Blood Test

My husband’s not been sleeping.  He suffers from an auto-immune disease requiring a cocktail of pills.  As hangovers are to cocktails, so side effects are to drugs. In his case, insomnia and fatigue.

His doctor suggested a fasting blood test, just to make sure there wasn’t anything else going on. He set off early. The Pathology Lab fills up quickly and he wanted to get it over with and be home for breakfast.  Once the kids were off to school, I began my daily dog walk.

Half way round the park, my mobile rang.  My pastor was on the line, telling me not to worry but my other half had been rushed by ambulance to another hospital in another town.  The nurse was asking me to come, and my husband was concerned I might not want to drive around the notorious one way system. The pastor offered me a lift.  I rushed home and was collected five minutes later.

We arrived to find him in the emergency room, electrodes stuck to his chest, nurses checking his blood pressure and heart rate.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did you feel faint?”

“No, I felt fine.  But the phlebotomist hit my vein” he replied.

“You were having a blood test.  She was supposed to hit the vein!”

“But it really hurt. I just . . . went. I must have been out for quite a while because I remember dreaming so deeply that when I woke up I couldn’t remember where I was.”

By then the phlebotomists had called an ambulance to take him to the nearest accident and emergency centre. When he came round from his nap he was being stretchered past a large backlog of people who were waiting for the Laboratory to re-open and were now anticipating their own blood test with increasing concern.

After five hours in the hospital and a full examination by a doctor, it was suggested he would need another blood test to rule out some other possible problems.  I left them to it.

Talking to a member of staff in the waiting area I mentioned that I needed to be home in time for the children’s return from school.  I would have to take the train or call a taxi because my husband’s car was still parked outside the Pathology Lab and mine was at home.  A lady sitting waiting for her mother to come out of surgery overheard the conversation.

“My Dad’s going back home in a few minutes.  He lives near you.  He can drop you off.”  For a brief moment, I considered the wisdom of accepting a lift from a complete stranger.  She seemed very nice, not the type to have an axe murderer in the family. I was in a bit of a jam, so I accepted.  A few minutes later, a very doddery gentleman in his mid eighties walked into the waiting area.  Slowly and loudly his daughter explained that he would be giving me a lift home.

With some trepidation, I took Harold to the cubicle to meet my husband.

“Darling, this is Harold.  He’s going to take me home.” From the expression on his face, I could see he had his doubts, but was too woozy to object. 

“Are we going on the motorway,” I asked as we got in the car.  Harold assured me we were not, nor were we going to hit the one way system.  He reversed out the parking space, narrowly missing an oncoming car.

Driving at a constant twenty miles an hour we took the back route home. Harold mentioned that he had his insulin with him “just in case,” taking his hand off the wheel several times to tap his jacket pocket.  He told me the story of his wife’s medical problem, while I listened and tactfully drew his attention to the red lights ahead.  I told him he had been an angel of mercy in my time of need, though I suspected his daughter had cleverly recruited me as an escort to accompany him safely home.

After a day in bed and a very nice Chile con carne courtesy of the National Health Service, my husband walked to the station and caught the train home.  All tests were negative.

In future, if he has trouble going to sleep I’ll just stick him with a needle!

 

 

From Perfect Pet to Top Predator

He didn’t understand the screams.  He couldn’t comprehend the tears.  He had found something special in the garden, and brought it straight into the house for them to see.

He would have given it to them freely.  They didn’t need to bribe him with a piece of beef, shove it into a plastic carrier bag and whisk it away. Astounding ignorance!  It was a treasure to be carried proudly, tossed in the air, plucked until a fall of feathers drifted across the carpet.

A red-legged partridge, bred at nearby Gorhambury Estate for the English toffs to shoot escaped his doom and made a bid for freedom.  A rest on the journey, a quiet peck, a friend who wanted a game and played a little too roughly, loved a little too much. From perfect pet to top predator in a matter of seconds. R.I.P. beautiful bird.

Chapter 1 of 'Waters of Grace': An extract from my second, completed novel

Prologue

Nadege stood up to her ankles in the lake. Mosquitoes buzzed over the bright surface. If she looked closely at her toes she could see that the glistening waters were teeming with minute wriggling creatures. She lazily stirred the water with one foot. A dark cloud billowed from the muddy bottom and swallowed the creatures in its gloom. Her feet were sore after the two-kilometre walk from the village. Other children were paddling too, the older ones standing in deeper water and the small ones splashing at the edges. The sun blazed white hot, the sky shimmering like a blue cloth covering the earth. She bent to fill her battered water container, the pale brown liquid visible through the opaque plastic. When it was a quarter full and not too heavy, she lifted it to her lips and drank. It tasted of the hot earth and decaying leaves. It tasted of Africa.

Chapter 1

Father Anthony pulled his scarf across his chest and puffed white vapour into the darkness. It was nearly eight o’clock and he was running late. Despite the dampness of the grass and the black shadows waiting to trip him up, he decided to take the short cut across the churchyard to Mrs Goldie’s house. The gate at the bottom of the Rectory garden clanged behind him; a bird fluttered from its roost, startled and disorientated.

Pale headstones gleamed in the moonlight, frost forming on their weathered faces. As parish priest he was, of course, unmoved by the fears and superstitions of the villagers. After all, what could be more comforting than being gathered round the ankles of the church, listening to the living singing praises to the Almighty and lying next to generations of one’s family and neighbours until the end of time? He had once articulated this thought to Fenella, and been met with an incredulous stare.

What would eternity feel like, he wondered? Each moment so perfect that a thousand years would pass like a day, or each day last for a thousand years? Even on earth, time expanded and contracted in mysterious ways. Was it only three weeks since he had received the e-mail from his friend Samuel Goodman outlining the need for a bore hole in the African village of Igbo Tambo? That was when the idea for a fund raising committee had been born.

Coincidentally, he had received a Christmas card from Fenella on the same day. The Lord had told her they had no future together, she had written. Father Anthony wished the Lord had spoken to him about the matter, particularly before he made a fool of himself by singing her a love song and posting it on YouTube. It was strange that God, who held the delicate balance of the universe in his mind, should have had the time and inclination to tell Fenella to start dating an American dentist called Chuck. Perhaps the bureaucracy of a new committee would dull the sting of his pierced and bloodied heart.

He skirted along the north side of the church, fumbling in his pocket, a folder of committee papers wedged tightly under his arm. This file was the fruit of several evenings spent reading reports from Togo, West Africa.

A fat cloud scudded across of the moon. He switched on his torch, unearthed from the depths of his winter coat. The light flashed onto a nearby stone. The inscription read:

Joseph John Kirkland

Lived with his wife Harriet Jane for over forty years

Died 21 January 1903

Renouncing hell and trusting in the hope of a better life.

Next to this was the headstone of the wife.

Here lies Harriet Jane Kirkland

1842 - 1920

Silent at last.

His torch flicked to the right and left as he crunched along the shingle path; it seemed to him that the churchyard was filled with married couples, buried by grief stricken children.

Albert George Heskith

20 April 1891 - 12 September 1962

Leaves wife Catherine and son Ronald

Hoping for an inheritance that will never perish, spoil or fade

His throat constricted. Would he find someone to lie in the soft earth next to him in the years to come? Was there someone to love him in life and wait with him in death for the final resurrection? Would he leave children to mourn his passing? He thought not.              

Mentally spurning the self-pity which threatened to engulf the evening, the Vicar quickened his step. It was a New Year. Time for a new start! The darkest days were behind, that dreary stretch between Midnight Mass (when his parishioners disappeared into the bosom of their families for the duration of the festive season) and New Year’s Day (when they suddenly reappeared in the local newsagents and chemist shops to purchase milk, Alka-Seltzer and emergency contraception). Dark days and dark nights indeed, hiding in the Rectory, unwashed, unshaven and alone, possessed by a kind of madness, thankfully now passed.

He turned a corner and began to walk in the direction of the compost heap at the far end of the cemetery. Here was the gate leading onto the Village Green. Looking up from the uneven path, he was startled to see a small light hovering some distance ahead. He switched off his torch. Who could be lingering in the churchyard on an icy Friday night? Kids? Vandals? Thieves? Drug dealers? Lovers? He stepped backwards into the shadow of the church, his shoulder resting against the grey stone wall.

The light was directed downwards. The stranger was standing in the place where the ashes of those recently cremated were interred or scattered. There were rows of small plaques and vases of artificial flowers squeezed closely together for lack of space. Father Anthony knew that drug dealers sometimes left small packets hidden under stones and in pots - drop offs agreed over the internet and paid for through PayPal. Perhaps this was a customer searching for his weekend indulgence.

The light held still for some moments. Father Anthony buried his hands in his coat pockets. It was too cold to stand here much longer and he was going to be late. He should either walk past, trusting it wasn’t a mugger, or turn around and walk the long way to Mrs Goldie’s house on the road.

He was just about to walk back the way he had come when the light moved upwards and bobbed back and forth. Father Anthony shrank closer to the wall of the church. The beam approached, swaying to the left and right with each footstep. As long as the stranger’s light was trained on the path, the Vicar would be hidden in the deep shadows.

The uneven crunch of footsteps cut through the cold night air. A tall shape loomed out of the shadows. It was impossible to make out the stranger’s features because the light from the torch plunged everything surrounding it into even deeper gloom. The shape passed. Father Anthony turned to watch the figure walk away and saw the silhouette of a tall man wearing an old fashioned trilby hat. He was limping slowly, leaning heavily on a stick.

 

Defrosting the Freezer

Defrosting the freezer, like marriage, should not be undertaken unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly, but reverently, soberly and in the fear of God. 

My workaholic husband has had to take some time off work while the doctor tries to balance his medication for a progressive spinal condition.  Unfortunately there is only so much snooker a man can watch.  As someone whose professional life involves streamlining systems, itemising assets and maximising returns he decided to turn his forensic eye to my management of the home.

I returned from a pleasant afternoon spent with my lady friends today to discover he had made a spur of the moment decision to defrost the freezer.  The kitchen counters were piled high with dripping boxes of fish fingers and ice lollies, vegetarian pies, chicken breasts, oven chips and frozen peas, crusty rolls and half finished packets of pita bread.  The empty freezer drawers were piled next to the sink, and he was attacking the ice at the top of the freezer with a wooden spatula. 

In case anybody else’s husband decides to surprise their wife by defrosting the freezer, here are some helpful hints.

1.       Plan in advance.  Run down your freezer to the bare minimum first.  Don’t choose a time when it has been recently re-stocked.

2.       When you remove the drawers, don’t remove the food.  Keep the packets close together so they retain the cold.  Don’t spread them out on the expensive hard wood kitchen tops so that they defrost and leave water marks.

3.       Turn the freezer off.  If you don’t do this, the warm air from the kitchen will kick the thermostat into overdrive to prevent the problematic build-up of ice from melting.

4.       Put a bowl at the bottom of the freezer to catch the drips and loosened ice, this will stop the melt water streaming onto the floor.

5.       Put towels on the floor to stop water from saturating the expensive wood flooring, making it darken and swell.

6.       Work quickly.  To this end, you could use a hair dryer or place bowls of hot water in the freezer to speed up the melting process.  When using electrical items, ensure that extension leads and plugs are not trailing across puddles of water.

7.       If you defrost the kitchen freezer and spread the contents on every available surface, DON’T decide half way through that it would be good to defrost the freezer in the garage at the SAME TIME. 

8.       Remember, ice cream that has melted and re-frozen, will not be eaten by the kids.

9.       Chicken that has melted and re-frozen, can cause death!

Having thrown away three bagfuls of defrosting food, we now have two freezers which will bear close inspection by the most meticulous of housewives (my mother included).  As I write this, he has begun to reorganise the bathroom . . .