Sunday 31 March 2013

Dead man sitting . . .

10 Forsythia Grove
Outer Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  ZY6 4GT

I have just returned from my second visit to the Crow's Nest residential care home dear.  I do think Marian must have visited - and attempted to improve the arrangement of Pom-Pom's room - because the floor-laid electrical cables had disappeared and it was possible to sit by the bed.  Pom-Pom, however, was installed in the giant armchair by the window.  He appeared to be virtually unconscious.  When I enquired about his condition, I was informed that he'd just been returned by ambulance transport, from No Return District Hospital, where he'd had his long-term catheter replaced subsequent to developing a bladder infection.  I am not in the least surprised that he had developed an infection as, to the best of my knowledge, the catheter had not been replaced since the date of its first installation many months ago!
I was horrified pet, that any human being should be put to sit in an armchair when they were hovering on the borders of consciousness - and indeed death.  It was impossible to have a conversation with Pom-Pom, whose heavy limbs loaded the seat in what appeared to be a state of near paralysis.  All I could do was sit by his side, patting his hand, and weeping for his long suffering at the hands of the UK care system.  I did not stay long.  I merely stumbled from the premises - through the long lonely corridors and unpopulated staircases - and got back into the Banger 0.9L.  Although we covered a mile or so, it wasn't long before I actually had to stop in a layby where I must have sat - in a numbed state of shock - for quite some minutes before I felt able to continue on my way back to Forsythia Grove.
And when I got to Forsythia Grove I sat for even longer in my own armchair before recovering sufficient motive force to have even a nip of gin.
Auntie

Saturday 30 March 2013

Skid pans . . .

10 Forsythia Grove
Outer Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  ZY6 4GT
 
My Dear Ralph
Thank you for your recent epistle pointing out that my age - and indeed my entire life - bears a distinct resemblance to that of a (fairly recently) retired personage from my sister service.  We were certainly acquainted but - owing to our very different specialisms - did not work in close congress or become in any way buddies of the (ample) bosom.  I hear too, that she has a penchant for the keeping of a type of animal called a 'llama.'  I myself would not be able to distinguish one end of said animal from another.  For your edification by the way pet, both the spelling - and the meaning - of this word is not to be confused in any way with the very similar 'lama.'  The latter is actually a style of Buddhist monk.  Anyway, at last the weather dawns more-or-less fair here at Outer Hamlet after some weeks of the most icy conditions!  The Banger 0.9L has thankfully been coughing into life - subsequent to a considerable application of zeal de-icing the windscreen every morning prior to my stints over at Colonel Mustang's.  Some days I have had to inch down the icy lanes at only a few micro-miles per hour and, on one horrible occasion, the Banger and I actually slew - wholesale - the whole way down a slope into just unfrozen flood waters.  Luckily pet, my years of training on special operations skid pans has prepared me for such contingencies and we were able to emerge without actually becoming installed in a hedgerow!
I think I may have mentioned my recent discourses with Edith on the subject of her medication and possibly accelerated decline into a local care home?  Well our deliberations on this topic continued and Edith mentioned her periodic visits to her chum Elspeth, who is currently sojourning in one of these establishments.  Apparently, such experiences are not ones of unmitigated good cheer!  Indeed, she reported being found clinging to the bannisters (in her own home) by her son Michael, uttering entreaties to never be sent to this 'Country Bunker.'  The latest is that she is hot-footing it down to her solicitors with a list of care homes that she is definitely not going to be attending - in conjunction with some document entitled a 'Living Will' which lists her preferred brand of toothpaste and how many spoons of sugar she has in her tea!  Can they really sweep one off in this manner pet?
The consequence of this conversation is that I have been commissioned by Edith and associated chums (still clinging on to life in their own homes) to investigate the facilities at one Honeysuckle House situated in the environs of Outer Hamlet.  The funds earmarked for said project were, I must say, most tempting and I spent quite some while considering a suitable pretext for gaining entry to these premises.  In the end, I came up with the idea of approaching the Home Manager with a view to giving a FREE series of talks on 'My Life as an Operative.'  Frankly dear, I was slightly offended by the just-concealed guffaw emitted by this Beryl, who might not have been able to associate my French pleat and plum nail extensions with any occupation quite so titillating as Cold War assassin.  I shall have to take along my collection of garrotting cables to show her.  I don't think she will be snickering then!  Some of these, you know, were actually extricated from person's necks in the 1970's and blood stains remain on them in some instances.  It is important never to take a lady attired in several strings of magenta beads at face value!
Yours
Aunt Agatha 

Friday 29 March 2013

Secret Service: EPISODE 100

10 Forsythia Grove
Outer Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  ZY6 4GT
My Dear Ralph
Thank you for returning a couple of my recent epistles; I did in the end feel that they were, on the one hand, excessively sentimental and, on the other, excessively frank.  One would not wish the Whole World to hear about each minuscule turn of the cogs . . .
Turning to the matter of Pom-Pom's admission to the Crow's Nest residential care hom - situated on the banks of the river Beaver - I did receive a (rather desperate) phone call from him on the day of his transfer to these premises.  I still have his words on my telephone answering machine and one sentence - currently stuck in my memory banks - is: 'Can you come and see me, today?  Some horrible things are going on in here.'  The message ends with the words, 'I am missing you terribly.'  So I did go over and the impression I got from just walking in through the door - that stench of cabbage and urine - pretty much prepared me for what I was going to find.  The place looked upon its uppers, decor-wise, and I tramped through any number of seedy and depressing corridors in order to locate my friend.  He was situated in a single bed directly behind an open door.  No-one in bed could possibly see round it and nobody could sit beside it because the huge, unwieldy, 'armchair' was situated at the end of the bed, by the window.  A number of electrical cables were trailing across the floor and the television - situated high up on a wall - was both hard to see and not working.
Honestly dear.  It is almost impossible to describe the sense of dismay and helplessness I felt on his behalf.  I did assemble a couple of staff in the room to survey the scene, but no-one was prepared at that point (on a Sunday) to do anything about it.  The situation was so unacceptable that I even considered telephoning the redoubtable Xanthe (a desperate move indeed). However, I recalled that she was luckily holidaying in foreign climes at that very moment and this left Pom-Pom's sister, Marian.  So I phoned this lady, bracing myself - as a non-blood-relative - for an intra-family rebuff.  There was indeed a silence when she realized who was phoning, but I was so evidently distressed by Pom-Pom's situation that she did promise to visit and address matters personally.  She even, at the end of the call, thanked me for phoning!  I could do without all this pet as the mere recollection of it makes me feel in need of an immediate sedative.
How are you getting along with your new adult mentor by the way?  It is certainly good news that the Government realizes the importance of giving care and support to individuals recently released from gaol.  After all, a number of people might quite like to feel, at the end of their lives, that they have achieved one or two things they can be proud of - and not the reverse.
That does, of course, leave those to whom a life of unabated hedonism at the expense of everyone else - including their 'significant others' - is quite the way to go.  There are far too many people around of this ilk in my opinion pet.  I fear they may indeed have become Evil.
Yours
Aunt Agatha


O-gape . . .



10 Forsythia Grove
Outer Hamlet
CORSETTSHIRE  ZY6 4GT
 
My Dear Ralph
Things are a little extreme (aha, an oxymoron I think dear) on the weather front here in Outer Hamlet this morning.  I would need a veritable pair of snow skis to get out to Colonel Mustang's for what would doubtless be a long session at the other end of a snow shovel.  The weather is most unseasonal.
Perhaps I will volunteer for said session when it becomes possible to see through the thicket of snow flakes by which I feel constantly surrounded!
Yesterday I received a telephone call - while engaged in a bout of cutting through the blackberries - from Letititia Nettcupp who, you will recall, is Pom-Pom's social worker over at Inner Hamlet hospital.  Said Letitia informed me that, owing to a rift in communication with the carnivorous Xanthe, Pom-Pom has asked her to communicate with me instead!  Oh dear.  I hope the carnivore does not get wind of this for quite some weeks . . .  It transpired that Pom-Pom is not now requiring active medical treatment and is blocking a bed needed by somebody in more acute need.  Letitia further informed me that the good-looking WOPA home, just down the road, is full and that he can't go there.  'Well.  What are his options then?' I asked (feebly perhaps).  She informed me that there was a vacancy in one residence going by the name of the 'Crow's Nest' in the distant town of Cold-Ridge-by-the-Beaver.  I don't know who comes up with these names pet, for neither prospect sounds all that comforting does it?  One is either isolated at the top of a very long, inaccessible, pole or left to freeze in an icy river.  I gathered up my forces and retorted to said Letitia that the proposed premises were many miles from where either Xanthe or myself reside.  Letitia stood her ground and said he had to go.  I then asked her to write to Xanthe (as Pom-Pom's blood relative) to confirm that - as soon as a bed came up in the WOPA - Pom-Pom would be transferred into it.  This she agreed to do.  Perhaps I should have been stronger somehow dear?  What do you think?  In any event, as things stand, Pom-Pom is off to the 'Crow's Nest' at their earliest convenience.
As soon as I had extricated myself from the brambles over at Colonel Mustang's, I hastened off to the Inner Hamlet 'Care of the Elderly' ward in which Pom-Pom is sojourning.  And I had a very nasty shock in there, for poor Pom-Pom did not look as if he was going to live long enough to reach any further destination (located in this world anyway).  His mouth was a dry black cavern and when I tried to speak to him - and offer comfort - he stretched his lips in an O-gape of horror and rasped, 'Go away.  Can't you see I'm dying?'  I think this sight may be with me until my own dying day dear and my eyes tear at the mere recounting of it.
Yours
Aunt Agatha