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...

Term Begins

What a difference a seriously blue sky can make even in the fridge like conditions current. All around me a few days ago were the various creaking and cracking sounds of peoples shoulders un-hunching and jaws unclenching as they looked up in in wonder at what is known as sunlight.

It didn’t last of course. On Monday Grace and I woke to several centimetres of icy sludge masquerading as snow and by the time we got to Bath for our creative writing class it was pouring with the kind of rain that always manages sneaking icily down the back of your neck no matter how many scarfs you stuff down your coller. ('Grace in Snow' (c) T. Bush)

It is wonderful to be back in class at last. I get my entire week packed into one very very long day; a three hour seminar in the morning followed by another in the afternoon and usually a two hour lecture event in the evening. By the time I get back to Cambridge on the Wednesday evening I am weaving and woolly eyed with weariness.

('Class' (c) T.Bush)

But mostly happy...so very happy!! Me..the kid who hated classrooms!

Well that is apart from last week and the incident at Edgware Road.. A signal failure at rush hour left Grace and I squeezed onto a train that sat sulking with its doors open, refusing to move.

Eveyone groaned and sunk into their books and newspapers but then, from the other side of the packed carriage, a voice shouts out;

'Look look at the doggie. I wanna hug the doggie!!'

I peer into the blur. This is not the voice of a toddler. This is at first glance an average middle aged woman wearing a duffel coat (couldn't tell you which colour anymore) and huge glasses. I see her eyes. They are gleaming with excitement. She has someone accompanying her - a sofa of an Afro Caribbean minder taking up two of the seats next to her.

'Shhh,' says the minder. 'The dog is working.'

'WHY?' shouts the woman

'The dog is the lady’s eyes.' hisses the fat sofa lady tugging the other one down back into her seat.

'What’s wrong with your eyes?' shouts duffel coat lady at me. 'Are you blind? Can you see anything? Can you? CAN YOU??? I WANNA STROKE THE DOGGIE!!'

Her minder obviously inured to this woman's huge and exhausting presence yawns and starts talking on her cell phone. At no point does she actually make eye contact with me....she just lets the woman rant in the crammed and edgy carriage. I try and make calm, quiet responses but this just seems to excite the woman further.

'Can I STROKE your DOGGIE??'

Gawd! After five minutes of this I am tempted to start shouting across at the duffel coat ‘You have a minder? Can I stoke your minder?? Are you a crazy lady?? Half crazy?? How crazy ARE you? I WANNA HUG YOUR MINDER!!! '

I look around for a hero, some lean jawed type to gently pluck Grace and I up and carry us far, far away ... but there is only the spotty young man next to me who is cringing so much with English embarrassment he nearly cricks his neck.

(Sigh.) (image from internet)

In other news my sister has moved into her new vicarage in Radstock and it is rather lovely. Its where Grace and I will set up base when doing our weekly commute to Bath.

And next week my Dad finishes his first grisly round of chemo and flies to Pretoria for tests. We are all on tenterhooks (what on earth is a tenterhook??) as these test will be the very ones that decide his next round of treatment. Remission? Stem cell therapy? More horrible chemo?

But worrying doesn't help. Just gives me mouth ulcers and a clicking jaw. Sexy eh? Seems the only superhero coming to my rescue is 'Blistex and Rennie' Man.

Will keep calm. Will keep you posted.
(Buddha in the Vicarage' (c) T.Bush)

Bum's Rush

Grace and I are in the eye clinic waiting room. Here is a picture of my knees.
Its already been an hour which is nothing. Time is not paid enough on the NHS to bother to do its job properly. It crawls and meanders, idles by the water cooler, plays endless games on its mobile.

The bearded man opposite me is trying to distract his hyper-active six year old. She is wriggling on her seat, threatening to escape and run off down the dull grey corridor.
‘Hey Leah,’ her father cajoles. ‘We can do some drawing.’ He is reaching into his briefcase for paper and biros.
But its crap, daddy!’ shrieks the little munchkin pushing her heavy glasses further up her button nose. ‘Crap!
The waiting room falls briefly into a shocked silence. The bearded man doesn’t look up as he pulls a notepad onto his lap. He coughs and then mutters, wincing
‘No..its SCRAP paper darling,’ he says. ‘SCRAP.’

Amazingly I am only in this purgatory for two hours before being shuffled into a small room where I am met by a gruesomely efficient young woman with a bindi on her forehead. My pupils are dilated though, my sight distorted and fuzzy so it might have been one hell of a zit.
She looks like she is sitting A- levels but I presume is in her mid twenties. An ophthalmology student I presume. She doesn’t bother introducing herself but instead steps over Grace politely, checks my eyes and declares me fit to go with a cursory glance at my file. ‘Oh I see you need a field vision test. We’ll book you in for one next year.’

Next year, I am thinking, are you crazy? I need to know what is going on now...why is my colour vision leaching so fast? Can you give me any good news? A more detailed prognosis...? What of current treatments..?

I make some kind of gabbling sound choked with all the questions and anxieties I have been storing up over the last twelve months but its too late and this woman just doesn’t give a ..scrap.
I am given the bum’s rush.

Yes, it was very upsetting but at least I am not in the same boat as my dear friend C who at 89 years old was sat in the adjacent waiting room with a blanket over her knees. She went in with an eye emergency and was told her eye was haemorrhaging at 11am. She was finally seen by the consultant at 18.30 that night having sat in a cold corner of that eye clinic for nearly 8 hours whilst the consultant saw ‘priorities’. She knows she needs an injection of Lucentis for her macular degeneration but it is over £1000. image from internet
‘I get the impression they don’t want to treat me,’ she says today when Grace and I visit. ‘I am too old to be worth the cost of the drugs.’

We sit and watch the birds on her bird table outside the window. There is a robin; brown, blood- red and white and puffed up like a little ophthalmology consultant. I can see him though not clearly and I describe him to C. She sighs and nods wondering about her future.

I try not to think about mine.

image from the internet

Doggedly Trying

Last week I was utterly useless. Utterly. Useless. I sat in front of the computer and couldn’t even find the impetus to fill in my status bar on Facebook. It was something to do with the cold and sleet and the constant audio backdrop of radio news from Haiti; the sound of so much terror and pain.

After sitting like someone drugged I would get up and make coffee or walk in circles or stare with exasperation at the huge pile of filing growing exponentially next to my desk. Sometimes I even went outsdie and stood around glumly in the garden or cleaned the kitchen but writing wise I remained loggerheaded.

On Thursday, to try a new tactic, I went out with my brilliant buddy L and got totally smashed. I vaguely remember loudly debating positive psychology versus religion, the probabilities of meeting either a soul mate or a lunatic by on-line dating, buying double rounds of Dalwhinny whiskey on my debit card and talking in Zambian pigeon English to the poor taxi driver on the way home.

‘Kukamba Chinyanja my brother? I kept asking.
‘I’m from bloody Bangladesh,’ he kept telling me looking over his shoulder for support from my equally wasted buddy L who was gesticulating wildly in the back seat in a rant about small change.

The hangover on Friday was monstrous but that didn’t help kick start my writing again either. So much for Fitzgerald / Hunter Thompson School of Creative Writing.

Today thank goodness the rusty cogs started creakily turning but it is still like trying to squeeze the last of the hand cream out of a tube when your hands are already slippery.

Grace, having been banned from the park for an entire month due to her five weeks of near continuous free-running whilst on holiday, (guide dog trainers rules..not mine I promise) is not helping. Every few minutes she brings over a stinky soft toy and sticks it on my lap with eyes huge and solemn, in an effort to get me to play with her. A pile of half gnawed rubber rings, fluffy elephants, teddy bears and rope pulls has built up next to the filing. When I don’t respond she stands at the door and whimpers to be let out. Five minutes later she whimpers to be let in. The door to the garden is next to my desk and every time I open the door the temperature drops by several degrees forcing me to get up AGAIN and find extra socks, shawls, jumpers etc which sets off the cycle of coffee, washing up...
I end up barking at her (in a strange role reversal), ‘Not NOW I am TRYING to WORK!’

So today she is lying in her bed with eyes rolling, sighing dramatically and looking forlorn. All together now..’Its a dog’s life..!’

Back In Blighty.

I know, I know and I do apologise...I have not blogged since before Christmas It seems odd to now ensconced in 2010. 2010. It’s not the sci-fi world I had quite imagined back in the late ‘70’s. Where on earth is my plasma gun?

'Dad' (c) T.Bush Dec 09
And so folks...I best fill you in.
Zambia was both wonderful and at times very difficult. On a positive note Dad’s condition got a little better for a while and by the time my younger sister arrived for Xmas he was up for cooking in the evening and enjoying visitors. My sister arrived anxious about the trip and feeling a little as if she were carrying her past on her back like a rucksack of paper cuts and although we did much together to dull some of those tiny little knives it was still sometimes hard for her to cope with all the changes in both Dad and the Lusaka she had last seen over 6 years previously. But she held her own and her last evening was a revelatory riot of fabulous stories from her time working in the Zambian bush and the local zoo.

Zoe on the hill' (c) T.Bush Dec 09
It was also good to have a sister-in-arms for a while against some of the bullying we had to put up with from my father’s partner. Although my Dad has been with her for nearly 12 years and although I know she can be a kind and thoughtful person, her jealousy and insecurity about his children still exceeds her sense by a very great deal. (Saying she is difficult is like saying Dick Cheney is not really a ‘people’ person, or that Bill Gates has spare change or Tiger Woods has got balls. Sorry.. 'had’ balls. It is a tad of an understatement.)

But I don’t want to dwell on that stuff because I was there for Dad and I got to be with him every day over the five weeks. It was great to see him feeling strong enough to go out for a meal and to cook salt beef again, to sit calmly next to him when he was hyped up on steroids and listen to the opera ‘Leonora’ at full blast (or as I call it ‘steroid-sound’,) to sit chatting with my sister, Dad and great friends and food on a cool porch in the New Year.
'SJ's Porch' (c) T.Bush Jan 10

There was my beautiful friend’s 40th birthday party and more weight training with my dear buddy EM and that wonderful bright gold light that flooded into my bedroom at 6am every morning. (Sometimes not the most soothing thing for a hangover..) 'Tash and Me' (c) T.Bush Jan10

But time ticked on and I had to go.

At the airport in Lusaka at 6.30am on a Thursday morning, Dad and I said goodbye and for a moment I felt just like the 10 year old kid going back to boarding school. I wondered if I would throw up on my shoes.
‘I love you Dad,’ I said and walked into the trolley in front of me. From behind the barrier Dad looked anxious and pale, sweat beading his forehead, leaning on his cane. I tried to pull myself together and gave him a grin. It must have looked ghastly but vaguely convincing. He nodded and turned away and I staggered through customs to the boarding queue.
I finally sucked up the last drops of glittering hot African light from the runway and holding them deep in my lungs ducked into the dark cabin and was immediately waved into what the cabin steward called ‘the naughty corner.’
‘Give us a moment love,’ he said winking ‘You’ve been upgraded.’
Imagine!
That same steward drip fed me Kir Royales and delicious nosh until I could no longer figure out what buttons on the sleeping chairs did what and passed out happily.
There there was several hours on a creaking coach through the night

and there I was..

in Cambridge,

in my flat, iron cold, dark and empty.

‘Shit,’.’ I thought, sat on the edge of the bed, still clutching my wash kit from Buisness Class and feeling my tan ebbing.. Even the duvet felt damp with cold. Sometimes lonliness makes mincemeat of us.

Grace arrived a few days later thank goodness. Due to inclement weather and a few other problems there was no chance for her to do refresher training before she arrived. For five weeks she has been ‘just a dog’ competing for food, toys and love with three or four other dogs, two horses and a bunch of chickens. She charged around my small flat then sat down, head cocked and looked at me with both love and confusion.

‘How do I reboot her?’ I asked the trainer nervously scanning Grace’s tummy for red buttons. As it turns out it was me who needed rebooting. My brain was so full of Zambia, so higgledy piggledy with emotion I had forgotten even the simplest commands. Grace however although slightly shell shocked has seemed more than happy to reassume work. She took me twice to London last week ...but that’s another story and I’m sure you have things to do and other blogs to read so I’ll let you go. More soon I promise! Grace back at work. (c) Tim Jan 10

Crispy Mush.

My Dad says it’s okay now to tell you that it is he who has the multiple myeloma; the plasma eating cancer that sneaks in to nibble on white blood cells and nerves leaving mouse bite holes in various bones and causing havoc with the rather useful large organs. It is bloody painful and the treatment is extremely unplesant. He has been having a hard time of it and that is why I am here, in Lusaka, Zambia, extending my Xmas vacation by a few weeks to hang out with me Dad as he chews his way through hundreds of ghastly pills and tries each morning to figure out if it is going to be a good day or a bloody bad one. Xmas Dad/Elf: (c) T. Bush 09

However, as he is rather more stubborn then a mule with piles and braver then Attilla the Hun, he insists on going to work even when he is feeling ghastly, propping himself behind his desk so his patients can’t see his cane or the days when his hands tremble terribly (infuriating for a doctor famous for having the steadiest hands in the biz. Makes tying knots in fishing tackle bloody tricky.)

He won't stop. Last weekend he was honored guest at the Mother of Mercy HIV Hospice where he is volunteer medical supervisor. He insisted on leaping up to make a speech but they made him sit to do the presents.

He is rather marvellous.

He won’t want me to bang on about 'IT' though as he hates people worrying. At first he tried telling everyone it was just a ‘squash injury’. He upgraded it to a ‘ski jump accident’ when he started the chemo but now we have both decided ‘kite surfing incident’ has serious kudos and sounds much more glamerous .

Hospice Xmas Party: (c) T. Bush 09

My days so far have been focused on hanging out with Dad breakfast, lunch and supper and just being around when he is resting. I am not greatly useful but he doesn't mind. I've seen old friends too including a lovely Xmas dinner party complete with dramatic sunset and sun-downers overlooking the Southern hills, the dying sun burning my pale skin.

I do miss Grace of course and find myself talking to the space on my left where she should be, which makes people around me a little nervous, but have news that she is thoroughly enjoying her holiday and the snow back in UK which makes me happy.

When Dad is working I should be working on my manuscript for university but instead I have rejoined my old gym. I love my old stinky gym. I used to train here ten years ago and they still have the same towels and equipment, neither of them have been washed particually well since 1999. But I know where everything is and so even though it is boiling and the air conditioner has never worked, only leaked, even though they have fabulously bad Zambian TV on at the SAME time as blasting out Eminem's latest hits, even though the door to the ladies changing rooms is stuck open in such a way as to make getting in for a shower an extra cardio exercise and inside is potentially a bacteria ridden death trap, and even though I suspect one of the receptionists does her own version of ‘personal training..ehem’ in the massage room on occasion, even so I feel very comfortable there.

Anyway it is all essential for getting rid of stress …..or would have been except my old buddy EM was there. He recently won 3^rd place in the Mr. Zambia body building competition and can see from across the blinking gym that I am being half hearted about my crunches and press ups. I am cheerfully adopted and there is no escape. An hour and a half later and my lactic acid build up is through the roof. Me and The Incredible Hulk: (c) T. Bush 09

'Tomorrow,' says EM grinning hugely. He does everything hugely. Note the photo….

And I did this..went with my dear friend and her beautiful children to East of the city into the scrubby bush. Storm clouds towered several thousand feet high on the horizon but the sun blazed heartily determined to melt my 50 factor sun cream. I didn’ t have my jodphurs or boots but there was a jump and it just seemed the right thing to do. The horse was Amarula…a very appropriately named beast for me as the amarula is a little fruit which makes a delicious very potent alcoholic drink…

So for you readers, in various places and my friends and family snowed in and freezing, slipping on the ice and weary of the darkness, I send you some sunburn, the sound of creaking cicadas, the smell of distant rain and the sensation of sun burn.

And love, much, much love. We never know what is around the corner…live every day stuffed full with the stuff!

More soon. Cloud Ships: (c) T. Bush 09

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