My fridge

The salad drawer of my fridge is much like that farm in the countryside where parents tell their kids an elderly and much loved family pet is going to spend the last days of their lives. 

A place where vegetables and salad leaves are supposed to enjoy their twilight years before becoming part of a beautiful and nutritious dinner, appreciated for its freshness and tastiness by me and Chris. 

The reality, however, is far more sinister. Much of what enters my fridge, after Tesco has delivered the groceries on a Thursday night, is immediately forgotten about. Hidden in the recesses of the refrigerator it shrivels up and dies, often leaving a puddle of putrid gunk behind in which the other vegetables marinate until they too meet their undignified fate.

Have you ever seen fungus growing on mushrooms? I have — it’s like something out of Inception. The plethora of shrivelled up radishes that seem to permanently populate the bottom of the cabinet, seemingly manifest from nowhere simply to expire at the bottom of my fridge like hard red eyeballs. I recently found a long forgotten cucumber which had liquefied inside its cellophane sheath and was dripping out of a hole in the end. It was grim.

Ultimately, these rotting cadavers are flung mercilessly into the green recycling bin which sits outside our kitchen door. It’s here they start a new life, for inside the green bin the rotting food begins a new life-cycle and it’s like something out of a sci-fi film. What begins as a squashy courgette or a blackened cauliflower eventually re-emerges as a living being. 

The rotting groceries, accompanied by garden waste and cheered on by swarms of marauding flies, metamorphosised into colonies of sentient beings. Mobile beasts which seem to be conscious but have no discernible head, body or anus for that matter. At this point, if the bin men haven’t collected the recycling yet, they start their ascent up the inside of the wheelie bin in their first move towards freedom, whereupon they intend to enact their revenge upon mankind (me).

Thankfully, the bin men come every fortnight so we’ve not quite reached that stage yet but I tell you, it’ll happen one day. And woe betide anyone in the vicinity as a Cronenbergesque creature emerges from the darkness and slobbers its fridge juices down their unsuspecting face.

Sharp Scratch

            No blog spanning the Covid-19 crisis would be worth its salt without a mention of my vaccination. At this stage I have had one of two injections. I am 45 years old and that first vaccination was on 28th April 2021.

I booked both appointments online on 16th April and had a choice of places I could go to. I’d tried to secure appointments before that but could only get the first one and the system wouldn’t allow you to just have one, so I had to give up and try again a week later. This time the choice of clinics (for want of a better word) was different and there was more choice.

The place I picked was Whalley Range Tennis and Cricket Club in South Manchester. It’s about a twenty-minute walk from home and I chose it because I didn’t know there was a tennis club in Whalley Range and I was being nosey.

As usual, I set off early and marched there with the help of Google maps. Also, as usual, I arrived early. I thought I’d just hang around outside, take some pictures, and wander aimlessly, but as I approached the gates to the club’s grounds a masked woman approached me and asked if I had an appointment.

            “Yes, but I’m fifteen minutes early,” I explained.

            “Dun’t matter,” she replied. “Come on in. The more the merrier!” From the way her eyebrows lifted and the cock of her head, I assume she was smiling. But you never know these days, do you?

I fished a blue paper mask out of my pocket, stashed my headphones away, and entered the building. 

            “Just stand on the red dot,” she called after me as I went through the doors.

Another (possibly) smiling woman sat at a computer. She greeted me. 

“Good morning,” she said enthusiastically.

“Hello,” I replied, conscious of how far away from her I was standing.

“What name is it?” 

“Richard Douglas,” I called over.

“Date of birth?” I didn’t like the idea of yelling all my personals across a room. You never know which horrors are going to steal your identity while they’re having a Covid jab.

“It’s alright, you can come closer,” she offered.

I noticed they had rebranded the whole place as a vaccination centre, and not just by putting a few posters up. The walls were not the walls of the club but new walls that had been shipped in to create a clinic. They had brought the desk in, there were cubicles with curtains and retractable barriers to guide you in the right direction which had no place in the Whalley Range Tennis and Cricket Club.

Information proffered, the woman pointed towards the barriers which formed a snaking line of only a few feet towards a couple of shallow steps. 

“Follow the line,” she said, “and stand on the red dot.”

I did as she asked me. It occurred to me that this must be what sheep must go through when they’re getting ready to be dipped. 

A third masked woman approached me and asked me a question. I forget what it was now because I was distracted. It might have been if this was my first or second vaccine, it could as easily have been had I eaten this morning or what my star sign was. By this stage, though, I was fixated on the booths. There were five of them with curtains, and behind each a clinician and somebody receiving their inoculation. I wanted to hear what they were saying, and I wondered if I was allowed to take photographs. I decided that I probably wasn’t, so I then began wondering how I could take pictures without anybody noticing.

The third masked woman asked me to go down the two shallow steps which faced the booths and stand in a separate section the size of a cardboard box which separated each of us from the others and helped them keep track of the sheep dipping order. 

“Stand on the red dot, please,” she said.

            This was my chance. The tiny little area I stood in was shielded sufficiently for me to snap a photograph. With hindsight I can’t say it was a complete success, but I’ll now never forget the shade of beige of those curtains. Just as I got the pic, masked woman three walked towards me again and I pocketed my phone. 

“You’re next,” she said. I was sure she’d caught me and I detected an almost imperceptible squint in her eyes. If I had to, I’d put money on her judgementally curling her top lip at me from behind the mask.

“Next please,” came a voice and masked woman three looked at me, nodded towards a curtain and said, “Please.”  

Inside the booth was a tall black man. He put his hands together as if praying and bowed a tiny bow to me.

“Hiya,” I said, too enthusiastically.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m great thanks, how are you?”

“Very good,” he replied smoothly. I couldn’t quite put my finger on his accent, African with a bit of French, which doesn’t narrow it down very much at all. 

“Which arm would you like it in?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” I replied then immediately thought I should just choose left because I’m right handed and I’d heard the stories about dead arms..

“Are you right-handed or left-handed?” He’d beaten me to it.

“Right,” I confirmed. “Shall we go with left then?”

“Very good,” he replied. I didn’t see his eyes roll, but I could sense it.

I don’t have a problem with needles, in principle, although the ones my dentist uses I’m sure are as thick as drinking straws and not only go into my gum but through my jaw bone before poking their way out of the back of my head. Dentist needles notwithstanding, I was fine, still, I don’t particularly like watching them go in so I pulled my tee shirt sleeve up above my shoulder, offered him my arm and turned away.

“Sharp scratch,” he said. “There, that’s it.” 

I didn’t even feel it, never mind a sharp scratch. Had he even injected me, or was I to be some kind of experiment? The one person they didn’t vaccinate as a test to see if Covid is merely psychosomatic. 

“Oh, is that it?” I said. “Thank you.” I put my jacket back on, the clinician put his sharps away, turned to me and once more bowed, his hands pressed together at the palms.

I drew the curtain back and flinched as I saw masked woman three standing in front of me again looking up at my face. “This way,” she instructed. “Follow the red dots,” before abandoning me to go back to her sheep dip duties.

I wandered through a waiting room towards the doors at the back of the club, where yet another masked woman accosted me.

“Did you drive here?” she asked. I guessed she wasn’t offering to bring my car round.

“No,” I replied, “I walked. Very quickly as it happens, I was fifteen minutes early.”

This woman definitely squinted at me before saying, “If you drove you need to wait fifteen minutes before you leave.”

“Right,” I said cautiously. “But I walked.”

“Five minutes then,” she said. “You can wait in here or go out there.”

It being a lovely morning, weather-wise, I thought I’d wait outside. I exited into a covered marquee with lots of chairs and a few tables. A handful of people were sitting there, all at a minimum of two metres apart, one of them, an enormous man, hunched over, staring at the ground and puffing away on a cigarette. I decided that I’d go to the actual outdoors instead of what had become a temporary smoking shelter, so I grabbed a seat on a park bench and reached in my pocket for my phone.

My surreptitiously snapped picture of the booths disappointed me, and I chastised myself for not asking the bowing clinician if I could take a photograph with him. I forgave myself when I realised he had better things to do than pose for a selfie with me. 

I switched on Duolingo — if I was being forced to wait for five minutes I might as well be productive and carry on my Spanish lessons. I got as far as typing in ‘Mi gato es muy bonito’ when masked woman four came over.

“First or second?” she asked. “Jab,” she clarified.

“First,” I replied. “Why do we have to wait here afterwards?”

“In case you have side effects.”

“Oh, like fainting?”

“Yeah, or a blood clot or anaphylactic shock.”

“Goodness.”

“We’ve not had any,” she reassured me.

“That’s lucky,” I said, and we fell into silence.

She drifted away and collared another exiter. “Did you drive here?” I heard her ask.

The giant smoker hauled himself up and lumbered past on his way out. And with that I thought it must’ve been five minutes for me by now, so I left too. I bid goodbye to masked woman one at the gates and began my walk home. I got to the main road and, while waiting to cross, my mind started whirring. What if I left too early and I have a blood clot incident? After all, I'd just had the Astrazeneca vaccine, and they were changing the advice for the under forties, which was only five years past for me. I’m young at heart and I tell people I’m twenty seven all the time. Maybe this is the universe’s way of fixing my poor attitude towards age. I’d be the oldest person in the UK to have a blood clot from a vaccine and what’s worse, I was going to die in the suburbs of Whalley Range! Why couldn’t I die in Chorlton instead? Or, if we’re going to choose places to die, why can’t it be in Tuscany?

I crossed the road and carried on walking, convincing myself that I was suddenly light-headed and this was an anaphylactic shock on its way. Was I short of breath? Am I going to fall over? Can I at least make it back to my own neighbourhood before I keel over?

Eventually I made it home and satisfied that I had neither an allergic reaction nor a blood clot, I began waiting for the side effects. When Chris had his first Covid injection, he felt like he’d come down with the virus all over again. He sweated, he shivered, his body burned up, and he even went to bed early. He had three days of it. I wondered how long my reaction would last and just how dramatic it was going to be. 

After two days, I stopped waiting. The only thing I felt post vaccine was a small and invisible bruise on my arm where the needle had gone in — it wasn’t a scam after all. The feeling was akin to someone poking me, with medium intensity, once or maybe twice, with their index finger on my arm. I was both relieved and disappointed. I wanted a story to tell.

Chris had his second vaccination on Sunday and again suffered some side effects — though less severe this time, he just felt drained and wanted to sleep a lot this time. He attended his appointment at the Etihad Campus’s Tennis Club in Bradford, East Manchester. That’s where his first had been before all the smaller venues popped up, so he returned there for his second. 

We went there, en route home after a lovely Sunday lunch at my cousin’s house in Marple. He’d planned on dropping me at home, then going out again, and I suggested he should just go directly there. There would always be something to do if he couldn’t get in straight away, I reasoned. We arrived an hour early but buoyed on by my experience of walking straight in when I was a quarter of an hour early to my appointment, he thought he’d chance his arm. He didn’t even tell them he was early when he checked in, and they processed him immediately. 

Apparently it’s a far bigger set up there than the one I went to but that’s to be expected as it was one of the earlier centres and I think they used it for mass vaccinations a few months ago. Our friend Charles had described it as being like a science fiction movie — of course the first thing that sprang to my mind when he said that was E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, and I had images of stumpy green goblins scuttling about with pot plants and glowing fingers.  

I waited in the car for Chris and thought I’d get a good session in on Duolingo. Yo necesito una falda verde, I typed in wondering when I’d ever need to know how to say such a phrase. No matter; I continued. La universidad tiene dos bibliotecas. Not ten minutes after Chris had left the car did I see him again, striding through the car park towards me with a leaflet in his hand. He opened the door and got in the driving seat.

“Hang on a minute,” I said. “What about the fifteen minutes?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“For the blood clots and the anaphylactic shock.”

“What?”

“In Whalley Range they tell you to wait. Five minutes for walkers and fifteen minutes for drivers. What if you crash on the way home and we die?”

“They don’t do that here.”

“But, what if?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “Turn this shit off.” He flicked the switch on the radio, silencing my beautifully crafted Spotify playlist in favour of a bunch of local radio adverts.

So it seems they do it differently in different places and I wasted five minutes of my life sitting in the sun at the back of the Whalley Range Tennis and Cricket Club. Neither of us has died yet, nor have we mutated. We have, however, started beaming 5G waves from our heads and I understand Bill Gates has full visibility of my movements now.

If you’d like to listen to my Spotify playlist called, I’m here live; I’m not a cat, you can do so here.

Pure Cremation

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday morning, my dad phoned me.

“I’ve seen this thing on the telly,” he opened with — no greeting or small talk, straight to the point. “It’s called pure cremation.”

“Oh, right,” I replied.

“What they do is, when you die, they collect you from your home, burn your body, then send the ashes to your loved ones. No fuss, no service, no nonsense. What do you think?”

I didn’t really know what I thought. I’d been out the night before, getting drunk in a friend’s garden, and had a shocker of a hangover. There was no thinking happening that morning.

“Erm,” I stalled, “well, I suppose I’d need to mull it over a bit.”

“I want you to talk to your brothers and find out what they think.”

“Okay,” I agreed, cautiously. “How are you, anyway?”

He ignored the question, “I want to get it all sorted and paid for and this is the cheapest way of doing it.”

“Right,” I paused. “What do you think about it?”

“I don’t care, I’ll be dead,” he replied bluntly. “Like your grandpa used to say, ‘for all I care, you can dump me on the side of the road.’”

“I see,” another pause. “So what’s new? Aside from pure cremation?”

“Nothing,” he said matter-of-factly, “nothing at all. I’ve done nothing, I’ve been nowhere, I’ve seen nobody.”

“You’ve seen nobody? What about your carers?”

“Well, them I suppose.”

“And has Philip not been round.”

“Yes, he brought me a sandwich.”

“Excellent,” the conversation was stalling already. “Well, I’ll talk to Robert and Matthew then.”

“I know what they’ll say.”

“Oh? What do you think?”

“Rob ’ll say it’s my choice and I can do what I want, and Matt ’ll say he’s against it and I should be buried with your mum. But it’s okay, you can scatter my ashes on her grave and we’ll still be together.”

“I see.” I find ‘I see’ is a good all rounder when you need a response. It’s non-committal, non-confrontational, and it ends a conversation with little fuss. I didn’t see, but I agreed to talk to my brothers and get back. I told him I needed a few days — I rarely speak to my brothers, most of our communication is done by text message and I didn’t think this was an appropriate subject for WhatsApp. Also, I didn’t know how long this hangover was going to last. It was pretty sinister. 

My dad has changed in recent years. I suspect much of the change is to do with his physical health, which has without doubt affected his mental health. He does very little for himself nowadays. Carers tend to him four times a day, there’s a morning visit (too early as far as dad is concerned) when they wake him up and help him to the bathroom before propping him up in bed and leaving. At noon they come back and hoist him out of bed with a contraption that looks like a huge pogo stick, wheel him to the sitting room, and leave him in his chair in front of the television. Someone comes back later to make his dinner and there’s a last visit at about eight o’clock when he is hoisted from his chair and delivered back to bed, again too early in his opinion. He can’t walk on his own, so he spends his life in bed and in his chair. If he needs the loo he has to wait till a carer arrives and in the interim has a couple of bottles on a table next to his chair which he can pee into.

He’s stopped reading and his only vice - whisky - is rationed to two a day, which I understand is watered down after going down a very slippery slope with the booze a few years back. He never leaves the house. From most people’s point of view, it’s a miserable existence so I can appreciate why his mind has wandered to cremation.

Dad was always a thoughtful type. He used to spend a lot of time talking and asking questions; he was genuinely interested in what people had to say. There’s less of that now, and I can’t help but think about a visit I made to him a couple of years ago when he was in hospital, a two and a bit hour journey each way from Manchester to Lytham, when after 45 minutes of awkward chat he said, “You don’t have to stay. You can go if you want.” 

People keep saying he’s given up. I’m not exactly sure what they mean by that, but suspect they think he’s ready to die. As I’ve pointed out to them and him, he’s only 71 years old, he could have twenty years in him yet. Another twenty years of sitting in a chair watching crap TV and peeing in a bottle. 

He doesn’t seem particularly interested in self care, maybe that’s what they mean. Last time I saw him I took him a new jumper as part of a birthday present because the one I’d seen him in the time before was holey and falling off him. I unwrapped it for him. He looked at it and said, “A jumper? Stick it over there with the other four.” Cheers, dad. I then asked him what was going on with his glasses — they only had one arm, which was Sellotaped to the frame, and the bridge was also taped. 

“These are my telly glasses,” he said, oblivious to the fact they were falling apart and precariously balanced on his nose and one ear. 

“Which optician are you with? I’ll find out what the prescription is and we can get you some new ones.” He told me but said he’d not had a test for years, so I said I’d arrange for someone to come to the house and test his eyes. He seemed to think it was a lot of fuss over nothing, but agreed all the same.

He has been eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine for yonks now, but when invited by his doctor to get it he told them he couldn’t get out of the house. They said they’d get the district nurse to deliver it, but months later when I asked, he still hadn’t had the jab and seemed disinterested in following up. He did finally get it, only a week before I had mine.

Several professionals — nurses, doctors, consultants — have said there’s nothing medically wrong with him and he could walk again if only he’d try. He says otherwise. 

Despite what anyone says, there are obviously some things wrong with his body. He broke his hip a few years ago after falling off an office chair and put his back out badly whilst recuperating. He takes warfarin to thin his blood after an earlier deep vein thrombosis which resulted in a pulmonary embolism. He has some arthritis which prevents him from picking things up and he struggles with his phone, and he mentioned a trapped nerve too. 

I’m sure there is an element of fear at play here. He’s fallen several times and been alone on the floor for hours, waiting for help. He has an emergency call necklace now, nevertheless, the last time it happened he fractured his arm. With the potential of that happening, I imagine I would be worried about trying to get out of bed too.

I’m not sure what I can do. To be honest, I’m not sure if there's anything I should do. He’s compos mentis, and he’s resisted any suggestion that he move to sheltered accommodation, preferring (if that’s the right word) to receive help from carers at home. I’d gone to great lengths to find a brilliant place, close to where he lives now, that I thought would be ideal for him to move to. It was a self-contained flat in a building where there were a team of carers on hand round the clock and communal areas — a canteen and a lounge room — where he could meet other people if he so chose. I never imagined him choosing to spend time with a bunch of strangers, but it was all academic anyway when he said, “I’m not moving to Fleetwood, it’s a dump!” I considered highlighting the fact that he wouldn’t be going outside anyway, so it didn’t matter all that much, but thought better of it.

He doesn’t ask for much — apart from the occasional thoughts on funerals — and I don’t think he wants much. When it comes to his birthday or Christmas, he’s quite clear when I ask what if he wants anything in particular as a present: “Whisky. Nothing else. Just whisky. Bells.” I suppose I should have listened to him when I bought him the jumper, which he dismissed.

We’re not especially close, but we talk every now and again on the phone, and I think that suits both of us. People have told me time and again that I should talk to him more often, but I reckon we’ve found our level, an equilibrium of sorts. All I do is make sure he knows that if he needs anything from me he can ask, and every now and again he does, usually on a Sunday morning while I’m grappling with another hangover.

A glistening pint of cold, fizzy lager

    Quick update on my last post: as I mentioned, I’d received a letter from the dermatologist to tell me the biopsy had revealed moderately abnormal cells, I needed further surgery on my ear and that I would hear from Wythenshawe hospital. Six weeks later and I’ve still not heard from them. I gave them a week before I followed up. I started at the scene of the crime—Withington hospital’s dermatology department—but they didn’t answer their phone. 

    I called several times on the number they had given me before dialling another, which eventually got me through to the nurses’ station. The woman I spoke to checked my records and confirmed that I was on a waiting list and I should call Wythenshawe directly for more information. She gave me two numbers, which I dutifully tried every day for a few more days. There was no answer but there was an answering machine so I left a couple of messages. Still nothing.

 
    On Wythenshawe hospital’s website, I found their Patient Advice and Liaison Service—PALS for short—who promise to ‘help make your voice heard and liaise with the relevant staff to sort out any problems quickly.’ I called the number but there was no reply so I emailed them. I’ve still not heard from them. Not very pally, if you ask me.

    At a loss how I was supposed to talk to anyone at Wythenshawe Hospital, and not knowing who I should speak to anyway because the original letter hadn’t contained that information, I thought I’d try Withington again.

    I didn’t mess about this time; I went straight to the nurses’ station number as they were the only people I’d got through to in all this time, and I laid it on. The woman I spoke to was lovely and helpful and professional. When I said to her with a slight shrillness to my voice, ‘I just need to know if I have skin cancer or if I’m going to have my ear removed’ she told me she couldn’t comment on the content of the letter but she’d ask the doctor that wrote it—the first person I’d seen at the dermatology department way back when in the middle of February—to call me.

    Ten minutes later, and the doctor was on the phone. She explained that I do not have skin cancer; the further surgery was to be undertaken by the plastic surgery team at Wythenshawe; and that it was an advised precaution given the moderately abnormal cells and the possibility of them becoming more abnormal in time. She went on to say that I do not need to worry and that I should wait for a call from Wythenshawe.

    After weeks of moderately abnormal worrying, I finally felt reassured. That being said, I’ve still not heard from Wythenshawe, I still don’t know how much of my ear they want and I can only assume the PALS team have fallen out and disbanded.

    In wider national news, the covid rates in the UK are dwindling as the vaccine does its job. Almost half of the UK’s population has had at least one vaccine shot—my first is due next Wednesday—and the country is gradually opening up again. Of course we’ve been here before, and things can change, but last time the country started to get back to normal we had no vaccine and the only thing to assist us was the Government’s ‘eat out to help out’ promotion.

    So as it stands we may go to a pub, or restaurant, but we must sit outside. That ruling is in place till 17th May and has led to a flurry of bookings across April and May—I’ve currently got a birthday dinner next Friday, drinks the following Thursday, lunch then drinks on the Saturday, dinner on 21st May with friends, again on 26th for our anniversary and one last reservation on 1st June because in the olden days we used to enjoy going out for a pizza on a Tuesday night. This might appear to the untrained eye as overkill, but believe me, some of these reservations are rarer than hen’s teeth.

    When the pubs first opened again, I was keen to get out there and sip a glistening pint of cold, fizzy lager, poured by someone else, and served to me in a glass—simply because I’d not done that since October. I went into work on the Thursday of that first week knowing that a couple of colleagues would be there and after we’d finished for the day we hit the Northern Quarter on the hunt for a table. Twenty minutes later, I was utterly dejected as we realised it was going to take an eon to find a seat. I had a right face on me. When somebody suggested we buy some cans and drink them on the roof terrace at work I had to apologise for my miserable attitude and mumbled the words, ‘Well, yeah, obviously it’s about the company.’ I don’t think I convinced them, especially when I said, ‘You know if I were on my own I could’ve got in that last pub.’ I eventually got my glistening pint a few days later, and I have made up for it since by necking the stuff like it’s going out of fashion.

    As part of the process of returning to normal, there is a new arm to the track and trace scheme whereby people who have no symptoms test themselves at home and report back to the NHS. As a good citizen I ordered my kit of seven tests which should last about a month. They arrived on Monday but I had an important appointment on Wednesday so I pushed it to one side—I couldn’t risk missing it if it turned out that I was positive. Apparently that’s not the right way to look at it, but it was a very important appointment.

    I didn’t find time to do it on Thursday (glistening pints of cold, fizzy lager) then, on Friday, I got myself all revved up for it before realising I wasn’t supposed to eat before the test and I’d just wolfed down a massive piece of quiche with some new potatoes and salad. I pushed it aside again and settled down with a slab of carrot cake.

 

    Eventually, this morning, I got round to taking the test. It’s the standard thing you see on the TV of folk having swabs jammed up their noses and into the back of the throat. You then take said swab and mix it in a formula and drop it into a little plastic strip before giving it half an hour to reveal the answer. I imagine that’s what a pregnancy test is like, just with fewer tonsils and more piss. Thankfully, the test was negative because I’m due at a garden party this evening and I didn’t want to cancel.

    Finally, I feel I should mention the biggest news of the last month: the death of Prince Philip, the Duke Of Edinburgh, at 99 years old. It’s one of those strange situations where something affects people despite them having no direct link to the event or in this case, the person. There was the usual mix of sentiment on social media with some horrors being completely merciless, as if the money and privilege afforded to members of the royal family negates any need for sympathy or their need to mourn. I mean, why should someone be upset about losing a family member when they have a driver and a nice house?

    Thankfully, though most people saw past the ceremony and the bluster of the misanthropes, and recognised the event for what it was: a woman who had lost her companion of over seventy years, human, diminished in stature, and hurting, and having to do it in the spotlight of public scrutiny.

    His funeral was at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and as current Covid rules dictate, the congregation was made up of just thirty people. The service was solemn and pared back and the Queen cut a lonely figure, standing unaccompanied to the right of her husband’s coffin.

 
    News reports say that she will continue to live at Windsor now and only return to London for work. Others have suggested she might pass the crown on to Charles, though I don’t see that happening. There will always be mixed opinions about the royal family, and whilst the death of Prince Philip was a big deal, you can guarantee the international reaction will pale into insignificance when the Queen dies.

A stitch in time

    I recently wrote about having some moles excised at the dermatologist and this Friday, two weeks to the day, I went to have the stitches removed from my ear and the back of my head. The rules, having been changed to ensure social distancing guidelines, were that I had to go around the side of the health centre, to the staff car park, where I was under strict instructions not to park (I haven't had a car for five years), then I was to press the buzzer at the staff entrance and announce myself. 

    Dutifully, I did as ordered. Hello, I'm a bit early but it's Richard Douglas, I have an appointment.

    The person at the other end huffed irritably, and replied: Right, I'll let 'em know. 

    The intercom fell silent and I began loitering in the car park. I was the recipient of two, side-eyed, suspicious glances from people who had parked and assumed I'd come to break into their hatchbacks, and almost the victim of a hit and run, except they didn't actually hit me and the only running was done by the flustered healthcare worker who, at 9.40am, I think was running late. 

    I paced the potholed tarmac and checked the time on my phone. I'll let them off, I thought, the appointment wasn't till quarter to. T minus two minutes. I examined what appeared to be pieces of a tiny, plastic palm tree strewn across the ground and, bored, sent a message to Alison to ask her if Lego still made those little green trees. She told me to Google it, I told her I had become too reliant on Google. I paced some more.

    Are yer still there? The voice eventually bellowed through the tinny intercom, like a furious Metal Mickey. Noticing they were now a minute late, but not wanting to say anything, I trotted to the door and confirmed that I was, indeed still there. She'll just be a minute, she's findin' a visor, said the voice.

    A full three minutes later than my assigned appointment time an excellent woman opened the door and beckoned me in with wide eyes and an enthusiastic voice. I immediately forgave her tardiness as she led me down the corridor and asked if I'd eaten because she didn't want me fainting like all the other men that have stitches taken out. I told her about my Weetabix, took a seat in her room and pointed out where the stitches were. 

    Have you been fighting? she asked.

    No, I had some moles removed. Do you get a lot of fighters?

    Yeah, loads. And stabbings.

    Really? I was shocked, this is a nice neighbourhood.

    You'd be surprised. After the pub when they all start scrapping. She paused before adding, And gunshot wounds.

    I couldn't tell if she was joking so I didn't pursue it.

    One of her colleagues came into the room and, so as not to disturb me, pulled a blue curtain half way across the room. I'm not sure how it was going to help as, despite the fact I couldn't see her, I could certainly hear her as she struck up a conversation.

    Where did you get them fancy biscuits? she pried.

    Reception, but I had the last ones. Do you want them? offered my nurse.

    No. Yer alright.

    Are you sure?

    Yeah. Then almost as an afterthought, They're fancy though.

    By now I needed to know just how fancy these biscuits actually were so I piped up: If I'd have told you I hadn't eaten this morning would you have given me your biscuits?

    Yeah, do you want them?

    No, thanks.

    Are you sure? You can have 'em.

    I leaned forward to have a look: Biscoff, extra large, double pack, separately wrapped. I wanted them but I knew I had some baby Biscoffs at home so I declined. The other nurse collected her tools—something about an open wound on a foot—and left. I never did see her face as she ogled the biscuits.

    Right, which ones do you want done first? my nurse asked as she sat down next to me with a tiny blade in her hand.

    A few minutes later, I was done, stitches removed with only one tiny twinge of pain—they were very tight knots I was told—and I was sent on my way with instructions to call if I had any problems with anything, At all, she emphasised. I wanted to ask if I could call her about a few personal issues I wanted to work through but thought better of it. I liked her very much, I think I'd enjoy working with her.

    An hour after I'd left the house I arrived home. There was a letter waiting for me from the NHS with the results of the biopsies. The larger, uglier mole behind my right ear was thankfully harmless but the small dark one, on the rim of my left ear, was described as 'moderately abnormal'. The letter went on to inform that, to cure it, I would need to have further surgery and that I would next hear from their colleagues at Wythenshawe Hospital.

    I'd not expected that. I'd been a bit concerned about the results but everyone, myself included, said it'd be fine, no need to worry, better to be safe than sorry and so on. I'd almost written it off as a formality.

    The letter was short and, while on the face of it, it appeared to the point, the more I thought about it, the more questions I was left with. What does moderately abnormal mean? Is there an abnormal scale and if so, where does moderate sit on that? Should I be worried—I already am—or is it routine? What is further surgery? I'm already missing a small chunk out of my ear, which has left me looking like a bad cat after a fight, but how much more will I lose? A couple of millimetres; half a centimetre; half an ear? Can you get your ear reconstructed on the NHS? I wondered. 

    And this is where I started catastrophising. What if I end up without an ear? What if the radiotherapy (that nobody has suggested I'll need) gives me a brain tumour? Is it too late to get life insurance so Chris isn't lumbered with the rest of the mortgage? Should I leave my grandparents' antiques to my brothers or Chris? An upward spiral of ridiculousness; ad nauseam.

    There's been an (un)fair amount of cancer in my family, we've waved farewell to a lot of people before their time, and this is obviously where this neurosis comes from. 

    My granny buried four of her children—twins in cot deaths, my mum's half brother Peter at the age of seventeen from cancer, after having his legs amputated at the knees, and my mum's sister Anna (the only one I knew) at the age of 45, who died after a particularly bad seizure at the Chalfont St Peter Epilepsy Centre where she was a patient; and my dad and his three siblings all lost their spouses in their fifties—all but one to cancer. These things have led me to spending a lot of my adult life both worrying about dying young and trying to fit as much as possible into my time because you never know when it's up.

    I like to think I'm rational but I've also spent the last nineteen years counting down the years till I die. In my head it's inevitable that I'll pop off at the same age as my mum did, 56, giving me slightly more than a decade left to squeeze everything in. Somehow I manage to dismiss the knowledge that her dad lived till he was 94 years old and on the Douglas side of my family—various ailments, conditions and situations notwithstanding—all seem to be plodding on into or at least towards their seventies.

    The rational side of my brain tells me I should wait for information from the hospital, or indeed contact them myself and ask for it; it says this might not be cancer (but that's what they check moles for isn't it?); half a centimetre of my ear is not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things; medicine has moved on since 2002; this is why I got it checked in the first place; better now than in five years time; and whatever you do, don't Google it. I haven't Googled it, but I'm sorely tempted.

    The side of me that I show to friends, family and colleagues makes light of the situation, because that's what I do. I've joked that I've always wanted to wear a monocle (I don't even wear glasses so the joke's on them) and I talk about looking like that bad cat I mentioned earlier. 

    I make light of it because I don't know what the letter implies, because I don't want folk to be awkward with me and make it weird, and because it's only a tiny little mole. But mostly I do it because I'm a bit scared that I might have skin cancer.

    Time will tell, that's all I know, and so I imagine a day, when I'm ancient and wizened, that I find myself sitting in the corner of one of those down at heel modernist pubs from the sixties, pint in hand, with my one and a half ears and my monocle. I'm telling stories about the olden days during the great pandemic, when surgery meant being stitched up with a needle and thread, the nurses were all called Jackie, and if you pretended you were going to faint you could get your hands on a packet of posh biscuits.

Roseanne Barr

    In seven days time it will be twelve months since I started writing this blog again after a hiatus of nine years. I started writing it again to keep a record, ostensibly for my own purposes, because I've got a terrible memory and I suspected 2020 was going to turn out to be a notable one. 

    In that post I wrote: "Yesterday the Prime Minister urged the British public to avoid all non-essential contact with others. While at present it feels a little over the top I'm confident that in the near future we'll see this as sage advice and suspect this is just the beginning of a long haul." 

    So here we are, almost a year later, and what a long haul it's been, with 140,000 people having died in the UK with Covid-19 registered as one of the causes on their death certificate. Even with the question of excess deaths that I was wondering about in my last post, it's a pretty sobering situation.

    The positive news—for there is always something positive to be found—is that nearly 24 million people have had their first dose of a vaccine, another 1.8 million have had their second, and the rates of infection and deaths are dropping. Here in Greater Manchester the rate has fallen below 100 positive tests in 100,000 people for the first time in months, with only three of the ten boroughs counting more.

    There are reports of folk choosing not to have the vaccine—fine I say, it's up to them—and the odd case of evangelical anti-vaxxers who rather than just saying, it's not for me, are intent on using the powers of social media to convince the rest of us that we're sleep walking into some kind of dystopian future where we'll all be killed by our own governments.

    As far as I know my dad, who is just over a week short of 71 years old, has yet to be vaccinated and last time I asked he didn't seem especially concerned or in any hurry. Like I said, fine, it's up to him.

    In other news, I've had a couple of moles removed, one from my left ear and one from behind my right ear, which was loads of fun. I contacted my doctor about something else entirely and during the phone consultation (because during a pandemic everything is done remotely) I happened to mention that I'd like him to look at some sun damage on my skin. He asked me to upload some images via a hyperlink then called me back to say the one on my cheek was a common or garden liver spot—I thought they were something old folk got—the one on my nose needs some attention, but wasn't anything to worry about, and the one on my ear needs an urgent consultation with a dermatologist. 

    Shortly after I received a text message from the health centre confirming the referral process and of course they used the word cancer which was somewhat disconcerting. I next received a letter to give me my appointment date and thirteen days after my initial call I went to get them checked out. 

In the interim Chris pointed out another mole on my head, behind my right ear, which of course I had no idea about because I couldn't see it. I discussed the moles I'd mentioned to my GP with the dermatologist and also asked them to look at the newly revealed one as well. The long and short of it is that the thing on my nose was some kind of vessel damage and they zapped it there and then with liquid nitrogen to burn it off; the one on my ear they weren't hugely concerned about but because it was dark they said it was best to whip it off; and the secret, surprise mole was of some concern because it was of an irregular shape and looked suspicious.

The remains of the frozen nose thing.

    A few days after the consultation I received another letter inviting me to have the two suspect moles surgically removed.

    Two days later, in her consulting room, I chatted with the dermatologist about that favourite lockdown pastime: going for a walk, and she regaled me with a story about stumbling on a secret garden village in the heart of Burnage. We then passed the time of day discussing books: I'm reading The Little Friend by Donna Tartt and she's just finished Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton, which she recommended and I've since bought. We talked about the imminent excision, almost in an abstract way, as if she was teaching me how to do it, then I signed some documents and, lulled into a false sense of security, followed her to the next room.

    The anaesthetic was pretty straightforward, though a needle going into the edge of my ear stung more than I expected, then I lay there while it did its magic. The two women assisting the consultant tried to distract me and keep me entertained. Will you be going on holiday this year? What's your job? That sort of thing. They were pleasant enough but I think they could learn a thing or two about their patter from a hairdresser. Chit chat about city breaks only goes so far when international travel is all but banned.

    All numbed up, the consultant slipped around my side, weapons of choice secreted upon her person so I couldn't see what she was about to cut me with, and said, Can you feel that?   

    No, I replied. 

    And that? she asked as she jabbed me in the side of the head. 

    No. I could not feel anything, happy days, the anaesthetic had done its job. 

    I'm going to start on this side, she said, indicating the big one behind my ear. You'll just feel a bit of tugging.

    To begin with I sensed the work being done and the mopping of blood, a strange sensation, accompanied by the dulcet tones of the three women trying to get me involved in a discussion about their favourite comedians, a distraction technique if ever I've heard one.   

    With the benefit of hindsight I'd say it was about a third of the way through the procedure when I realised the anaesthetic hadn't flooded all the way across the flesh that was being cut out. 

    That was sharp, I thought.

I didn't say anything obviously. 

    Ouch! Shit, that hurt.

    Everything okay? asked one of the butchers as I unclenched my fists and wiped the sweat on my jeans.

    Roseanne Barr, I replied, she's hilarious.

    Roseanne! I'd forgotten about her, said the consultant, and carried on slicing me up.

    Had I known the pain was going to continue for as long as it did I'd have said something but I thought, just get it over with, it won't be long, it's not that bad. So I gritted my teeth and tried to focus on something else: the drawers with paperwork in them, the pile of swabs on the counter, the crinkle of the protective paper I was lying on, the OH MY GOD SHE'S SEWING MY HEAD UP!

    And she was. The offending mole had been removed, they'd talked over the works of Miranda Hart, and the wound was being sewn up. I couldn't tell whether what I was feeling was the needle going in or coming out but I knew I could feel a hot puncture in my skin followed by tugging and instructions in secret medical talk to do something to each of the stitches. One, two, three, four in turn. 

    All done! she eventualy said, chirpily, Just the little one on the other side to do now.

    Thankfully while the bloodbath behind my right ear was occurring it had given my left ear sufficient time to numb properly and all I felt was the tugging previously promised. The consultant was done in no time. She assured me that the flesh would be lab tested for cancer and I'd receive the results in two to three weeks. She then scuttled off back to her office leaving me in the capable hands of the other two women who briefed me on stitches etiquette. 

    Don't get them wet for three days; book yourself in at your health centre to have them removed in two weeks; and don't lie on them when you go to sleep. Followed by a moment of realisation as she appreciated there were stitches either side of my head and that might make sleeping tricky. Maybe you could... Er... I'm not sure how you're... Well you could try...

    I tried to help her out by saying, If only I had one of those hard little pillows Geishas sleep on so as not to mess their hair up. She looked at me like I was mad. I'll find a way, I assured her and left, light-headed and with a handful of leaflets.   

Stitches behind my right ear.

Stitch in my left ear.

Bitter Orange Tart

Three weeks into the new year and 2021 is already weird. Coronavirus continues its rampage around the world, the UK is in another national lockdown and has essentially closed its borders to the whole of South America, Portugal and South Africa because of new strains of the virus. Not that there are many people flying at the moment anyway. 

At the same time the amazing news is that we are now working with three vaccines in the UK and more than four million people have had their first injection. Vaccination centres are popping up everywhere and at the speedy rate we’re going it looks like everyone will have been inoculated much sooner than predicted. Mid-July keeps being bandied about as a possible date, though there is also talk of people having to be vaccinated again in the autumn. I wonder if it might become an annual thing like the flu vaccine – time will no doubt tell.

Alongside these headlines are those of the number of deaths happening every day which reporters bark at us, albeit with a sympathetic tone, every time the news comes on the television. Something that I’d like to look at though is how many people died of covid rather than with covid. Given that hospitals fill up in the winter anyway, and the headlines every year include stories of bed shortages and the struggling NHS, I wonder why the difference in winter deaths this year compared to previous years isn’t being highlighted. That to me would be a better indication of what Covid is doing. But then the headline: 1,600 people die with a Covid diagnosis in the worst day yet of the pandemic, doesn’t have quite the ring to it as: 300 more people died this year to last.

I’ve been tracking Covid 19 rates in the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester since the beginning of October and this second wave, as it stands, hasn’t reached the levels of November, and what's more, rates are dropping again now. The increase could be attributed to mixing at Christmas, though I think the majority of people followed the guidelines closely, and the downward turn of the graph could be attributed to the national lockdown. It’s difficult to say, especially when you consider that the November restrictions were heralded as a success in Greater Manchester despite the fact that rates were already decreasing when they were imposed. 

What I have noted however is that Greater Manchester rates, whilst following national trends, have been significantly below London rates and also well below England rates. Make of that what you will.

So whilst all this rumbles on, as it has for almost a year now, we look across the pond to the United States where today – 20th January 2021 – Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th President and Donald Trump will leave Washington. This wouldn’t usually be of much concern to me, I’m not especially interested in American politics, but this is going to go down in history as a notable transition of power. Firstly because (of course) Covid 19 is having an impact and the crowds of hundreds of thousands that normally attend the event are being asked to attend virtually instead. Deaths from the virus in the United States have surpassed 400,000 as of today so it’s simply not safe to have people gather in large numbers. A field of flags will represent the people that would usually be there and this will be one of many changes to the ceremony.

In addition to the crowds another notable absentee will be the outgoing President. Trump has said he will not be attending in a snub to Biden and a continuation of his belief that the election was fixed and he should have won. The Vice President, Pence, will be there in his own capacity and not a representative of Trump.

There are concerns over safety in Washington DC today so security has been massively boosted, beyond, it seems, the levels normally seen at an inauguration. This in the most part is a reaction to the events of 6th January when, in scenes you’d expect from a developing democracy, a tyranny or a totalitarian system, the American Capitol building was stormed by protesters. Congress were gathered to confirm the electoral college vote and confirm, once and for all, Biden’s success when, egged on by Trump at a rally, hundreds of people forced their way into the building in an attempt to disrupt the process.

It was truly shocking to see politicians and staff fleeing to escape, and rioters marauding through the building. Tear gas was fired by the police as they tried to regain control and workers barricaded themselves into offices to avoid the protestors. Five people died including one police officer who was hit over the head with a fire extinguisher.

I won’t labour the story as news of it was reported around the globe, however I will say that it revealed the passion, disillusionment and dare I say it, hatred felt by one side of what is essentially a split country.

So back to the UK and Nigella Lawson has chosen today to tweet her recipe for Bitter Orange Tart as recipe of the day. Coincidence? Who knows but if you fancy giving it a go here it is: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/bitter-orange-tart