I went into town with herself and we had a look at the National Gallery and then we got back into the car and drove to the Queen of Tarts. Just as we were settling down, my work mobile started to ring. I looked at it balefully. Unknown number. I answered coldly. The caller asked my name. I told him, with increasing coldness. “It’s just that I’ve found your purse on the road and your card is in it.” The saintly finder dropped it into the local Garda station and I was able to go and pick it up (everything still there) even before I had realised it was lost. It is quite true what my mother says, “People are mostly very nice.”
Can I have that?
My children hate throwing things out. An empty cereal box can be re-purposed. The plastic wrapping on a magazine can be used to choke a sibling. They watch me like hawks to make sure that I don’t illicitly dispose of things.
Daniel said to me the other night, “You’re not a real Irish Mammy.” As I mentioned before, I received “The Book of Irish Mammies” for my birthday and the children are measuring me against it and, regrettably, generally finding it a very good fit, so I was rather pleased when he said this but a bit surprised too. “Why not?” I asked. “Because you are always throwing things out.”
All I can say is, if I’m always throwing things out, why do we have so much stuff?
Comparisons are Odious
When I was in college my then boyfriend’s brother [try to keep up] had a lovely girlfriend. She was a delightful person. Everybody loved her. My own mother was a good friend of lovely gf’s mother and she loved her too. My sister was in lovely gf’s sister’s class in school and she loved her. I didn’t dislike lovely gf,- how could I, she was lovely? – but I did mildly resent the way she was utterly perfect. She got her boyfriend’s parents [also my boyfriend’s parents, if you see what I mean] an orange tree for Christmas. Who buys presents for a boyfriend’s parents? Not me, alas.
As I went in and out of the hospital over the weekend visiting my poor mother, a big shiny board with names engraved in golden letters caught my eye. It was a list of interns of the year and alongside it winners of a medal for youthful brilliance. Who was on the list of interns of the year? Lovely gf, that’s who. Who was the only intern featured on the list who also won the gold medal for being brilliant at medicine and lovely [possibly not actual title]? Oh yes indeed, the lovely gf. I’m not jealous, no really, I’m not. It’s just that she’s haunting me.
Recovering
My mother had her operation yesterday and it all seems to have gone well. I do think Irish hospitals are good at operating and treating people, it’s just the ancillaries that seem to be sadly lacking. Anyhow, her recovery will be slow enough and she won’t be discharged until next week and then probably to somewhere they can do rehabilitation but the prospects look reasonably rosy. Thanks for the good wishes.
Keep your fingers crossed for her please or pray to your gods, if appropriate.
The Peace Dividend
Before I ended up staying in Cork for the weekend, we had planned to go to Northern Ireland for a day trip. The children were not enthused. Mostly because they, quite rightly, scented the prospect of a health giving walk. The Princess however began to plough a particularly fertile furrow. “I’m scared, we’ll be bombed,” said she. “Don’t be daft,” we said pointing to the Belfast agreement and, more practically, the people we knew from Northern Ireland and the fact that the sixth class school tour was going there; she knows that her school principal is not a man for taking unnecessary risks. It was at this point that Daniel felt inspired to intone from the back seat “Ireland unfree shall never be at peace!”
I think we may have to look a bit more closely at his reading material. Mr. Waffle tells me that Daniel has been reading a “very green” children’s history of Ireland and Mr. Waffle feels that peace and reconciliation may not be among the themes addressed. All the more reason to take them off to see the glories of Northern Ireland where they can see swords being beaten into ploughshares with their very eyes or, more likely, have a walk followed by tea and a bun in a National Trust property.
Hello, Cruel World
I have not blogged for a while. This is largely because I have moved house and my evenings are taken up with finding places to put everything and wondering why on earth we own so many pictures.
I have taken a break from stashing old CDs in drawers and come to Cork this weekend. This was an unplanned trip. My mother fell and broke her hip on Saturday. This is a bank holiday weekend in Ireland. My father broke his hip on St. Patrick’s weekend which was also a bank holiday weekend. He is recovering well at this stage so, I suppose, it was time for some additional bank holiday drama.
My sister went into the hospital with my mother at 3 pm. She and my brother stayed with her in rotation to midnight. At about 9 pm she got an x-ray and got moved from a seat to a trolley (triumph!). I got the train from Dublin and arrived in A&E about midnight (last train which featured engineering works at Mallow and a bus transfer from there to Cork – what’s not to love?). I spent from midnight to 4 am sitting beside my mother’s trolley in the corridor. About 6 or 7 other people were in the corridor on trolleys. Chances of sleeping were close to zero given the bright lights and people rushing around and chatting away loudly (clearly, all that money spent on health insurance was money well spent – thank you VHI).
There were no call bells in the corridor (obviously) and the staff were running around, so the chance of an older, softly spoken woman getting a glass of water or a trip to the toilet without a mouthy relative to hand were low.
About 1 am an exhausted young doctor with a large spot on one cheek (sympathy) turned up. She said in almost one breath (delivery entirely flat) “I’m the orthopaedic doctor on duty. Is this your mother? Sorry, no one should have to be on a trolley and no one should suffer with a broken hip for more than 24 hours. It will probably be Tuesday or Wednesday before she is operated on.” Then she drifted off into the night. We had had our 2 minutes of bank holiday doctor.
At 3 am the nurse on duty said to me, “It’s quieter now, do you want to go home?” I decided to give it another half hour. At 3.30 am I went to the desk to tell the nurse that I was leaving. “She’s on her break, she’ll be back in half an hour.” I decided to stay until she came back and about 4 am two people came and started moving my mother’s trolley. The excitement, a bed had become available. How does that work? Did someone die? Did someone move? Did someone new come on duty? They were, presumably, not discharging patients in the middle of the night. A mystery. After 13 hours in A&E, a bed on a ward with a call bell and curtains and the possibility of turning off the light seemed really fantastic. I wasn’t even particularly resentful as I gave the nurse the details of Mum’s drug regime for other conditions. This was the third time that evening – we had already given the information twice in A&E. The first time we gave them our printed sheet but they lost that, second time I gave it from the list on my phone. The nurse noted it but the file didn’t seem to have travelled to the ward. How does it work for patients whose families aren’t there? I saw an elderly gentleman who was clearly confused sitting on a trolley, opening and closing his mouth. I wonder how they will sort out his drug regime?
I was disappointed but not entirely surprised when the hospital called in the morning to ask us to bring in Mum’s medicines as their pharmacy wouldn’t open until Tuesday. My brother and I spent most of today in the hospital trying (largely unsuccessfully) to persuade my mother to eat the rather unappetising hospital food and supplements we brought in ourselves (to be fair, equally unpopular). She was to fast from midnight with a view to having her operation tomorrow – but I recalled the words of the tired doctor and didn’t believe that they really would operate on Monday. That didn’t make me or the patient any less disappointed when, at 10 this evening, we were told that the operation wouldn’t be tomorrow.
I have to go back to Dublin tomorrow afternoon and my sister is in Spain for work for the week so I think my brother is going to have a tough week.
