Author: clewis2020

27th November is David’s birthday. He would be eighty. Gwil, Larissa, Alun and I spend a very pleasant evening together and we talk to Huw on the phone. As always on David’s special days it is fish and chips for tea, and I bake a coffee and walnut cake. We watch “Kind Hearts and Coronets”, David’s all-time favourite film.

The WG’s top tip: A fish and chip supper is a great way to remember a loved one. Nobody can be miserable for long with a big plate of fish and chips – which, of course, always evoke lots of happy family memories.

How to choose a poem for David? – a nice bit of George Herbert, perhaps (Spywood connections) or Edward Thomas (Wandsworth and Welsh connections). The Revd Eli Jenkins from Under Milk Wood maybe (a bit too sentimental.) A proud Welshman, David was a keen rugby fan – we spent many Sunday mornings on the touchlines of southern England watching Huw and Alun play for London Welsh, and many tense afternoons in front of the telly during the six nations. And David used to love belting out hymns in church or chapel. I think it has to be Calon Lan. We played the tune at David’s funeral as we came into the church. It has a beautiful line about rising to heaven on wings of song. (Click on to the top right image and move the red line back to start)

(By the way, Isabelle and Caitlin have daffodil hats – bought by their loving Granddad for a Wales – Scotland game.)

Christine update

Thank you, everyone for your lovely emails, and many apologies for delays in replying over the last couple of weeks. In general, things are going well for me, but I am starting to feel very worn down by tedious side- effects. However, I am feeling better now and I hope to catch up with everyone soon.

An eventful week

I have got my smile back, and can face the world again! Thank you, Battersea Preventive Dental Surgery.

A CT scan last week was quite reassuring and my consultant is considering next steps which of course, start with another scan.

I have put the lights on my little pavement Christmas tree. While I was doing this, several people came up to me to say how lovely it was to see them. (When we moved here the local council planted trees along the pavement, but they forgot the plot outside my front door. I planted a little Christmas tree and put a few lights on it. The tree is thriving and growing fast so I have to buy some more lights every year. So far, in five years, they have only been stolen once. You just have to trust in people’s good nature. Sometimes the neighbours put some baubles on the tree. I love it when they do.

The WG’s top ten survival tips

1. Take control. Accept help and support when it is offered – you will need it – but don’t let others try to organise your life or infantilise you. Do what you want.
   
2. Drag yourself out of bed at a reasonable hour. It will probably make you feel better. (if it doesn’t, go back to bed, put down your knitting, turn off the telly, draw the curtains and get another hour’s sleep).
   
3. Get dressed – yes. I know, it’s very hard to get out of that cosy fleece dressing gown. Put on something nice, like your cool pyjamas if you are not going out. I have 3 pairs, – mail order from Land’s End, bright and cheerful, excellent value.
   
4. Keep in contact with family and friends. For the WG, this is the most important thing to keep me feeling positive and cheerful. It makes such a difference! Try to email, or better still phone somebody every day – particularly if you are on your own for long periods. You will find that people are wonderful at keeping in touch with you.
   
5. There are better things to do than watching Midsomer Murders.
   
6. Find a project. Something that is achievable, not too demanding that you will enjoy (like writing a blog, or knitting a blanket, or brightening up the garden). You will find new talents and rediscover old skills.
   
7. The WG, who is scatter-brained and forgetful, needs to make “to do” lists. Do at least one thing from your list every day. Then you feel you have achieved something. (Beware; list-making doesn’t suit everybody, as it can feel very oppressive and threatening – the last thing you need).
   
8. Get out of the house every day if you can.
   
9. Recognise and value the small, good things that happen – every day (might be an enjoyable conversation, a TV programme, a nice meal…) Sounds corny, but it works.
   
10. See the picture below

Today’s poem

I have been told, by an expert blogger, to include poems, because apparently, gentle reader, that is what you like. Here is one by wonderful Brian Patten.

Blade of Grass

You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.

You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.

You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.

You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.

You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,

And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.

Getting ahead for Christmas

I am making an early start on the Christmas preparations while I still feel well and energetic. (I don’t know what might round the corner). Any day now, I will be putting the lights on my little tree on the pavement.

“Do you like all this domestic stuff?”, Harvey asks. Well, yes, I do. Now that I have plenty of time for shopping, browsing the internet and pottering about in the kitchen, for once I am enjoying the run up to Christmas.

It’s time to look out my CD of Messiah, ready to sing along, all the parts, as I get stuck into the big Christmas clean-up.

Seasonal aromas

This week is all about making preserves and puddings – stuff that needs time to mature. My kitchen is full of the scents and aromas of Christmas, so evocative of times past.

Yesterday it was Asian spices, onions, vinegar and freshly chopped fruit and veg, for chutney and piccalilli.

Today it is oranges, lemons, nutmeg and brandy as I mix the Christmas pudding. Gwil and Alun will come round later to stir the pudding and make a wish. Tomorrow the kitchen will be full of steam, with my big saucepans bubbling gently on the hob for several hours.

Aunty Polly’s Christmas Pudding

This is the Andrews family (my Ma’s) recipe. I can vividly remember my Granny coming to our house in Quinton to make puddings for all the family, in a huge mixing bowl, and helping her to stir the mixture and making a wish. In time, the recipe was handed on to my Ma, and for the last twenty-five years or so, it has been my task. (Can it really be that long?)

This year the task is bitter-sweet as this might be the last time I make it. The next generation (brilliant cooks) are not partial to steamed puds, and I am not sure who will take it on. So I am handing the recipe on to you, gentle reader, in the hope that you might perhaps help to keep alive the memory of Aunty Polly’s pudding.

“Have you ever thought of just going to Waitrose and buying one?”, asks Stephen. No way! Aunty Polly’s has a story, tradition and memories, mixed into the puddings with love over several generations. You can’t buy that from Waitrose.

Aunty Polly’s famous recipe for Christmas Pudding

Ingredients
½ lb white breadcrumbs
½ lb sugar
6oz suet
3oz mixed peel
2 eggs
1 lb mixed fruit
Juice and rind of 1orange and ½ lemon
About ½ Nutmeg – grated
Small wine glass of Brandy

Method
1. Whizz cubes of white bread in the mixer to make fine breadcrumbs. Use zester or grater to make orange and lemon zest, then squeeze them for juice.
2. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Grate the nutmeg and add it to the mixture.
3. Invite everybody to stir the pudding and make a wish. (leave overnight for the all the flavours to infuse).
4. Grease one large and two small basins. Pack the pudding mixture tightly – about three quarters way up the bowl.
5. Cover with greaseproof paper and foil and secure with string. (leave room for the puddings to rise!) Boil or steam for 6 hours.
6. On Christmas Day, the pudding will need gentle steaming for another couple of hours.

For we all like figgy pudding We all like figgy pudding We all like figgy pudding So bring some out here
And we won’t go until we’ve got some We won’t go until we’ve got some We won’t go until we’ve got some So bring some out here
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin, We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste ….. well. not yet ….. Christine’s latest health update

We left the WG sitting on the pavement on Lavender Hill, minus her front teeth, crying her eyes out. Things are getting better, I am pleased to report.

I go straight to my dental surgery, the Battersea Preventive Dental Practice, who just could not be kinder or more helpful.  Despite being very busy they fit me in quickly.  I am so grateful to them. Not surprisingly Covid is delaying everything and everybody, including dental technicians, so it will be two weeks before my new (interim) smile is ready.  In the meantime, Jacqueline has sent me a beautiful Liberty-print face mask to cheer me up.  Thank you so much, Jacqueline.

I am getting new glasses  (I have lost so much weight that my glasses keep falling off).  The good news is that, with my new specs, I am still OK to drive.

The next round of treatment at the Marsden starts in about 10 days’ time.

It occurs to me that I will probably expire well before my freedom pass and credit card – a sobering thought and daily reminder that “time’s winged chariot (really is) hurrying near” ……. And yet ….

I am well, feeling better and with more energy than six months ago, keeping up with friends, finding plenty to do and enjoying life.

“Glam up” says Jane

I have dropped from dress size 14 to size 10, so I take 4 large bags of clothes to the charity shops, including the posh frock I bought last year from Monsoon when I  felt ready to start building a life of my own after David.  Ironic.

I say to Jane that there doesn’t seem to be any point in buying new clothes as I won’t be here long enough to wear them.  “Nonsense”, says Jane, “that’s exactly why you should get new stuff, or at the very least, let’s hit the charity shops.   Pamper yourself, glam up.”  

I buy a gorgeous red corduroy midi skirt (very “country life”) to wear with a silvery sparkling jumper all over Christmas. And, of course, another pair of cool pyjamas.

I blow most of this week’s attendance allowance on a bottle of Diorissimo and I feel good!  I don’t know what Juliette (Trinity Hospice) will have to say, but I think secretly she will approve.

The WG’s top tip: TAKE JANE’S ADVICE.

Dolafon

The boys and I spend 3 days at Dolafon, our family house in Llanbedr. We set up the house up for winter and tidy the garden.  In lovely autumn weather we visit the ancient church in the dunes at Llandanwg where David is at rest and we walk along the beach.  It is beautiful, quiet and elegiac. 

A journey through my life

Travelling to Llanbedr is a journey through my life.  Most Brummies know and love that swathe of countryside stretching from Worcestershire and Shropshire, through mid-Wales to Cardigan Bay.  Some of my earliest memories are of noise, smoke and steam as we boarded the Great Western Train – green engine and chocolate and cream coaches – at Snow Hill for holidays at Borth.  Can it really be seventy-five years ago?  I have made that journey countless times since.

After Borth, there was Chorley, Near Bridgenorth, now on the Severn Valley Railway, where my family kept a caravan at Rays Farm.  In the early ‘fifties, Rays Farm was still in essence a Victorian farm, (remember that lovely tv series a few years ago?)  though they had two tractors, a red Fordson and a green Ferguson,  Bonnie the big shire horse still did her share of the work.   We drew our water from the pump and the farmyard was our playground. My brother Robert and I would collect the eggs, stroke the kittens, chase the piglets and help with the haymaking.  One summer we hand-reared a bull calf.  There was a whole world of woods and brooks to explore.

In our teenage years, Robert and I stayed on the train to Aberystwyth, for visits to Aunty May and Aunty Betty in Cwm Rheidol – walks up the valley to Devil’s Bridge, a host of unforgettable characters (just like “On the Black Hill” by Bruce Chatwin).  Gosh, how the north wind whips up Terrace Road in Aberystwyth.

And then there was Spywood.  I always look out for the spectacular view of the nearby hills, Corndon, Roundton and the Aldress, between Welshpool and Newtown  Here my sons had their brooks and woodlands to explore, and the same opportunities to experience the countryside and  the changing seasons that I had as a child.  

So much to look back on – bonfires and birthdays in the summer,  Jack Jones the farmer taking the boys with him to walk the fields, Bilberry picking on the Stiperstones, walks in Spywood Dingle and Ashes Hollow on the Long Mynd, outings to the Ironbridge Gorge,  the Welshpool and Llanfair railway, pony-trekking,  David reading “the Land of Green Ginger” at bed-time.

Not forgetting freezing cold winter days and nights when the pipes would burst and the car would get stuck in the mud – all part of a wonderful, rich, unforgettable experience.

“Objects contain absent people”

For the last twenty years, we have taken the line north from Dovey Junction to Llanbedr and Dolafon, the house we shared with Robert.  Sadly Robert died in 2007.

Dolafon is more than just a beautiful stone house facing the river.  It is also 55 Clydesdale Road.  When Robert moved in he brought a lot of the furniture and belongings from Clydesdale Road, the family home where we grew up.

And now, bits and pieces from the next generation, buckets and spades, fishing nets, little Welsh hats, children’s pictures, have found their way into the house, not to mention a lot of stuff from Warriner Gardens.  (We never really downsized!).

Julian Barnes put it so well when he wrote  “objects contain absent people”.  Almost every object at Dolafon contains for me a memory, an absent person or a ghost.  These are at the same time sad and comforting.  As I reflect on my own life, I can live with my ghosts. Those objects contain so much warmth, love, sadness, fun, laughter and richness of experience. 

And when I look at my sons, daughters in law and beautiful, beautiful granddaughters – all real  and present, not ghosts – clever. noisy, talented,  energetic – I feel great hope and optimism for the future.

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I will let Liz Berry have the last word in her beautiful poem “Iron Oss”  She puts it so much better than I can.

IRON OSS    by LIZ BERRY

Iron osses, little wenches of the sidings, watch over us
on our passings, our wum-comings;

through the Smethwicks, factories laploved and tumbled,
the trollied cut with its rainbow of sump-oil

and behind overgrown buddleia, banqueting halls
fizzing like bottles of pop on Friday a­fternoon

with stunned new brides and bhangra-armed grooms,
for love is a journey to an unknown station.

Pit-bank wenches, run alongside us, through Rolfe Street
and Galton Bridge, Sandwell and Dudley

where the bones of tough-work sink secret as fossils
beneath the edgelands new greenery.

Watch over babbies dozing as their moms dream
of nights lost cantering in long grass,

watch over the wenches laughing in their gorgeous make-up,
off into the new life or just off chapping-it.

Watch over Sam solving six down for Leila from Stafford;
Magda on the early shift­; Mrs Begum alighting

for HMP Featherstone. And as we pass, drum your hooves
for Sharon-Ann’s Academy of Dance and Cheer,

a sparkler of joy in the trading estate’s gloom;
for the blokes in the breakers yard, smoking in the rain;

the old boys downing Banks’s in half-cut pubs,
wammels lost to the nettled heaven of the allotments.

Watch over us all, little osses, for some days
it feels life is nothing but travelling, waving goodbye

to all we know, never quite certain of who we leave
and who we carry within us like tender luggage.

Watch over those who have long gone,
taken the dawn train on a one-way ticket,

and those not born yet, sweet unseen passengers
still held in the darkness, waiting for the signal,

the green light and the whistle
to call them into that first bright station of their lives.

——————————————————————————————

Notes on this poem.

I grew up in the Black Country and am still in love with its dialect, its lyrical, guttural, surprising, rich beyond belief word-hoard. It’s rarely seen as an eloquent vernacular and I wanted to change that. I use Black Country dialect in my poems to shine a light upon it, to celebrate it and to help pass forward some of those enchanting words. ‘Iron Oss’ is a praise poem for Kevin Atherton’s much-loved public sculpture of the same name – ten black horse silhouettes which gallop alongside the railway line from Birmingham to Wolverhampton. It uses a few of my favourite Black Country words: wum: home; wammels: mongrels and the fantastic chapping it: girls on the pull!

Damsons

September is the month when I most miss Spywood, the tumbledown cottage, half-hidden in the Montgomeryshire woods that we shared with our friends the Malpas and Twyman families and where we spent many blissful holidays.  In August and September there was always an abundance of fruit, bilberries on the Stiperstones, blackberries everywhere, crab apples and sloes in the hedgerows, in the garden sweet yellow plums, apples and – my favourite – damsons.  One year we picked 70lb, which we shared and gave to friends. We used to bake fruit pies and crumbles and I learned how to make jams, jellies, ice cream and sloe gin.

I planted a damson tree in my garden at Ordish Apartments. This year, for the first time, it produced about 6 lbs of fruit.  But these are more like little plums – dumbed down damsons, I call them – not the real thing, with that deep purple bloom and intense, tart flavour that is transformed by cooking.  Where can I find some proper damsons?

The WG’s top tip:  You can buy damsons on eBay – would you believe it?  (if, like me, you are too lazy to get up early enough for Nine Elms market)

I buy 10lb.  Now I can make damson cheese again, just like Spywood and just like my Ma used to make with fruit from my Aunty Betty’s cottage in Chorley, Shropshire, nearly seventy years ago – lovely memories and a delicious preserve.  I am in my element. (Life would be just perfect if only I could eat it.)

Harvey’s grapes

Harvey has a large grape vine in his front garden.  In past years he has made very palatable wine, but now he doesn’t want the hassle.  This year there is a bumper crop (13lb.) It strikes me that the world is divided into two tribes, those who make jam and know exactly what to do when confronted with 13lb of small, seeded grapes and those who don’t  and are mystified by the rituals that follow. 

Our little group gets to work – Harvey and Jane set off to buy a jelly bag from Lakeland in Wimbledon (retail heaven for the jam making and baking tribe) and Sumi goes in search of preserving sugar. Harvey and Jane pick the grapes and I join them for a jolly afternoon, washing and stripping them ready for the preserving pan and straining overnight through the jelly bag.  I have brought some home-made bread and damson cheese.  Harvey and Jane tuck in with relish.

We process the grapes, in three batches and we end up with several pints of delicious juice and three jars of grape jelly.  Was it worth all that effort?  You decide.  We had a lot of fun and the grapes did not go to waste.

Today the sky fell in.  Or rather, my front teeth fell out. 

I am walking up Lavender Hill carrying two bags of shopping, when I trip on the uneven pavement and fall heavily, “a real pearler” as my Ma would say.  My face mask is full of blood, my teeth are on the pavement, and I am sitting there sobbing.  This is all just too much.  Two lovely people help me and I stagger home.  Gwil and Al come round to comfort me and calm me down and I phone the dentist who gives me an appointment in a couple of days.  I decide to pay whatever it takes to get my smile back – soon!

Maybe things aren’t so bad after all.  These days everyone has to wear a face mask and who is to know that behind mine ( “limited edition” Peter Blake designer face mask from T K Maxx) is a toothless old crone?

I am still rather distracted when Janis calls in for a cup of tea.  What a blessing to sit down for an hour or so with someone calm and reassuring – just what I need. Thank you so much, Janis.   Everything will be alright.

The WG’s top tip:  In extremis, “Fred and Ginger” therapy always works. Nobody can stay miserable with Fred Astaire. 

            “Nothing’s impossible I have found.

             So when your chin is on the ground

             Pick yourself up, dust yourself off

             And start all over again”

I really appreciate all the warm, sympathetic and supportive responses you have sent to my blog. These are a huge source of comfort and strength to me  – Thank you so much.

I want to assure everyone that (apart from a short period when I was very ill and nobody seemed to care) it doesn’t feel like a terrible trauma or ordeal – it’s the way things are. 

I am well, much better physically and mentally than six months ago, in good spirits, finding plenty to do and, despite the lock down, keeping in contact with family and friends.  There is more to life than cancer and so far I am well enough to focus on the “life” bit.  Long may this continue.

The WG’s strategy for coping with a catastrophic event

I have had plenty of practice at dealing with seemingly catastrophic events of my own and helping other people through theirs (as we get older, we all have).

For many years I have worked with the Wandsworth Carers’ Centre and the Mental Health Trust to try to help family carers coping with severe mental illness.  My dear friends Catherine and Jaqueline (senior clinicians) Paul and Simon (experts by experience) and I have co-produced training for mental health professionals.  With Ana, Sofia and Rachel, I have co-written and presented training for carers at the Recovery College. I have learnt so much from all this, and from my colleagues.  I have no doubt that the experience is helping me to cope with the challenges I am facing now.

Here is the WG’s strategy:

• Be gracious and courteous to everyone at all times, no matter what, and accept their help, because they usually mean well.

• I am not Superwoman.  (intellectuals among us might prefer: “I am not as clever as George Elliott”)

• Everyone has to deal with their situation in their own way and their own time.  Nobody can do it for you.

Inside the Royal Marsden 

3 September:  It is frightening to be referred to the specialist cancer hospital.  No running away or hiding under the duvet – this is for real.  I have been delivered to the door by the Charing X ambulance and Kathy is waiting for me inside.

Meeting the oncologist

Kathy looks relieved to see me.  We are an hour late – just my luck that the ambulance driver has never been here before and took the scenic route via Shepherd’s bush.  Kathy is worried that the clinic might close without seeing me,

Kathy is a retired senior nurse, with a lifetime’s experience and expertise, who has kindly taken me under her wing, comes with me to appointments whenever she can and visits me regularly.  Just the person I need – I can’t thank her enough.

We see Professor Harrington who immediately puts us at ease.  We go through the details of my case.  There might be options for palliative treatment available to me.  Prof Harrington will obtain notes and test results from St Georges and Charing X and if he thinks it is worth going ahead, I will be booked into his clinic a week today.

Prof H’s expertise shines through.  He is sympathetic, clear, straightforward and thorough.  I feel safe.   Kathy, who has been listening intently, is very impressed that he is reading the list of questions I have brought upside down.   Awesome

“Oh, so luverly sitting abso-blooming-lutely still”:   Getting set up for radio therapy

I attend the clinic the following week. We are going ahead with treatment,  starting with a small course of Radio therapy.  I am taken straight to the radio therapy room to be measured up.  It is essential for the patient to be positioned very carefully, to lie flat and remain absolutely still throughout the procedure.  Difficult for me because of my swallowing problems.

I am put onto  a narrow  couch, lined up with the help of a head rest, knee supports, green laser beams even a tiny tattoo, all pinned down with a neck brace – a piece of plastic, moulded  to the shape of my face. 

The procedure itself is delivered by giant metal plates on long arms, which circulate around me in a kind of stately, robotic dance.  I think they deserve a nice bit of Mozart to accompany them.

The five daily sessions are over very quickly.  Gwil insists that I take a taxi home.  Vauxhall Bridge is closed, leaving the other bridges and surrounding streets very congested. One journey, when the Kings Road and Oakley Street were gridlocked clocked up £52.  (the driver kindly knocked £20 off)

Now I have to wait a month for my next appointment with Prof Harrington when we find out how well radio therapy has worked.  The Royal Marsden no longer feels scary – it has become part of my world.

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Recollections of Life in Bed 17:  May and June

Bed 17, Florence Nightingale Ward, my bed, is next to the corridor in a 6-bed bay. the bay is half empty because of coronavirus.  It is a bubble, a world of its own, shut off from the outside world.

From here, I watch all the passing traffic in the ward.  It’s fascinating to observe the way the nurses work.  Some are very “shouty” to each other and to their patients – I rather dread their shifts, others are models of quiet reassurance.  Over four weeks’ stay, I get to know them all, and most people have a smile or a wave for the dotty old lady, quietly knitting, in bed 17.

It’s a busy life.  I can hardly keep track of all the clinicians who come to see me  Nick the dietician, diabetes nurses, podiatrist, Haydn the physio, Mark the OT, the stately procession of doctors every morning, Ben the counsellor,  the constant stream of nurses coming to stick needles into me,   Myuki and Fiona the Macmillan nurses.  Emma and Linda, the lovely staff nurses who help me get through some very wobbly moments.

Ever resourceful, Gwil finds a way to visit despite the lock down. He comes to the door of the ward – mask on, hands sanitised – with a wheelchair, the nurses hand me over, down we go to sit in the garden for half an hour and then he hands me back.  Thank you, nurse Hannah, for your flexible – and safe – approach.

Knitting – the best therapy.

At times of stress, I knit compulsively.  Doesn’t matter what – any knitting will do. I am making squares for a patchwork blanket, using bright rainbow colours. I need 96 squares to complete it.  Undemanding, but enough to keep me calm, my mind and hands occupied, I think of knitting as my equivalent to *mindfulness and it really works – better than medicine or talking therapies. 

It is also a great icebreaker.  People ask me what I am doing and tell me about their projects. The nurses do cross-stitch or embroidery to pass the time on the nightshift.  Myuki has some lovely jumpers her mother knitted.  On the ward round we discuss the bonnet the registrar is knitting for her sister’s baby.  I discuss yarns and needle sizes with a nurse in Resus at Charing X (shouldn’t we be talking about me – not just my knitting?)

*one of the on-line craft suppliers (LoveCrafts)  has introduced a programme called “Mindful Making” to celebrate World Mental Health Day.  Good for them!