Breathe

A bunch of flowers arrived today. Pink and cerise, red and white. The smell so pungent they beat the Philadelphius in the garden. The first shrub I planted when we moved in 32 years ago.
A tall man arrived at 11.00. I greeted him. He held a brief case, me my two hot water bottles. He berated me for not writing this blog. He reads it, made a timeline of my misery and came up with a plausible diagnosis – which is more than four doctors have done.
We went into the piano room. I stood and he tinkled – on the ivories. I took a deep breathe. Breathing is the answer. The breathe of life. And so commenced a singing lesson, my first in over ten years. Wonderful. Me weak and weedy him strong and decisive. After nearly an hour he revealed there was still a voice lurking in there. So I made a cafetier of coffee, boiled the milk and took the sugar out of the cupboard.
The tall man asked me how was I really.
‘I have no job, no status, no spare cash, no youth.’ I replied. ‘But I’m still here surviving’.
He stood up to his full 6ft 3″, and came and hugged me, knocking the full cafetier of hot coffee onto the floor. The smell was delicious. We adjourned into the garden, talked and shared stories and then off he went.
He gave me a complimentary class, although to be honest he gave me a lot more than an hours exercising. I love him, he’ll smile when he reads this. Crucially he gave me back the prospect of a future.
Which dear ‘L’ cannot be said of our leaders. I haven’t spoken about the Brexit nonsense. All I will say is that when a caterpillar thinks its the end of its life it turns into a butterfly. Out of the wreckage created by selfish, ego driven opportunists, those younguns will rise up. The sooner we stop talking about fiscal this and fiscal that and look at the quality of life for ordinary people then there will be change. A velvet revolution, no bloodshed, no insults, just a mass of people speaking as one saying enough is enough. I wish I could join them.
HOWEVER, this old bod is still ailing. To date we have had to cancel 2 weddings, 4 birthday parties, endless first nights and a funeral.
Yesterday I saw a new geezer, in an airy clinic. A silent nurse took notes. we went through the whole sorry saga again. He asked me about my tan, who had high insteps in my family and where exactly did it hurt. I stood and modelled my painful areas twirling around like Debbie Magee. He pulled a blue curtain round the bed and pressed into my flesh. My bony body oohing and aahing on cue. He held my arm gently when I wept.
‘Am I a complicated case?’ I snivelled.
‘Yes’, he said whilst writing up my notes, in handwriting so illegible I knew he had to be a proper doctor.
‘Yes. you are complicated but that’s better than being boring.’
Jimbo and I left, I cried and cried and cried since the new geezer said he thought it might be some kind of auto-immune thingy, but nothing that can’t be cured.
So this morning I set the alarm and drove to the nurse. She took four phials of my rich blood and sent me packing. She will also send me a bottle to wee in for 24 hours, it contains chemicals that will reveal whether I’ve got something else.
Today after the arrival of my beautiful flowers, and delicious 6ft singing lesson, I lay in the sun. My achy legs and my watery eyes on hold until. 5.00, when I came in for one of my many daily baths. I suspend myself in blissful hot water, set the timer for 20 minutes and think. Five minutes for one leg in the air, five for the other and ten for hands above my head.
Tonight I will watch some telly then got to bed with my trusty hot water bottles.
My man in Scotland is hanging in there with me and my friends and family are being extraordinarily supportive. Keeping the faith is the key.
Believing that I will be better, believing that things can only get better, believing that the ar***h*l*s that are running the asylum will be toppled. In both cases it’s going to be a hard job but there ain’t no point in giving up now. We’ve come this far.
United we stand, divided we end up with a Michael Gove sitting on your face. And who would want that?