Wednesday 23 December 2009

Tonsilectomy Day 2

The plan is to pick Lorraine up post ward round, so I manage some porridge at home before hitting the road. The weather has been quite white so I wonder if the road will be ok. It is but the hospital car park is a bit chaotic with overnight staff having difficulty getting their cars out of the spaces. Inside, L is nearly ready to go. The docs haven't seen her but the nurse says she can go as she has all her medicines. She looks better than I expected. We drive home carefully and arrive about noon. I bought some special soup (Marco Pierre White) which we enjoy for lunch (as much as someone who has just had their tonsils out can enjoy anything. I take L's mum out along the snowy road after lunch so L can get some down time, and we slither our way to the shops and back. In the evening we have scallops for starters (done in wine) followed by bangers and mash. L struggles manfully with my treats. Her throat looks angry and raw. It will be a long night for her I think.

Monday 21 December 2009

Tonsilectomy

6.15am alarm goes off. Snooze on! keep the dark winter morning at bay. Ah but we have to check in at the pre-admission ward at 8am and we don't want to be late.....particularly as L is first on the list (although we don't know that yet...), so, it's get up folks! L is fasting so breakfast is out for her and I can get mine on return. A quick shower then and out. The temperature is above freezing so the car isn't frosted up. L's mum opens her bedroom curtain and waves us a goodbye. We join the Monday morning traffic on Costorphine Road, pull in to buy a paper of quality and post a letter, and then head for St John's Hospital, Livingston.
The hospital car park is helpfully empty when we get there and we find the ward without undue difficulty. This is the first day this newly refurbished ward has been open. You can smell the paint. You can see the confusion in the staff. Where the bloody hell is everything...? Not reassuring. However they probably will be able to rustle up a cut throat razor from somewhere.....
I settle in for the duration at L's bed, only to be told she is first up. Wow! The docs come and get her to sign the procedure off and then the nurses kick me out. I drive the lonely journey back and make my porridge. Stephanie (L's mum) is glad to see me and squeezes me for info. We spend the day doing shopping chores and worrying about L. I can't get through to the ward so I reckon I'll have to wait til visiting tonight at 7. Steph and I go for coffee and do a supermarket shop. I need to get that turkey which I will be cooking.... I haul out recipe books for ideas. Sure, cooking a turkey has never been easier, has it? The day drifts by. I make Steph and me steak and chips - comfort food I know. Never have I gobbled such good food so fast but I have worked out that to be there by 7 I now need to move smartly. I see her from outside the 6 bedded room through the window before she sees me. Such relief to see her sleeping and looking ok. My heart skips a beat. I've taken in grapes (so original I know but I also brought a cadbury's flake and today's post so there!). We enjoy opening the Christmas cards together. The hour races by but I've checked with the nurses and can come after breakfast tomorrow. G'nite my love.

Friday 6 November 2009

Jerry Springer on Roy Plumley's turf.

Jerry Springer was the guest on Kirsty Young's Desert Island Discs this morning! What with that and Question Time and Nick Griffiths, it looks as though the BBC might be going to make a habit of giving us bizarre combinations of people and programmes. Suggestions welcome! Jeremy Paxman presenting Blue Peter! Admittedly he does have an interesting story to tell, having started off as a civil rights campaigner working for Bobby Kennedy. He was born in Germany of Jewish parents and the family only just succeeded in getting out of Germany in '39. They were among the very last Jews to get exit visas. They came to England but after the war went to America. His rationale for his show is that he felt that it wasn't just the rich and glitzy who had disfunctional tawdry stories to tell and it was a shame that the poor were being missed out. Well how about that then? I missed the end of the programme so I'll try and get the tantalising bit about his favourite disc, luxury item and the one book he would take on iplayer.

Thursday 5 November 2009

Dust

Room now back together but still missing furniture. Last night Lorraine and I reluctantly set about washing (scrubbbing) the plaster dust begrimed floor. It will need another wash yet. The skirting boards went back on today as did the window sills and facings. So instead of writing this I could be cleaning! O joy!

Now that that other dust raising event - Nick Griffiths on Question Time, has settled, I feel the need to do a little metaphorical cleaning. I found his presence on QT made me angry. But not with him or the BNP whose policies I despise anyway. No, I was angered by the decision to bring him on the programme in the first place. I thought question time was a programme where interesting and topical questions were asked and answered by interesting, clever, well informed people. Fat chance! Here was a show trial with the questions almost entirely being slanted in such a way as to enable the audience and the rest of the panel to have a go at Griffiths. This is not what QT is for! Moreover by victimising him it probably created as much sympathy for him as alienation. An interesting article in Scotland on Sunday which focussed on the beginning of the BNP campaign in the Glasgow by election, gave us the mood of some of the locals, which was decidedly and scarily on BNP message. Hard times whilst bringing out the best in some, can alas also bring out our scapegoating finest.

Saturday 31 October 2009

Day 3 nearly there





Well, we've reached the weekend and the process has not been as bad as we were expecting. I guess it has been a taster for the attic extension work to come. Men return on Monday to replace skirting boards and then we can have the room back.

Thursday 29 October 2009

Day 2 at 54


Well, the damp smell has gone and they are already putting things back. Plasterer next. We looked through the hole in the floor before they put the new boards down and what struck us was how basic and simple the construction is. Not that I'm volunteering to start a business in removing rotten timbers and replacing them. Not quite yet anyway.

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Today at 54




Ok here are day 1 photos! The house smells of damp plaster now. However as you can see we are definitely committed.......
7 am the alarm wakes us. In an hour workmen will arrive to tear up floor boards and get to grips with the damp timbers underneath our sitting room floor. The room is empty and fills with hollow echoes when you enter in the way that empty rooms do. It smells strongly of must and damp now that we have lifted the carpet and exposed the floor boards. The next 3 days (best estimate) will be filled with sounds of tearing, sawing and hammering. They (the firm contracted to do the work) say that dust will get everywhere. However, just in case this isn't enough fun for us, we are having the attic extended some time in the new year. Watch this space