all news has been been head-lining the kidnap and release of the little five year old lad in Pakistan? It is a two day story at most and surely doesn’t lead over the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian talks, the near extinction of the tuna fish or Beckham’s Achilles heel? I just don’t get it and immediately suspect massive conspiracy and cover up...

Well, I am grumpy.

I have a cold.

Its the kind of cold that blocks one and a half of your ears when you blow your nose making you list to one side usually into other people walking along the pavement. Its the kind of rubbish cold that threatens the imagination with flu and strep throat and bronchitis but only ever really produces phlegm. It hope it will sod off and I will wake up tomorrow fresh and without the puffy and unformed face of semi sucked jelly baby but now I worry that is just the state of my face

Anyway, its one of those things right. Like spending a small fortune on bird food then dropping a 6 litre bag of premium bird seed on the kitchen floor mid sneeze and managing to kick half of it under the fridge whilst skidding around trying to keep upright.
My, how we laughed.

That was until I tipped a plateful of warm melted butter into my lap trying to eat fish one handed whilst playing catch with the dog. I know, I know...I really do need to find a responsible adult to be on call at all times....

And talking of that I did get to spend a few days with my Mum who popped over from France. She flew into Bristol, spent a couple for days with me in the vicarage and trained with me back to Cambridge. It was lovely to see her and not really long enough but she left me with a new cafeteria, a bunch of sweet narcissus and some excellent new cleaning products – which given the buttery fish stains on the carpet, was the perfect present.

Mum and Sister: (c) T. Bush 2010
Today I also had a most interesting trip to another hospital,, where (unlike the last place I wrote about hiss boooo) the staff seem to genuinely be quite interested in the patients. I was so taken aback when the doctor actually introduced himself and offered to shake my hand I nearly fell off my seat.
I was there to have an interview about sleeplessness and sight loss and I have agreed to go back to their sleep laboratory in a few weeks time where they are going to wire me up to a load of machines that go ‘beep’. . I can’t believe they will find anything exciting and I have already apologised for wasting their time but they all seemed terrifically eager. And it might be quite good fun; a night out with someone else cooking and half a dozen people analyzing your snoring.

image from internet
‘I’m afraid you can’t bring your dog though,’ The doc looks apologetically at Grace.

‘ I’ll break it to her gently,’ I say.

Back in the full waiting room the woman behind the reception desk waves wildly in my direction and then in a stage whisper hisses; ‘As you can’t bring you dog, will you require any,,,,’ ( here she makes large circles around her eyes and head for emphasis) ‘,,,,Special Treatment?’

The room goes quiet.

‘Yes’ I say ‘I’d like everyone to be exceptionally nice to me.’

The receptionist nearly falls off her seat with giggles and I get a spattering of applause from the rest of the waiting room.

Sometimes the old lines are the best....

Brief blog from Vicarage

I am in Radstock at what will be my sister's new vicarage and have been here for a full week rattling around whilst she is away on silent retreat. ...Silent if you allow the odd sneaky text that is. (Do you think Jesus would have been a ‘lol’, smiley face texter? Wonder if there is an emoticon symbol for ‘amen’? :-) or 'I cast you into hell you demon' :-( )

Its not the most handsome frontage but it is nice inside...lots of light and space,

Anyway its been rather interesting and rather odd to be somewhere completely new. I got to pad around Radstock and Bath a little and was introduced to a delightful tiny pub by some lovely fellow students. The pub is called The Green Tree Inn. It is very small and I thought I had stumbled into someone’s living room. There was a fine selection of ale and decided I would drink my way down the list starting with ‘Pitchfork’, then ‘Buttcombe’ – ach how that tickled! However I can’t quite remember the names of the rest..wasn’t there one called 'Just Beyond The Haybales' or 'Now you'll Never get Home'?

The weeks been mostly very bright and very cold and quiet. I had to rest Grace this weekend after she had another bout of food poisoning, quite a bad one. They have very sensitive guts these pooches and I think she was also just a little overwhelmed by all the changes and all the work. She is in fine fettle now however and has been carefully placing her various toys on the stairs to test my eyesight in the morning. Isn’t she thoughtful.

I'm happy to report that Dad is booked in for stem cell therapy in Pretoria in May and although he will have to go through another round of oral chemo before then he was pleased and relieved with the test results. Its a serious marathon; six weeks treatment followed by a minimum of three months recovery. He has been warned it can take over a year to get full strength back but he now has a goal and a strategy and that is important for all our various states of mind.

Back to Cambridge in a couple of days. Will be in touch from there...