under another sun

A difficult day. Up early and working early. Through a tiny gap in the curtain, the circle of the sun projected onto my bed where I had been sleeping.  Stressed by my glacial progress, I felt I was already late delivering the job, which was one of those despicable mixes of extremely complicated plus very boring.  Eventually I was able to send something off to them at the end of the day after being thrown off course a bit by Mum, who contacted me at noon to say that Mason had been in hospital since Monday morning. Mason had fallen over a couple of times, and Mum had to call an ambulance. It seems he has got the nasty chest virus that Mum had, and this had weakened him. The hospital were supposed to be phoning her, and she wanted to visit but didn't know what ward he was on, but she didn't want to use the phone. We spoke on FaceTime and then I called the hospital and spoke to some helpful folks in his ward. Mum was able to visit, and I spoke to the physiotherapist a couple of ti...

Up for toast and tea in Edgware with Mum. Got the trusty yellow notepad out and tried to work out next steps. Lorraine explained to me that the hospital should make a discharge plan for Mas, which may involve care. I had no idea what this might look like so I called Carl who explained that there would be a social worker involved and that the care was arranged through the local authority. This all very helpful. Then mum fished out a red folder on the table we were sitting at, which had all the contact details in the local authority and the care provider she had already been dealing with. This an amazing find as it gave me all the contact details. Mum also looked at her emails and I forwarded myself some correspondence from the care people from six months ago. Basically they had a bit of care, with people calling around to help Mas shower and so on in the morning, but they cancelled this in the first lockdown. The physiotherapist called mum, and clearly a discharge plan is being formulat...

A very warm day, and off to Edgware writing a list of things that needed to be sorted out.  Very hot and close in Edgware. But by the time I reached Mum she had managed to find out which ward he was in and make an appointment for a visit at 3pm. He was now in the AAU ward. Her lovely neighbour Maheena had offered to drive us to Barnet Hospital. Mum a bit shattered by everything. It is very stressful for her, not knowing what is going on.  Mum says Maheena is an angel and talks about her having feathers because she has been so kind to Mum and Mas. She helps them when she can and did shopping for them in covid times, and was happy to drive us to hospital. We arrived very early, but when I asked they allowed her in. There was a policy of only one visitor per person, but they let me go too.  Mas conscious and quite talkative. He has broken ribs, but they are checking for other stuff. His hearing aids weren't working so he when he told us the man opposite looked like a skeleto...

A night of weirdly terrible dreams. In the morning listened to Jane chatting on JKT's BBC Guernsey show reading poems and being interviewed about being a poet and a Camila lookalike. Some lovely stuff, and as a lover of puns, I particularly enjoyed her puntastic poem about a vegetarian Christmas. Hear Jane here, at 2 hours 52 minutes. Beginning to feel distinctly Christmassy now. The humongous food shop today in Sainsbury's, which luckily enough was remarkably uncrowded. This all went well, apart from the bit where I found myself struggling with a large Scottish salmon, which began to slip out of its long bag at me as I was handling it at the till. Drove home and unpacked the sacks of provender, the house now groaning with foods of all kinds and an embarrassment of boozes.  Off in the afternoon to drop in on Janet and Ken, to swap presents and invite them around to strap on a Christmas Day nosebag with us. Ken looking very well, and we had cups of dragonfly tea and bis...

Slept well at Mum’s place. Then up and working straight away for a few hours.  Another very hot day. When I was finally free of work, Mum and I walked to Edgware to buy ant killer 'bait station' to deal with the bazillion tiny ants walking about in the kitchen. Mum very conflicted about killing them, and wanted to try using talcum powder, which apparently is a top class ant repeller. Later we left for the hospital on the bus, a slow route through the glories of Borehamwood and Elstree.   Arrived at Barnet  Hospital under what Mum called a sulphurous sky, which obligingly began to flash and thunder. Mas has been sleeping really badly, and is falling asleep mid sentence. Not good to see him so tired. He tried to go to sleep while we were there, but his breathing machine he uses to help with his sleep apnoea was making him feel claustrophobic. We stayed with him for three hours, he felt like he couldn’t breathe but this I think was anxiety because they tested his blood...