On Self-Remonstration.

I went to Uttoxeter today for the first time in over a year. I’ve been confining my minimal shopping trips to Ashbourne where the Covid infection rate has been consistently lower, but I needed some materials to make a new bird table and the only place I knew would have them in stock happened to be in Uttoxeter.

Long story short…

After I’d passed through the checkout, the young woman operative came around to help me get the timber comfortably settled under my arm for the purpose of carrying it to the car. In so doing she came to within a few inches of me, and two of my multiple personalities woke up.

‘OMG!’ said the sensible and cautious one. ‘You haven’t been this close to another human being – apart from doctors and nurses who don’t count – for over a year. You might be about to become an uncomfortable statistic.’

The other said:

‘Wowee! I haven’t been this close to an attractive young woman for a hell of a lot longer than that. This is fun.’

Sensible-and-cautious glared like an aged Puritan matron with a bun where her hair should be and eyes of superheated steel.

‘Am I objectifying women?’ asked the other, suitably chastened.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s not good, is it?’

‘It most certainly is not.’

‘Oh well, I’ve heard it said that one should embrace one’s faults.’

‘And correct them…’

‘But if I corrected them I’d have nothing to embrace, would I? Have a heart.’

I’d reached the car by then and was engaged in the struggle to get the 8ft long piece inside the vehicle without breaking anything, at which point the two personalities went pouf and assumed the status of a minor memory. It just came back to me, which is why I’m writing this post.

Hardly a Pretty Picture.

I saw something on the TV recently in which aficionados were waxing eloquent about some ceremonial sword – a collector’s item, apparently – and I got to thinking…

The sword is a very sharp piece of metal designed by human beings to cause great harm to other human beings – to sever limbs and heads from bodies, to slash faces leaving livid scars, to make hideous holes in people, thereby causing massive pain, and in many cases death. And now we elevate the sword to the status of art.

I haven’t yet worked out what this says about the human mindset.

An Old Fashioned Cure.

I keep seeing news reports about the many failures to rid the Suez Canal of its constipation problem. Has nobody thought of throwing a few gallons of senna tea into the water?

Of the Deep and the Dumb.

You know, tonight I received an email from a very highly esteemed person about finding deeper reality beyond the material one we all think is it. It was pretty mind blowing and gave me a welcome lift out of my customary darkness.

And then I went onto YouTube and listened to the Beverly Hills Cop theme just because I like it. (And Ghostbusters too, incidentally.) I suspect I might be a contrast junkie.

More Firsts.

As reported in the previous post, the last couple of weeks has been replete with first encounters.

 

Though the temperature is still at the kind of level typical of March, spring is evidently in the air because the local cock pheasants have begun whatever the cock pheasant version of the rut is called. Only this year they’ve been sparring in my garden rather than in the field where they usually conduct their fisticuffs. Yesterday they were at it right outside my back door, and you’d be surprised at how noisy the whole business is when they’re jumping around squawking aggressively and banging into things. I told them to go away but they ignored me.

Today was even better. For the first time in my life I witnessed a fight between a hen pheasant and a squirrel for sole occupation of the bird table. The squirrel won. I kept out of it.

Being a Piece of Stale Bread.

I still feel the occasional urge to write a blog post. The problem is that I can’t think of anything to say that I haven’t said before, and repetition is both pointless and irritating. In short, I’ve turned into a piece of stale bread fit only for feeding to the birds or the old shire horse which lived in a field at the top of my road when I was a kid. (I asked Rosy to come and say hello to me today. She’s a young hunter who spends a lot of her time in a field at the top of my road. She took a few steps towards me and then turned and walked away. Well, there you are.)

Please excuse the descent into self-indulgence, but I’m becoming ever more aware that I’ve spent my whole life playing roles. ‘That’s what we all do,’ you might say, and I’m sure you’d be right. But most people seem to pay roles from a position of connectedness to life and the generality of humankind. That’s what I’ve always been lacking. I’ve never really had that connection. I play a role until it reaches a natural conclusion, and then move onto another theatre with a different cast and a different audience and play a different role there. And that’s where the problem lies:

To play the sort of roles I like playing, a person needs good health, strength, energy, the willingness to take risks, and at least a modicum of charisma. I don’t have those any more, and so the stale bread analogy is not really appropriate. Even a piece of stale bread is of some use to birds and shire horses. What I have is a void, which is probably why I’m depressed. Being in a void has that effect on a role player.

But at least there have been a few firsts to take note of over the past week. I’ve seen the first bumblebee of the new season, the first butterfly and the first ant (unfortunately, ants make me uncomfortable.) And then there was the brambling I saw on my bird table. The brambling is a bird native to Scandinavia and northern Russia, but they migrate here for the milder winters. I’ve never seen one on my bird table before.

The best of all, however, was the sight of two red deer stags, complete with noble antlers, in a field half a mile from my house. I’ve never seen a red deer stag up close and in the flesh before. Sightings of red deer stags are relatively uncommon even in the Scottish Highlands where they belong, and so the sight of two of them down here in the English Midlands is more than unusual. One person asked me whether I was sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Well, I’m as sure as anybody can be about anything. And I gather that stags are considered deeply symbolic in Celtic folklore, so maybe my sighting of a brace of the mighty but secretive beasts might have some mystical significance. If ever I find out what it is, I’ll let you know.

Reaching for the Dimmer Switch.

Here’s an interesting little note on the nature of chronic depression:

You fall asleep in front of the computer at eight o’clock at night, partly because your mind is overstretched with negative data, and partly because circumstances are conspiring to deny you the luxury of a full night’s sleep at the moment. Upon waking, your semi-torpid mind recognises that something is missing. What is it? Ah, of course: the depression is missing; you feel blank at the moment. This can’t be right; you’re always depressed to some extent or other; some degree of depression is the default position and you need to re-engage with it.

And so you search your database, especially the section marked ‘future prospects’, in hope of finding something to re-establish normality. But the process is confusing because part of you doesn’t want feel depressed. The process rumbles on nevertheless, until you remember something you didn’t really want to remember. Back you slip into wholesome darkness, whereupon you head to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee because coffee is one of the few pleasures left to you.

I’ve asked the rhetorical question before and I’ll ask it again: isn’t life interesting? Life has the unnerving quality of constantly teaching you things, but the ultimate question remains: does learning about life and the human condition actually have any merit? Is it a matter of painstakingly building a worthwhile jigsaw while having no image to guide you, or merely a futile exercise in self-justification?

The Writing Itch.

There have been quite a lot of things to talk about recently, and I haven’t talked about any of them apart from the little health crisis that jumped into my life two weeks ago. I ask myself why, because ‘why’ is the word I find most difficult to get away from. Is it simply because the chronic blues have subdued the wish to communicate, or has the blog really burned itself out and given up the ghost of usefulness? I still don’t know, but here’s the thing:

Very few things the grown ups taught me as a child stayed the course. I’ve lived my life mainly on a self-taught basis, just I acquired most of the temporary skills I picked up along the way using the same method. (Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, but I persevered anyway.) One of the things which did stay with me, however, was the notion that we all owe it to ourselves to use whatever skills we possess to the best of our ability. Just about the only skill I possess these days is the ability to write reasonably well, and so I can’t divest myself of the niggling sense that I’m failing in my duty to myself if I don’t do it. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but the niggle persists. So let me think back over the past few weeks and see whether I can find anything worth saying.

The most obvious is the crisis. I won’t go into detail because it would make unpleasant reading, but the bottom line comes down to this:

Blood in substantial quantity where there should be none at all (two pints was my estimate). The confusion of never having had anything like it happen before (which is scary). The pain, the nausea, the ashen appearance of my face in the mirror, and the concomitant weakness and dizziness. That’s the bottom line as far as the signs and symptoms are concerned.

It was interesting to note that the medical staff into whose care I was eventually committed seemed largely unconcerned. Well they would, wouldn’t they? They’re trained professionals to whom blood is simply a component of their craft. To those of us who are not so trained, blood in quantity is an emotive issue.

And then there was the fact that I was alone throughout the experience. I’m nearly always alone because I live alone and I’m a loner by nature. That’s generally fine; in fact, it’s generally how I prefer it. But it isn’t easy to keep a clear head and decide on the best course of action when you’re scared, confused and going through a version of physical hell. I managed nevertheless, and later thought that I would rather have it that way than be irritated to hell by some well meaning companion giving out incorrect or inadequate information. I’d prefer to take control of my own destiny in such matters, and that’s what I did. The upshot amounted to forty two hours in hospital, one night without sleep, some not inconsiderable pain and inconvenience in the course of treatment, and two missed meals. But I did get to meet lots of lovely nurses (including the Chinese one who took my cannula out), and I met Mr Zafar again – he’s the consultant who removed my cancerous kidney three years ago, the day before going off on a sabbatical. Thoroughly nice chap, Mr Zafar. And I think that will do.

In other news…

1. Spring is springing in the Shire. The crocuses and snowdrops have been resplendent and are now fading away to take their well earned summer rest. Their places at high table are being taken by daffodils, primroses and hyacinths, while there is much leaf growth from bluebells, tulips and wild garlic to promise more colour and sustenance next month. The first blackthorn blossom is out and the hedgerows are greening nicely. (The main area of concern, however, is that another potential health issue seems to be on the rise which might prevent me taking walks in this bucolic wonderland for the third summer in succession. It remains to be seen.)

2. I would so like to wish the girl with richest raven hair a very happy birthday and many happy returns, but I can’t because an undertaking is an undertaking. But I wish it privately anyway. The memory of seeing her in that blue cotton maternity dress on a sunny May day three years ago will never leave me. Nothing I have ever seen was quite so lovely.

Should I say it again? Yes. I might be back.

Returning Briefly.

The complete absence of blog posts for what seems like a very long time has been consequent upon three factors:

1. The development of a persistent state of chronic depression resulting in a lack of any desire to communicate.

2. A regular succession of anxiety-inducing circumstances.

3. The concomitant conviction that nothing I have to say is worth saying.

These might not be the only factors, however. All my life I’ve had a tendency to indulge a mild form of monomania with regard to my favourite activities until I felt that I’d milked them dry and there was nothing more to be done. At that point I’ve dropped them and walked away, never to return. Each of them usually lasted for about ten or eleven years. Whether that will prove to be the case with the blog is still unknown.

Nevertheless, the past couple of days have been eventful and I’m sufficiently convinced of their newsworthiness to warrant making the effort to report them. The easiest means of doing so would be to copy an email I sent to somebody last night when I got home. It reads:

Bit of excitement this week - emergency admission to A&E at the Royal Derby Hospital at 2.45am, courtesy of urinating neat blood in copious quantities (plus soreness, nausea, dizziness and other forms of discomfort, approximately every ten minutes.) It was both scary and messy, but I did have the presence of mind to clean the toilet bowl before the ambulance crew arrived just in case it indicated some terminal condition which would preclude my ever returning home. Didn't fancy the idea of somebody coming into the house and finding that mess. I considered it unreasonable and improper. My mother would have done the same. 

So, no sleep that night (the problem started at 11.00pm, but it took a while to get over my aversion to going to hospital.) And because of the various processes and movements between wards, I got no breakfast or lunch the following day. A nice nurse at my final resting place in the Surgical Assessment Unit got me a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea at around four o'clock. I like nurses.

Anyway, a team of urology doctors (including a rather spiffing young one called A***** P**** from Portugal who had black hair, olive skin and an athletic walk) used a combination of experience, instinct and some procedural evidence to conclude that the whole thing was consequent upon the last cystoscopy (being a UTI complicated by my blood-thinning medication which they told me to leave off until they'd sorted the problem.) The next day they told me the problem was sorted – hopefully – and I could leave once the discharge papers were completed and I’d been issued with my meds. That was at around 8pm. The NHS kindly paid for a taxi, but I gave the driver a tenner tip anyway because I felt sorry for him having to come out at night just to drive me the twenty miles home. But all day yesterday and today I've been worrying about my garden birds having no food for two days. I like birds.

In short, not much fun but hoping it's now dealt with.

That's my latest news.

(Forgot to mention: the best bit was having my cannula removed - the one they'd put in to deliver an antibiotic drip - by a Chinese nurse. I think the fates must have been feeling sorry for me by then.)

So there you have it, a rare blog post. I hope it was worth reading. Maybe I’ll be back some time. Maybe.