Yesterday

Did you notice that I wasn't here yesterday?  Although, of course, I was here but actively involved in meditation so I completely missed the chance to make a meaningful contribution to your day.  Part of the time I was musing on the apparent naivete of the American President and/or his advisors who seem not completely to understand that membership of the European Union involves considerable loss of sovereignty and democracy.  Guess which way I shall be voting!

But enough of politics.

Yesterday was also the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.  Somehow I had got into my mind that 23rd April was his birthday but I now find that was 26th April.  Mind you, everybody who celebrated commemorated 400 years since his death yesterday was doing so on the wrong day.  Yesterday was 400 years less 11 days since he died on 23rd April 1616.

Confused?

Well, it's quite simple really.  Some time in the 1700s - about 1752 or 1723 or somewhere along the line - I do know it was in September one year - the calendar was altered and 11 days were cut out.  The country went straight from 4th September (say) to 15th.  Cue rioting in the streets with people demanding, "Give us back our 11 days!"

Hey, I've just checked and people do celebrate his birth on 23rd April.  He was baptised on 26th!!

But there can be nobody who has had such influence on language.  Today, there are in use many everyday phrases which were coined by the Stratford bard: break the ice; a wild goose chase; dead as a doornail; set my teeth on edge; the green-eyed monster; vanish into thin air. And many, many more.

Just think; I can do it all again on 4th May when it will 400 years to the day!

The field next door

Well, almost next door.  There is a very small field right next door, then the farm track and then this field next door to our French hideaway.  Every year the field looks different!  This last visit, this is what we saw:

Last year, this was the scene in July:

But back in 2011, it looked like this:

And in December 2012, the scene was distinctly different:

It's great to see the changes.

Thank you

Many thanks for all your good wishes.  Thankfully, I am feeling stronger each day and should soon be back to whatever it is that passes for normal.

And Sarah, birthday greetings to the Dude!

Happy birthday, Ma'am!

Breakfast?

As I carried the tea upstairs this morning, I had a sudden yen for a couple of rashers and a fried egg.

"You must be feeling better," commented the Old Bat when I told her.

"Not sure about better," I replied, "but certainly hungrier."

It has been an interesting couple of weeks.  A very pleasant break in France was marred only by me coughing for about 50% of the six hour drive from the Loire to Calais.  I had been coughing sporadically for about three weeks when I went to the doctor before our trip.  He was fairly certain that I was suffering from the bug that was going around, although I tried to convince him otherwise.  Reluctant to prescribe antibiotics, he suggested that I leave matters a week or two and return if things didn't improve.

But to cut to the chase, a further visit to the doc brought antibiotics, but two days later I was so much worse that a home visit by the doc brought an ambulance to take me to hospital.  There they pumped me so full of oxygen and Ventolin that I should have been bumping against the ceiling!  Yesterday was my first full day at home but I am amazed how weak I still am.

This was my first spell in hospital for almost 70 years so it has really been a novel experience for me.  I was not merely impressed but completely humbled by the care and devotion demonstrated by nurses working 12 or 13 hour shifts.  I was in a ward divided into bays of six beds.  At first I was in a bay where the six patients were tended to by two nurses and a health care assistant (which is, I think, the current title).  After a while I was moved into a different bay where the patients needed a lower level of care - one nurse and an HCA to the six beds.

But I was puzzled by the fact that any moves from one ward to another or one bay in the ward to another had to be conducted in the dead of night.  Fairly soon after arriving at A&E, I was put in a bay the resuscitation unit.  At 3.00am, I was moved from there to Bay C of the acute medical unit.  And there I stayed until 3.00am the next morning, when I was woken up to be told that I was being moved to Bay E!  The next move - to Bay F, a one-bed goping-home-soon bay, was at a slightly better time, although again I was woken to be told I was being moved.

"But you don't have to get out of bed - and you can have a cup of tea first," I was told.

All slightly bizarre, but made almost enjoyable but the nurses and HCAs from Swaziland, Ireland, eastern Europe, the Philippines and elsewhere.  Charming boys and girls, every one.

Nicole

It was 25 years ago this week that Nicole and her Papa burst onto our television screens in the first of an amusing series of advertisements.

Trains and boats and planes

I wonder if small boys (or even not so small boys) collect train numbers these days?  And I don't mean those anorak men one used to see at the end of the station platform with their binoculars and cameras.  I'm talking about the 11- or 12-year-olds who stand by the level crossing or on the footbridge over the tracks and write down the numbers of all the engines they see.

It's probably not the same now as it was in my days on the footbridge.  Even then things were changing but the electrification of the railway line had not extended much beyond the station at Gillingham, just far enough for the electric trains that terminated there to pull through into the sidings.  A quarter of a mile or so further down the line all we would see from our eyrie on the footbridge were real engines, the steam locomotives of the Southern Railway.

There we stood, usually four or five of us, noting down the numbers - and names - of all the engines that passed beneath us on the way to exotic destinations such as Margate and Ramsgate.  There were the engines of the Schools class, each named after an English public school such as Wellington or Downside.  But I never really liked that class very much.  Far more interesting, in my youthful opinion, were the engines of the West Country and Battle of Britain classes.  These were built during the first few years after the war and served for 20 years or so before being withdrawn in the mid-1960s.  The West Country engines each carried the name of a town such as Swanage and Appledore, while the Battle of Britain engines were named after RAF squadrons or airfields that had featured in the battle.

It was a real treat when the Golden Arrow, the London to Paris express, was diverted through Gillingham, usually drawn by one of the Battle of Britain or West Country engines.

West Country class "Blackmore Vale" pulling the Golden Arrow.  Credit:http://www.bulleidsociety.org/

having made scribbled notes, I would take great care when underlining (in red) the numbers of the engines I had seen in my Ian Allan book listing all the engines of the Southern Railway.

Good times.