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Wakehurst Place

Trike of the light

One of my first memories is of manouvering around the carpark at the flats where we lived in Hamilton near Glasgow in my red pedal car. I am told I could reverse park instictively which my mother found irritating; she was learning to drive at the time and had to think before deciding which way to turn the wheel when backing into the gap between two vehicles.

Aged three and now we live in quite a big house in the country. Whilst my parents sip their gin and tonics in the porch, they time my circuits of the property; I have now upgraded to a tricycle.

Memories of this time include my mum decorating a bedroom for my soon-to-be-born brother, I can remember the smell of the paint and the transfers of fairies that were applied to the furniture.

My dad came home in a blue Fiat 500 one day, a present for my mum, we all drove off to Biggar in it. Later my grandfather had decided to make me a kite and I think there were five of us in that little car, (the smell of which is still clear in the space in my head between my eyes), heading into a nearby town, ostensibly to buy the necessary materials (bamboo and brown paper). A hitchhiker put out his thumb, grandad sqeezed his arm out of the passenger window and returned the gesture; that might have been the first joke I ever got. Early memories of achieving a meditational state, are of me in the passenger seat of that car, in front of my toy steering wheel. As the Fiat had a metal dash, the wheel stuck on perfectly with its big sucker. It had a horn in the middle, an indicator projected from one side of the plastic steering column and a gear stick from the other. Perhaps my engagement with this pretence was such that it appeared real to people other than just me. I wasn't a child who wildly sawed at the wheel as I gazed out of the side window or attempted to extricate some soggy biscuit from my crotch; this was serious and I drove the road as I found it. I remember my mum momentarily wondering what to do with her own set of controls as I announced that I would be taking the next left off a long straight road that we were whiring along. Better still was the feeling when I was allowed to steer my dad's car up the drive, I could feel the power.

When that kite was finished, it weighed more than than a medium sized dumb bell. It might have actually flown in that storm we had in 1967 (or there abouts). I remember being allowed to sleep in my parents bed. My dad went out to check on something and reported that he could not stand; such was the wind. The next morning the green house was smashed in a pile, about 30 yards from its concrete base.

There were woods in the garden. I used to venture in sometimes. Once I emerged from there; crying. I had seen an animal which must have been about 8 feet tall, I clearly remember it's huge mouth and eyes. My mum collected me in her arms and on the way to the house we encountered Mr Lamby, the gardener, who wanted to know what all the fuss was about. He suggested that I might have seen a frog. This was the first time I experienced outrage.......a frog......that size!?

My mum and I would walk into the village with my brother (smelling lovely like a baby does) in his old fashioned pram. We would pick fruit from the side of the road; have you ever tasted a perfect gooseberry? Mm mm. Every so often a van would appear at the top of the drive, there was a grocer one and a butcher one, those really had distictive aromas. For some reason when I think of those, I make a connection in my mind to those little coloured canvas shoes kids wore then, I think I can see mine negotiating the metal steps at the back.

One November the 5th, right about the spot where those vans used to park, my dad was crouched over a box of Standard Fireworks. I was sitting on the upstairs hall window-ledge peering out into the darkness with my mum. My dad could be seen sprinting away from the potential pyrotechnics and there followed a disappointingly long haitus. We were eventually rewarded for our patience by a short but intense display of sparks. I learnt that that's what happens if you drop your lit cigarette in a box of fireworks.

One more tummy post

Torso what?

As you can see the swelling around my scar is very much reduced; last night I was actually able to lie on my front in bed for the first time. The surgeon has told me to expect that the swelling may take a year to disappear but the pain is gone and my mobility has improved lots, my stamina; coming along nicely. It has been a handy thing to have though because as the things that happen in life all the time have been happening to me since the operation, I have been aware that the wound has been a brilliant communicator. Things that I might not have thought too much about normally; doing too much physically, getting into an argument or getting stressed, not leaving a space between doing one thing and the next and so on have all been alerted to me by the damaged area as things that are draining me. So thanks for that, I will try to keep up that listening to myself thing when my body finishes healing this particular scar, although I suspect that it will always be there for me.

I am intrigued about what I have been doing in my life for the "divarification" to have happened in the first place; need to do more work on this but I suspect that it has to do with being uptight. I realise that I have been banging on about this for a while recently, meaning that you haven't been able to read the other wonderful stuff that I might normally put in these pages. Not much I can say about that really as I haven't really felt ready to divuulge other things lately, although I reckon I will do soon.

More midriff murmurings

It is now three weeks since my trip to a local hospital where I received a 5 inch vertical incision in my tummy. The news is that the scar is beautifully neat and that the swelling is reducing (back to a large avocado size) but that I am in a bit of pain some of the time. I reckon this is all down to having overdone things at the weekend when I went shopping in London.

I have spent quite a lot of time lying on my bed watching TV or reading. Daytime TV highlights start out with Frasier about 9.15 on Channel 4 (don't turn on early or you will have to endure some of Will and Grace). After lunch there is an episode of ER and then maybe a film. After that I tend to flick between Oprah and Deal or no Deal. I couldn't sit through an entire episode of the latter and the watchability of that super black lady is dependent upon the topic of the day.

I have finished reading the previously mentioned Moon Dust (excellent), as well as The Lincoln Lawyer (very good if you like that sirt of thing; I don't usually do crime novels but was kept entertained), and have embarked on The Bookseller of Kabul (so far so good).

Other than this I just keep thinking how lucky I am, funny how it can take a set back to do this.

Avocado at its small melon (largest) phase.

26 hours

Two weeks ago at this precise time I was engaged in a polite conversation with a beautiful older woman as I lay on my bed, my heart rate a little high at 99 beats per minute. She was telling me about a programme that she had watched on TV the previous night featuring people's fat pets. She had a well meaning and attentive young guy with her who was nowhere near as relaxed as she was. The conversation switched around a bit; house prices and other TV stuff before settling on socks......surgical socks and the fact that mine had fallen down. They were pulled up before I was fitted out with kind of throbbing leg warmers. "It's like you're walking," they kept telling me.

Then we got on to food, I mentioned that I wasn't as peckish as I would have expected, not having eaten anything since about 6 the previous evening. The lovely lady said the she would give me some nutritious stuff whilst I was asleep; it was all going to be happening whilst I was out, food, excercise, "what else", I asked. She admitted that the anaesthetist had not arrived because he was getting a sandwich himself. A moment later he walked in and everyone was on best behaviour. For the nth time I confirmed who I was and that I had not eaten since.......and that I didn't know if I was allergic to any drugs. The needle was inserted into a vein on the back of my hand, and a tube plugged in. No count down as I had expected, instead the sleep maker said that I would be starting to feel a bit more relaxed, he had given me something for the purpose. He then put a mask over my nose and mouth, not as unpleasant as those I had experienced in the dentists of my youth. Then I was dreaming, a nice dream I seem to remember. I was thinking, "I am waking now, hey, I wonder if I am waking from the operation or just from an ordinary sleep; I hope it is the operation, it would be good it if it is over.......actually I think I am, it is quite bright in here, there's a nurse". I had overheard a conversation earlier in the day about how entertainng people coming round from an anaesthetic can be, how they giggle and enjoy the lack of inhibition the drugs leave them with. Determined to stay cool, I just wink at my nurse.

By 7.30 that morning I had been sitting on my bed in a ward where a number of the beds were empty, but several had groaning old blokes in them; it was a little melancholy and it was obviously not going down well with Gemma who looked to be counting down the minutes before she could leave politely. We hardly said anything to each other then the man in the bed opposite helpfully broke the ice by releasing a fairly prolonged burbly fart. He looked like a baddy from a Tintin cartoon, intense, scrawny and swarthy. His neighbour had only just arrived and I decided that he was here in preference to taking his rightful place along side Saddam Hussein, accused of being his main henchman. The other two guys had established a bit of a connection with each other; they looked like slightly bonkers librarians.

Can you guess what it is yet?

A little while later and I was on my own reading my copy of the excellent Moon Dust when a medical man turned up and drew on my abdomen. Then the surgeon arrived, his features appeared to be exaggerated today. Sharp suited he is in his mid 40's with a strong chin but soft looking, slightly floppy skin. He listened to my questions. I noticed that his main reason for being in the room seemed to be to witness his victims signing their consent forms, it reminded me of getting the customer's signature on the order form. He certainly seemed better disposed to communication than some of the other staff though. At about 11.30 that night a nurse arrived at my bed and said she wanted to give me some antibiotics. Looking at the back of my hand she noticed that I no longer had a needle in it and seemed confused. A little more than an hour later I woke from drowsing to the unmistakeable smell of freshly popping pop-corn. A young girl who described herself as a "doctor, well physician actually" announced whilst removing popcorn from her back molars with her tongue, that I did in fact need the antibiotics and the nurse would be back presently. I waited twenty minutes and as I wanted to go back to sleep decided to go and find my nurse. I found her sipping her tea, she would be along when she had finished; you can't really argue with your arse hanging out of one of those gowns, (I don't understand why they need to be like that). Back in my bed and Florence Nightingale has arrived with her kidney-shaped bowl of kit. After she has fumbled about in the dark a bit, I reach up and put on the anglepoise. She hooks me up to a bag of clear fluid and two seconds later the room is spinning, I am covered in sweat and ready to throw up. "Can you get me something to be sick in please"? "Do you want some medecine to stop you feeling sick"? "No, I need something to be sick in". She went off and came back with one of those papier mache bowls and then disappeared. I wondered if this was one I was allergic too, I certainly didn't seem to be enjoying it. I sat on the edge of my bed ready to pull out the tube if I carried on feeling shite, but the feeling went and I lay down and went back to sleep.

Next morning the day nurse greets the ward with a cheery "morning everyone". She is unbelievable, I can't begin to understand where she gets her energy to be so generous to all of us. Bad enough cocky me, but there are all sorts of weird noises eminating from people down the corridor just the sound of which depress me and I don't have to wipe their dirty arses. Several people come to look at me and give me conflicting answers to my questions. Gemma arrives to take me home and is obviously disappointed that as I am still connected to a drip it may be a few minutes till we can go. Soon enough I am dressed and shuffling along the corridor like I've just been shot. All in all it's not been too bad.

Whilst I was sleeping.

The world's fastest Indian ****

Gentle, funny, moving, inspiring and only occasionally a little cheesy. Mr Hopkins pulls off an acceptable (to a person born in Scotland and has lived in Yorkshire and London) accent portraying the slightly aged, penurious New Zealander, Burt Munro, who went after the motor bike land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in the sixties. Bit of a feel good movie and some great sequences. At one point we see the hero testing his low slung bike, haring along a straight bit of rural Utah tarmac, passing a sedantry traffic cop in his car at the side of the road like a bullet. Sparked into life, the policeman sets off and eventually tracks down Mr Munro standing by his bike scratching his chin reflectively.

"Can you tell me how fast you think you were going when you past me back there?" asks the cop.
"About 160?" suggests the old man, disappointed

Digestive biscuits

I mentioned that I am going for an operation on a hernia soon and so (because I am over 40) they get you to go along so that they can check you out and establish that the probablility of you expiring on the operating table is acceptable.

There was a small wait required before they started doing things to me. The waiting area of the digestive diseases department was nondescript except for the fact that there was an old man there who could, if he chose, make a living mimicking the noise a water cooler makes when you pour yourself a glass. It was such a perfect imitation that I had to look up several times. I suspect that only flaw in my plan might be that he is probably unable to control it. That big gurgle is the sort of thing you would supress until you'd left a very small room full of people sitting in silence, if you could.

I had and ECG, was weighed, height checked, blood sample taken, blood pressure tested, and questioned thoroughly (one of the questions was: do I have any loose teeth?) I forgot to take a sample with me. My ECG looked nice and regular, I weigh 84kg (13 stone 2), am 180 cm tall, don't know about my blood, I have slightly high blood pressure (148 over 90).

I have probably watched too much ER over the years but I quite fancy the idea of being extremely taken care of; a room of people all looking after moi. (Of the current crop) I reckon I would go with Kovac assisted by Abby, Abby would get the job of telling me how it went afterwards before going for a snog with Kovac in the supplies cupboard. (Poor Kovac, it is always so dark in his apartment, although he does get to drive the best cars). Ideally (although he has been written out after two attempts on his life by wayward helicopters, the second of which was successful) I would also like to be entertained by a Doctor Romano outburst, though preferably not at my expense.

In the afternoon I went to a different hospital’s digestive diseases department, to accompany my dad who was going to learn about the constitution of a biopsy of part of his tummy. The news was good although I can't help thinking that there could have been a better way of delivering it. The fast speaking Indian doctor and the octogenarian from the planet Tharg and me (trying to be helpful):

Doc, "has anyone in your family ever had any diseases affecting their abdomen?"
Dad, "no."
Me," your mother was killed by a massive malignant tumour in her stomach."
Dad, "ah but she's dead."

And so it went on. After a while the doc stared longingly at a half eaten packet of crisps on his desk. He is a digestive diseases specialist working in the department of digestive diseases which is positively plastered with posters advising on what to eat to prevent digestive diseases. The only thing on his desk apart from a tired looking pc screen is a half eaten packet of crisps. It was so conspicuous, all shiny, sitting there scratching its chin, half paying attention, examining its finger nails, thinking; I love my job.

I have no loose teeth by the way (well not in my mouth, I do have the tooth of a wild boar, untethered on a shelf at home, I suppose I could take it along on the day).

Old dog, new tricks

Met my 82 year old dad for a cup of mint tea in town today. He had just been to his acupuncture session. He has had a mobile phone for several years but it is rarely if ever that you can get through to him on it and rarer still that he calls you. He produced it in the cafe as he was telling me about the fact that he was checking his missed calls with someone who wanted to arrange a meeting with him! I was handed the phone where I found unviewed text messages from 2001. His call register included many recent calls to odd numbers that included asteriscs and hashes and that more often than not did not start with a zero. When I asked about the conversation with the missed call person he was indignant that he calls a number to ask about his missed calls.......he is never wring by the way.

When it came time to leave, we rose from the table and he set off with a paper bag with Chinese writing on it. "What's in there?" I asked. "My anti ageing pills", he said confidently.

There are people dying of poverty all over the place, meanwhile.......

...... I have been trying out new cars, culminating in a short trip in a BMW1 earlier this month. When I arrived at the garage I was greeted by a middle aged woman revealing a noticeable amount of cleavage; considering the level of BMW corporate detail that I was about to be exposed to, this was certainly a missed branding opportunity. I was duly met by a gangly inchoate salesman who took me through a precise process in a very efficient way, resulting in my sitting behind the wheel of a very clean car on the forecourt. As I set off I asked him how long he had been selling BMWs. He revealed that this was his first week. I went with; "So you haven't heard about me then?" This caused a momentary interruption in the smooth flow of things but soon we were back on track making small talk and I caused my passenger to make a rigid straight line between the headrest of his seat and the footwell with his body; whilst the car coming straight for us seemed to have its horn jammed on.

Back at the dealership I was installed in my seat at new boy's desk (the one in the far corner by the coffee machine) with my mint tea. Periodically he would disappear to find the answer to some question or other, leaving me to soak up the ambiance. Car showrooms can be pleasant places indeed and this is a nice one. Everything was in its place. Just two feet from me a woman was sitting on the floor cleaning the model cars in a glass case. In due course a suited man arrived and the cleaner explained what she had been cleaning and how she had done it before going on to say that next time she would be using a cotton bud on a currently inaccessible bit. The grey man walked off. It occurred to me that I would be paying for that cotton bud if I purchased a car here.

The first test drive (of five) had been of an Audi A3 in December. The salesman there had been in the job for a month. Next I drove a Golf GTi accompanied by a diminutive blond girl with a little head that popped out from the collar of a massive Volkswagen all weather jacket. Then to another A3, htis time (different garage) I was met by a man who said he was the general manager. Having already driven one, I didn't particularly feel the need to try another A3 but in due course caved in. After twenty minutes of trying to manoeuvre the motor off the forecourt we headed off towards the M4. My passenger's response to my first question was that he knew nothing about this car or indeed any in the range. Several times he suggested that when we got back to his office he would log on to his website and be able to answer any question I could come up with. We spent the rest of the trip discussing what we would each be doing that evening (it was New Year's Eve). Every so often, despite my lack of interest, he would try to persuade me about a certain aspect of financing. Back at his office, I helped him log on and we found the car on the site; but no details.

Test driving a car is quite an odd social event. Two people who don't know each other locked in a small space together for half an hour. The first BMW I tried was with a young girl, who had been only doing the job for that month, (bit of a theme, I know). I don't remember much about that conversation except that she attempted to break the ice by telling a risqué story. However, she left out the risqué bit and I was left to make up my own. I didn't come up with much.

So back to the second BWM place; I had already made up my mind before going to this garage that I wanted this particular model; but that I didn't want the ES which might as well stand for Equipment Scarce and go for either the SE (Some Equipment) or Sport (different shaped seats). I had noticed that one difference between the SE and the Sport was that the SE had an armrest which I liked (ok so I am getting older) but otherwise I would prefer a Sport. I had chosen this garage because they had a Sport that seemed a good buy. When I discovered that this particular Sport had an arm rest fitted, I wrote a cheque that would have fed three African villages for several years.

Questions for cash

The thing is that apparently you can’t do much with £50m cash these days. I bought a car earlier this month and when the payment method was discussed it was as though, if you propose using any reasonable amount of cash to purchase your BMW, then you must have a part time job importing crack dope dragon or the like. They told me it is all about the money laundering laws. But there are two sides to this coin. Why have cash at all? I suppose it is a bit like the arms business in that the very fact that it is there, creates jobs and more money. It is a healthy and natural feeling to go out with a bit of cash in your pocket; like having a satisfactory dump. But surely we are not far away from a world where I walk into a pub and the chip just beneath the skin somewhere in my left arm, lets the barman know that I usually spend a lot of money in places like his (on vodka and lime). By the time I ask him for a drink he can make a polite comment about the new jacket that he knows I bought earlier in the week. I am free to leave the bar without handing over cash or producing a card as the bill will appear on my personal statement in due course and goodness knows whether it will be correct; the bosses of boozers like Easypub will be loving it and I’ll be even less in control of my life. A gizmo that you can charge up over some kind of network and debit in shops, that shows what credit is left would be nice; something else my phone could do except that I can’t even tell how much my phone bill is going to be.

See prism specs........

So I am supposed to be going to have an operation on 16 March to remove a kind of hernia thing which I have had since I was about 12 but which has become a bit bigger lately; it is just below my sternum, right here by the edge of my desk. They say that unless it is incised it will go on becoming bigger and apart from not being one of my most attractive features it seems to be weakening the area around it, so it is probably best out of here. I also sometimes wonder if it might be a kind of a pararsite that I feed with my various worries and which, it would appear, my various attempts to starve have failed.

I am not afraid of the process but I would really like to be able to see what goes on when they cut me open; instead I will waken in some mild discomfort not knowing if they found an alien in there and what exactly they did to sort out some unforeseen problem they encountered. I feel uncomfortable enough about taking my car for a service; who knows what has gone on during the day, what abuse it has suffered in the hands of the mechanic whose wife is sleeping with his best mate.

My dad mentioned that he saw a programme on TV recently featuring a woman who was having heart surgery without anaesthetic, she had had a number of strategically placed acupuncture needles inserted about her body and was able to chat to the surgeon during the operation. This is what I would like to do. In fact I could wear my prism glasses and observe proceedings without having to have my head lifted up. Have I mentioned my prism glasses?

I think so but in case you don’t know about them, here is a photo. I wear them most nights to read or watch TV.

My friend Ralph made a rather good suggestion the other day. Why don’t those lugers wear them. The commentators are always reporting how some competitor or other has thrown his medal chances in the bin because he or she lifted their head to have a look where they were going. I think I will approach the manufacturers of those super smooth helmets they wear to suggest that a couple of carefully positioned prisms should be glued to the inside of the racers’ visors.

There is a difference between Yoda-esquely feeling your way down the course and being happy to have the lights switched off to avoid the truth.

More of Friday's Loch Fynne Photies

Otter Ferry

Bridge at Invereray

Two Birds....for Paolo ;)

From Port Ann Woods