ganching

Month's Mind

My extended sick leave is coming to an end and tomorrow I'm returning to work.  This is rather ironic as today I got phoned by the doctor and asked to come in to discuss the results of a blood test.  I actually now have something wrong with me other than a terrible cold and extreme misery.  Nothing serious but I will need to have more tests.

This has been a very strange period.  The time has flown in which is strange as I did almost nothing.

I spent a great deal of time in bed and wasted an inordinate amount of time on the Internet and I read some blue blanket books.  I did almost nothing in the garden but to make up for it I have just been outside planting a fuchsia, some sweetpeas, two leeks, two celeriac and two cabbages.  The veg seedlings were given to me by a friend about ten days ago and I have been neglecting them ever since.  Even if they survive my negligence I don't hold out much hope of them surviving the slugs.  I did go and visit the garden above which is at Eltham Palace, one of south London's hidden gems.

I am dreading going back to work but I can't avoid it forever.  On Saturday I am going home for two days.  I don't know how I feel about returning.  One thing for certain is that it will be different from any other time I've been there.

Human Chain

 

The morning after the day that my mother died I went for a walk with my sister and the Surly Niece.  We wandered down our road past the house where I spent most of my childhood and down the hill towards the moss. On one side of the road are the fields which made up my father's small farm and on the other side are the fields that belonged to my uncle.

The road is narrow, bordered by ancient hedges; if you look carefully you can still see how they were laid a long, long time ago. The hedges are made up of different species,  hawthorn and blackthorn white with blossom at this time of year,  honeysuckle and sprawling dog roses not yet in flower.  There are ash trees and oaks and right at the bottom of the road wild cherry trees.  During the time that I was at home the cherry trees came into bloom and for a week or two they looked glorious.  Before I left the blossom had fallen and lay like snow on the road.   My father cut those hedges by hand, using a bullhook, but now they are cut by machines which leaves them looking brutalised for  a week or two but thankfully they always recover and the birds don't seem to mind.

We went into the moss and wandered round.  There were other people there; a man cutting turf who nodded at us and somewhere in the distance a child's voice could be heard above the sound of a tractor.

 As children we were allowed to go where we liked and would disappear for hours on end, playing elaborate games or just wandering.  We were warned to be careful in the moss in case anyone fell into a moss hole which we were told were deep enough for a child to drown in.  I don't remember any instances of near death caused by drowning but between us we managed at various times to get scratched, bitten, cut and badly sunburnt while playing in the moss.

On the way back we called into our neighbour's house to visit and talk about the flowers for the altar.  

"I'll get something good at the florist's with this but I'm going to pick some bluebells as well.  Your mammy always loved bluebells."

We walked back up the hill to my mother's house closer to the noise of the traffic from the main road.

The following day the altar did look lovely but the bluebells had already begun to droop not liking the sun that was pouring through the chapel windows.  

Headless

I went to the doctor's this morning. She asked me what was wrong and I told her I had a cold and promptly burst into tears.  I left with a prescription for antibiotics and a two week sick note.  Since coming back to London I have been in bed most of every day.  I am completely exhausted and depleted and I have no motivation to do anything.

Yesterday I went back to work for the first time since my mother died. For many different reasons I was dreading it.  I always find it hard to get to sleep on  Sunday nights at the best of times but, as I needed to get up really early, I decided to go to bed at ten.  I has almost fallen asleep on the sofa earlier in the evening despite the fact that somewhere outside we could hear a squawking noise that had been going on for hours.  I was pretty sure I'd heard the noise before and worked out that it must have been one of the neighbours,  a grown man, playing with a model helicopter. 

I had been in bed for about ten minutes when the house phone rang.  I got up and went into the living room.  It was Traybake checking up on me and possibly angling for an invitation to come up for tea.  I told him I was wearing a baby doll nightie to put him off and then went back to bed. I could still hear the squawking. Twenty minutes later the intercom rang.  I wasn't going to answer it but then thought it might be one of the girleens  who had forgetten their keys.  It wasn't.  A man with an accent I didn't recognise was at the door.  He began telling me a complicated story about a lost  bird.  Eventually I established that the bird was in a tree near our house.  He sounded quite hysterical.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because we would like to come into your flat and ......."

I was very emphatic.

" No, no and no.  I have flu, I'm in bed, I'm wearing a baby doll nightie!"is what I should have said.

 Instead I muttered something about being sick and asked him to go away.  I went back to bed.

Five minutes later my mobile phone rang.  It was the surly niece asking me if some random had just tried to get into my flat.

I decided that Traybake needed to find out what was happening so rang him. Considering he is the nosiest man on Titter of Wit Street he was oblivious to all the going-ons.  He went outside to investigate.  Fifteen minutes later he rang me back.  (It was now almost midnight).  The bird was an elderly cockatoo and the female half of the couple who owned it was considering trying to climb the tree and forcibly rescuing it.  TB and some other neighbours dissuaded her from doing so.   TB strongly advised them to leave and come back in the morning.

I didn't get to sleep for hours and lay tossing and turning worrying about everything, including whether I had been a bit mean about not letting them come into the flat.

At 7 am I got a text from the SN to let me know there was a man with birdseed sitting on the front steps.  Out the window I could see his wife anxiously peering up into the branches.  We suspect they were there all night.

By the time I left for work they were gone.  None of us knows what happened but we do know the cockatoo isn't there any more.

I went to work feeling like death and came home feeling even worse.  More on this later.

 

Home

I am back in London spending the morning in bed.  Most members of my immediate family, over the past 10 days or so, have developed colds.  I am convinced mine is the worst.  For about 15 minutes or so on the plane coming back yesterday afternoon I went almost completely deaf.  There was something quite soothing about it.  It only stopped when I blew my nose.  Unfortunately my hearing returned as sharply as ever and once again I could hear the boy behind me playing music on his phone and the easyjet staff trying to sell us things.

I am glad to be back in my own flat but alarmed that the smell is back.  It is either drains, a putrefying animal or a leak.  

It is completely grey in London today.  I was in Northern Ireland for almost 3 weeks and the sun shone every day.  Possibly for the first time since records began. No sign of the sun here.  I have inspected the garden which looks a bit sad and clearly has not had enough rain or watering.  The sycamore tree's leaves are fully out and there are some roses in bloom.  The rhubarb I planted looks very flaccid and I doubt if it will survive. The flowering currant no longer has any blooms on it and the raspberry remains unplanted.

I will have to drag myself out soon to do some food shopping, buy some recycling bags and vote in a referendum that I don't care about.

I found it really, really painful leaving my mother's house for the last time.