I often take a neighbour to the hospital for a blood test on a Monday lunchtime.
It doesn’t usually take long.
I double park and listen to the radio outside haematology and today the air ambulance took off from its hidden helicopter pad behind in service training.
In Sheffield’s Lodge Moor Hospital , everyone loved the sea king admissions , which, although rare, were popular with staff and local residents alike. Now the old Lodge Moor Hospital was perched on the Western most tip of the city at an altitude just shy of a thousand feet above sea level.
Originally a fever hospital, the “ South” wards were dominated by the Spinal Injury Unit where I cut my teeth as a junior staff nurse, and it was there, that the sea King’s used to bring their patients.
Our best nursing prank ever concerned the arrival of the sea king and a particularly dim student nurse I shall call Judith. Now Judith was a game student. She would give any nursing experience a gung ho approach and when asked to bring the helicopter in , she jumped at the chance without a delay.
First she was instructed to remove her hat and to don a nurses cape reversed, so that the bright red lining was showing on the outside. Then she was given two table tennis bats from physio and asked to stand on the field in front of helicopter pad to “guide” the helicopter in to land.
And to the astonishment of the nurses on duty, civilians from the local housing development and the two RAF PILOTS in the helicopter she did just that !
It was the funniest thing that I have ever witnessed at work…….as the giant wasp coloured aircraft roared in over the moors ,nearly blowing Judith off her feet, her glasses skewwiff , her red cape blowing valiantly behind her, as she frantically waved her table tennis bats in the air !!!
I found a new zombie tv series on Netflix yesterday. This won’t interest anyone but I rather enjoyed the Canadian filmed horror Black Summer.and binge watched it last night in bed from 6 pm.
Something I never do. Perhaps it had something to do with the Hispanic leading man Sal Valez
I’m working days all this weekend.
And I can’t be bothered to light the fire as I’ve not long got home and will be in bed in half an hour.
I’m still eating very healthy but for a treat I’d plan in having a miniature gin with ice and two Jacobs cream crackers with white crab meat for my supper.
This time it was mary who stole the crab off the top of the crackers without moving the crackers from their plate….which in my mind was pretty nifty so it was the neat gin and licked crackers.
I ate the crackers.
Fuck it
Today was busy as we admitted a very poorly patient from the Hospice at Home team but I was on with a great bunch of staff so all went bloody well.
When work goes like that, it’s a tiring pleasure to do what I do.
He was, you may recall at the first LGBTQ book club a few months ago.
He is the politest man I’ve ever met and soon will be moving back to his family home abroad, where he will help with the family business which is a garage and convenience store. He is in his forties and not out to his family.
I like him. He speaks carefully and with much thought and never rushes an answer, which is always considered and balanced.
He’s never had a boyfriend, but seems not to mind this fact explaining he has only been out with his friends for just under a year.
We have lunch from the Thai on Thai and I was made up as the owner came over as were were eating to tell me how good my technique with my chopsticks was. I was eating rice traditionally with the bowl up to my mouth and she gave me a toothy thumbs up which really made my day
It’s funny that I’m so clumsy with eating my food using a knife , fork and spoon but give me a pair of chopsticks and Im a wizz…..
This afternoon I took Roger to the groomer and he’s looking mighty fine when returned
Just after we got home I got some beautiful roses delivered.
I was out minutes after the swab and with my friend Colin in Liverpool within an hour where I soaked up my weight watchers extra points on a fab Lebanese lunch ( no pud)
It’s so nice to sit in a window of a nice cafe and talk and eat and talk more.
We gossiped like old ladies do in Central Park on a Sunday.
Towards the end of lunch Colin turned to me and said
“ Do you know what, I really fancy going to Venice for a few days do you want to come?”
I said yes before he could take another slurp of his foul mudammas
On the back of the feelings of springtime this morning
I had a mooch in the garden at dusk to look at the spring flowers
Which are just showing their faces to the sun.
Pink ribus, miniature daffodils and grape hyacinth are valiantly colouring patches of my borders
And I filled an old cut glass ink bottle with a bunch and listened to The Archers as the dogs turned slow circles in front of the fire and Albert sighed in the middle of them stretching his bad leg slowly towards the heat
I lowered Bluebells’ windows wide and drove down the A55 at a pace.
What covid I breathed out soon was blasted out of the car in an instant and soon I was feeling cold but exhilarated by the wind.
that’s cleared the old tubes I thought
I drove to Colwyn Bay and sat on the beach with my flask of coffee
This was 9 am this morning and I had already walked the dogs.
Women were wild swimming in the sea and I could here them laughing from where I sat.
It’s always nice to hear laughter no matter where it’s from
It’s been a long and fairly miserable winter all told
I’ve never experienced one so long, except in lockdown
And with spring here things seem to be on the up.
They feel better?
Don’t you think?
Two women passed me , they were talking about Paul O’Grady whose death was announced this morning
“ I loved him as Lily Savage” one said to another and I wondered if O’Grady knew just how affectionately he was thought of I thought.
I loved the story about him when he was comparing a drag show in the 1980s in London and the bar was raided by Policemen all wearing rubber gloves ( HIV protection) because it braking section 28 rules, Lily Savage called out to the punters that they were there to help with the washing up.
Thanks to O ‘Grady we now have drag Queens in our libraries reading stories to children.
With his Liverpudlian wit, amazing legs and fuck you attitude that never lost a little warmth, he endeared himself to the majority that met him.
