Future Prospects.

As previously forecast on this blog, today I went the doc again to ask him about my latest apparent health issue.

Oh dear (sigh) here we go again…

He took a look at the offending appendages. He checked this, he checked that, he asked questions, he mused a lot, he suggested various possibilities which included the fact that it might all be down to my current medication for an otherwise unrelated nuisance. He deleted said medication and substituted two more, and then said that I would need a further blood test to establish the condition of my liver.

Where is this going? Is this the start of yet more hospital adventures, a type of adventure which encourages entirely the wrong sort of adrenalin? I’m tired of it all, I really am. All I want from life now is peace, quiet, and the freedom live my little life in my own little world, rambling the Shire and planning my next incarnation as the Emperor of China (and any Chinese people reading this might like to be forewarned that things are going to change big time when I take over.)

And then there came a little mystery. When I got home my right ear started to hurt – on the outside, that is, not the inside, as though someone had given it a forceful knock with a baseball bat. I don’t recall the doctor doing that, so who did? And if nobody did, why did my right ear contradict the evidence of my memory?

I remembered the old maxim relating to situations when the ear exhibits inexplicable symptoms: ‘left for love, right for spite.’ (It seems to me that this maxim owes its popularity more to a subconscious recognition of the appealing nature of alliteration and rhyme, but you never know.) Is there somebody out there who hates me so much that my right ear is picking up the vibe? Is that too fanciful? Well, of course it is, but you never know.

It would be interesting to think that somebody hates me that much, but I can’t come up with a suitable candidate. Historically, probably, but not for the past few decades. I suppose it could be the woman who engaged me in conversation during my walk through the village this morning (or, to be more precise, the woman who arrested my perambulation and lectured me mercilessly on a variety of fascinating subjects, such as the fact that she doesn’t mind cold weather as long as it isn’t raining, and that her reading of world stock markets indicates that China is about to invade Taiwan. (I omitted to inform her that I was going to be Emperor one day, and that all would be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?) Eventually I managed to extricate myself from her clutches by mentioning that I had to go because I had a doctor’s appointment. What I omitted to say was that I had 4½ hours to kill first. Well, you would, wouldn’t you?

(The blood test is booked for 1^st June by the way, and the follow-up appointment on 13^th June. If anything noteworthy transpires I’ll report it here. That’s if here is where I still am, of course.)

A Brief Brush with a Nurse Called Elaine.

I had a telephone consultation with a Senior Specialist urology nurse from the Royal Derby Hospital today. (Senior Specialist nurses are virtually doctors these days, and my attitude to the fact is ambivalent. I like to think of nurses as surrogate mothers who tend to your physical and emotional needs as your own mother did when you were a little boy, but never mind. Life moves on and ’twas ever thus.)

She began by asking me how I was feeling generally. I told her that I was malfunctioning literally from head to toe, but I wouldn’t bore her with the details since she wouldn’t want to know. She did want to know, she said, and so I wasted five minutes of her valuable time giving her the briefest run down I could manage. She listened patiently and then moved on (I assume my multifarious health issues were not germane to her professional interest, which just goes to demonstrate that I can be right occasionally.)

Her call was all to do with my impending next set of CT scans (which I knew already) in preparation for which I had submitted urine and blood samples. She told me that the urine sample was clear of any little nasties (like microscopic cancerous bits), and my blood test indicated that my remaining kidney was functioning precisely as kidneys are supposed to function. So now I can be booked in for the scans, and there you have it.

Her name was Elaine, she was from Northern Ireland, was very lovely and patient and friendly, and I felt better already, don’t you know. End of story.

(I wonder whether Elaine is an alternative form of Helen – or Hélène if you happen to be French. I think I wrote a post once about meeting the lovely Hélène from Le Puy. I’m sure I did. She wasn’t a nurse though, she was an English teacher. Does that make a difference?)

The Shire in Glorious Technicolour.

I’ve written before on this blog about the subtle variety of colours to be seen in the woodland margins now that most of the standard trees are replete with this year’s new leaf growth. The solid mid greens, the muted sage greens, the pale greens, the corn yellows, the hints of russet, and so on and so forth. Add to that the hawthorn blossom on trees and hedgerow shrubs glowing white in the May sunshine and you have quite a picture. But there’s more.

Last year, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we began to see the yellow of oilseed flowers painting a few fields a solid mass of bright gold. And this year there are at least twice as many joining the tapestry of green hay meadows and the pale brown of freshly tilled fields awaiting the appearance of this year’s maize crop. And still there’s more.

The landscape here in the Shire, and across the valley on the rising ground of the neighbouring county, is liberally studded with single trees, small copses, and bigger woods, and many of those trees are Copper Beeches. So now you can add splashes of deep wine red to the green, white, brown, gold, and buff.

You know, I’ve often wanted to see the lavender fields of France and Italy, but the last three days have been sunny here and I think the Shire can compete with the best Europe has to offer in the matter of gloriously coloured landscapes. If I still had a functioning camera I would take a picture and post it, but I haven’t so you’ll just have to take my word. Sorry.

Seeing Life In Vitro.

I was walking up the lane called The Hollow today. That’s the sunken lane I’ve talked about before on this blog, sunken – or so it is said – over many centuries by the weight of pigs being taken by smallholders from the village to the woods to grub for truffles.

The sides are steep and reach a height of around fifteen feet in places, topped on one side by a wood, and on the other by a line of old oaks, sycamores, and ashes. Much of the lower level is covered by a carpet of white garlic flowers at this time of year, and the uppermost level is festooned with the leaves of countless bracken plants come nearly to full growth. The intermediate level is liberally splattered with wild plants of many denominations, while the whole is backed by a ubiquitous mantle of wild ivy.

Even though it’s only around three hundred yards long, I’ve always thought it the most characterful – and I wouldn’t hesitate to say ‘magical’ – lane in the whole Shire. The atmosphere there is quite unique, especially now that the arboreal canopy is beginning to fill and imparting a sense of being in a natural grotto. But today something else captured my attention. I felt a sudden and deep awareness of being alive.

You might think that there’s nothing unusual about feeling alive. We’re all aware of being alive, aren’t we? We all think about life; we ponder the meaning and purpose of life; we all think, at least occasionally, about our inevitable mortality; we all, at least occasionally, take pleasure from a sense of being alive in those instances when life is vibrant and enjoyable. And yet at the same time we take it for granted, and that’s perfectly normal. But that’s what was different about today’s experience, and I have no other way of explaining it except in a feeble and half formed way.

I became aware of my life from the outside somehow. It was as though my consciousness eased a little distance away from me and observed the process of being a material body functioning in a material environment and responding emotionally to the delights contained therein. It was a dispassionate, pragmatic experience which lasted for only a minute or two before I slipped back into simply being me again.

That’s a hopelessly inadequate description I know, but it’s the best I can do. And the only thing to add is that I’ve never had it before.

Two Tiny Tales.

I saw the Lady B’s car this morning for the first time since Christmas Day. So why should that be noteworthy? Well, because everything I encounter which has a direct connection with the Lady B sprinkles a teaspoonful of magic dust into my life, and I don’t get much of that. ’Twas ever thus and I suspect it always will be.

*  *  *

But on the downside, I also received a hint of chiding from Millie the Horse’s human. I told her of my efforts to track down the elusive Millie so that I might confer upon the dear old lady the gift of raw carrot, and Millie’s human expressed a note of reservation. The problem is, apparently, that Millie’s field has a public footpath running through it, and said human was concerned that if Millie gets used to being given the gift of raw carrot – or any other popular comestible come to that – she might start pestering walkers passing through the field and become a nuisance.

It seems that a previous horse – a big warrior of a gelding called Ben who died of old age a few years ago – had a disconcerting habit. He, too, was domiciled in that field during his retirement, and if he saw anybody walking through it wearing a hat he would trot over to them, steal the hat, and run away with it, leaving his poor human to be harassed by the heated complaints of hatless ramblers.

I sympathised, naturally, and tonight I left a raw carrot by the field gate so that dear Millie might receive a pleasant surprise the next time she ventures that way. I thought it the best compromise in the circumstances. I'm nice like that

A Note on the Big Occasion.

So, today King Charles III had his kingliness officially ratified with much pomp and circumstance in Westminster Abbey (or wherever it was.) I didn’t watch it, of course; I went for a walk instead.

The lanes and byways of the Shire were largely deserted as would be expected in such a monarchist area, and I imagine there was a bit of tutting going on if my perambulations were spotted through the windows of the loyal celebrants. Some of them think me odd as it is, and they probably regard the missing of a coronation as the next best thing to a cardinal sin. And maybe someone will one day take me to task for my less than respectful behaviour. I imagine a conversation running somewhat thus:

‘You’re not a monarchist then?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re a republican, like that horrible man who got arrested for leading a protest against the coronation?’

‘No.

‘Ah, a fence sitter, eh?’

‘No.’

‘Well if you’re neither one nor the other you must be undecided, and that makes you a fence sitter.’

‘No it doesn’t. I’m one of the third persuasion.’

‘Which is?’

‘Well, first of all you need to consider the question which nobody seems to be asking: do we need a head of state at all? I admit to being ambivalent on that one. I can see a benefit of sorts in having a head of state, but as long as he or she has no executive function I don’t see that it matters whether they’re elected or not. I do admit, though, that having an executive President carries its own dangers. We might end up with a Trump or Bolsonaro, and where would we be then? As for the man who got arrested, I imagine he’s just somebody with an anger issue giving vent to it. I’m sure he’s of no consequence, although I expect he thinks he is.’

*  *  *

Although I didn’t watch the coronation, I’ve seen several pictures on the BBC News website, and in every one of them poor old Charles looks reluctant if not downright miserable. One showed him and his wife in the fairy tale coach after the ceremony. She was smiling and waving; he was looking the other way and appeared terminally glum. Then again, it could have been that he was attempting to distance himself from the woman sitting next to him. She was wearing her Queen consort’s crown, and if I think women look stupid in the sort of hats they wear to weddings, the sight of Camilla and her crown belonged in a rarefied league of its own.

On Millie's Carrot and the Magic of Spring.

The dinner was eaten, the dishes washed, the floor vacuumed, and still the evening was truly vernal and demanding my presence outdoors.

So I went out laden with carrots to find Millie the Horse. She gave me the slip last night, so tonight I tried a different tactic. I went up the lane to the top of her field where there’s a stile and saw her grazing about a hundred yards away. I climbed the stile and walked towards her, holding out a carrot to serve as a ticket to gain access to her esteemed presence.

She watched me for a few minutes, started to walk slowly towards me, and then changed her mind. Clearly she was nervous and began to amble to one side. ‘OK,’ I thought, ‘new tactic. Stand still, keep the carrot in sight, and let her come to you in her own time. And so she did – eventually. It took her a while but she duly arrived and accepted her first piece of carrot. And then she wanted another, and another, and when there was only one left which I intended for another horse in another field, she was having none of it. As soon as I tried to walk away she followed me closely, nudging my shoulder in the way women do when they want something and won’t let you go until they get it.

Another tactic was required: take the last carrot (which was fortunately quite a big one), break it into three pieces, give Millie one of them, and put the other two on the ground where she could see them. It worked. I left Mistress M cheerfully chomping on raw carrot while I walked back to the stile and headed off down the lane. The sun shone, wisps of white cloud hung benignly in the blue bowl of evening, the warm air ruffled not so much as a blade of grass, and all was right with the world for a change. And it didn’t end there because the evening was still too seductive to be wasted indoors.

I went and fetched my shovel and spent half an hour clearing the mud, tree seeds, and other detritus soiling the road grids. An old lady drove past me while I was so engaged, parked her car by the green triangle at the end of Bag Lane, and began strimming the grass. Finding myself to be in a rare amicable mood, I decided to exchange a few words with my fellow worker. We complained about the tractor drivers who mount the kerb of the little grassy triangle, leaving deep, ugly tyre tracks along one side of it. She told me that they really didn’t need to do that, and having been a farmer’s daughter, she should know. Since she looked to be in her late seventies at least, and having noticed the line of white beard growth on one side of her chin, I conceded the point without hesitation.

And still the evening hadn’t stopped seducing me with its vernal charms. For the first time in around seven months, I took my mug of tea and pack of biscuits into the garden and watched the sun set over the Weaver Hills across the valley.

So who says I’m not responsive to the odd charms that life has to offer on the odd occasion when it chooses to do so?

On May and Happenings.

I think I wrote a post once about the significant things which happened in the month of May and which profoundly affected my life. I think I did, but I can’t be bothered to find out so I’ll write another one. The first three should (for reasons known only to me) be reported generically, and their relevance to my personal circumstances may be freely inferred.

May is the month when people go to Egypt, then return to the home shore and say ‘life moves on, Jeff.’ May is the month when precious people marry, and in so doing leave my orbit irrevocably and shut the door behind them. May is the month when they stand still and statuesque in the warmth of the late spring sunshine, the long, dark blue cotton maternity dress betraying a hint of the new life inside, entirely ignorant of my presence but presenting such a picture of incalculable loveliness that my heart leaps with the learning of a new lesson and the remembering of an old one: perception is the whole of the life experience.

So now let’s shift to a properly first person narrative. What of the more explicitly personal ones?

The two most unpleasant and mentally enervating jobs I ever had began in May, and they both ended in May. I met the woman who was to become my one and only official wife in May. And I’m fairly sure it was in May when she came back to the marital abode to collect her piano after our separation, and I never saw her again. My first footfall on a foreign shore was made in May, the shore being the concrete quayside of St John’s Newfoundland. My only visit to the Emerald Isle (land of my fathers by all accounts) was made in May, and the weather was unusually clement for that time of year in Ireland. And May was the month when I moved into this house, a change of circumstance which eventually led to my base psychic energy level shifting from positive to negative, and producing a catalogue of health issues which is still growing. It also led me into the blogging habit which has produced many questions and left me feeling less certain of anything than I have ever been. It has become my latest – and possibly my last – monomania.

Is that all of them? Probably not, but I’m too tired to wade through the morass of recollection so it will have to do. And will this May add anything to the list? I don’t know yet, do I?

But now the darkness of night is approaching under a heavy cloud cover, so it’s time to do the twilight chores. I might be back later.

A Blood and Bowl Day.

Two exciting things happened today. The greater of the two was giving up yet another small tube of blood to a nurse at the GP surgery. She wasn’t one of my favourite nurses unfortunately, being functional but lacking in both personality and a sense of humour. (‘Which arm do you want?’ I asked. ‘The left.’ ‘They always take it from the left.’ I grumbled. ‘I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen off by now.’ Zilch.) She seemed pleased that my blood pressure was only 144/80, but expressed her displeasure silently when I said that I couldn’t be bothered taking my own blood pressure at home and that I hadn’t given up smoking yet.

(It was perhaps no coincidence that she called me in ten minutes early, which is most unusual for a GP surgery. I suspect that some of the others had got wind of who was on duty today and decided to call in sick.)

The lesser happening of note was that I spent the alarming sum of £3.50 on a new washing up bowl because the old one was getting a bit manky. I mention it only because I like confusing the three (I think) Americans who still read this blog. ‘What’s a washing up bowl? Don’t they have sinks over there? And what does manky mean? Brits are weird.’)

Considering Beetle Mind.

It’s an interesting fact that wherever I’ve been walking over the past week or two, be it around the precincts of my little abode or perambulating the byways of the Shire, I keep seeing small beetles – presumably baby ones – scurrying frantically across the hard surfaces of lanes and paths. And so I ask the question: why do they do it?

Is there something they want on the other side, because if so it would suggest that beetles are capable of aspiration and therefore conscious intent? Or is it simply that beetles are genetically programmed to walk rapidly in a straight line whenever the day is dry and the temperature convivial (they don’t seem to do it in cold or wet weather)?

So therein lies another oddness in the matter of JJ’s perception of life, the universe, and everything. While others question the wisdom of a change in interest rates, the rightness of allowing unemployed foreigners to enter the country without a valid ticket, or the soundness of the judges' decision in determining who should be crowned victor in some TV reality show or other, I concern myself with wondering why baby beetles cross the road.