Present Tense

What seems like a long time ago I wrote a blog called Unravelling Edges… about how my life came undone when I unexpectedly lost my husband. About six months in I wrote a post about being caught between the past and the present.

    You can read it here - Caught between the past and future tense

About six months after my emergency operation and I find myself in a similar place.

I’ve been sitting in my lounge with the French doors open in the afternoons, sun streaming in accompanied by the laughter of children bouncing on a trampoline a few gardens away.

Oh those halcyon days of laughter, listening to the bossy child who dictates the play, I recognise my younger self. Those days are long gone for me. Even my own boys are so far past this stage. I can remember clearly but can never recreate such scenes.

And then at the other end of the scale, spring is wedding season and so many friends have been celebrating anniversaries and it honestly fills me with such joy but when I bumped into someone celebrating their sixty third wedding anniversary, I marvelled and yet…. my husband never even got to live 63 years!

The past cannot be reclaimed but my future is somehow limited in so many ways.

There’s always the fear the cancer might come back for a start but then there are other things that will probably never happen for me and I grieve for a life that could have been …

I’m not saying my life is total rubbish just that I need some readjustment to get me back on course.

On a larger scale I worry about, Brexit, global warming, the rise of selfishness and violent crime.

I guess life was ever like this.

Youngest son found out the other day they are making a musical of Back to the Future.

“WHY?” he asked!!!

Being a child of the 80s and the same age as Marty McFly I think it’s a great idea.

But however great the 80s were as a teenage we lived under the shadow of the cold war, a nuclear bomb could drop any day, AIDS was the pandemic to wipe out millions, there were miners’ strikes and civil unrest.

At school we learnt in geography all about greenhouse gases but somehow that was someone else’s problem to fix, we were school children. It would be sorted and by 2017 we would all have hover boards!

Obviously, we don’t have hover boards and now it the young people leading the way – how things have changed!

And I guess what I’m trying to say is that things are always changing.

The past often looks rosy and the future uncertain. Especially as we grow older with more responsibilities on our plate.

Or maybe there are days when the past looks bleak and the future is something to be embraced!

Perhaps a mixture of the two is the best approach to take?

I do look back with fondness at the past, especially with all the old photos I’ve dug up since moving. Memories made that can never be taken away.

I do look forward mostly with hope, the cancer is gone at least for now and the countdown to the end of chemo is beginning.

Sometimes it’s the little things, a bird singing, a flower blooming, something once lost now found.

We are all caught between the past and future but in the end it’s how we live today that really counts!

The Whistler and the Bin Lady

A story partly inspired by conversations on Facebook about putting yout bin out in the early morning and some other thoughts going around my head....

   Charlie Pipe had always been a whistler. He whistled when he was happy. He whistled when he was sad.
   He whistled when he walked his dog, a grey Bedlington terrier called Terry, named after Terry Wogan.
   For many years every day had started with Terry on Radio 2, sometimes he wondered if he missed Terry more than his late wife Mona.
   Although she never lived up to her name, she was a jolly soul but the only music in his life now was his whistling.
   Once both Mona and Terry were gone from his life, he had taken to walking the dog early, whistling all the way.
   They used to stride over the hills beyond the town but these days they walked the streets at a slower pace as Charlie pondered what was going on behind the closed doors they passed.
   He didn't have to wonder much about number 43.
   Irene Bradshaw was a divorcee twice over. She had a poor taste in men, at least that was the local gossip.
   He waited at the corner while Terry did his business.
   “Good lad!” said Charlie with a wink.
   There was a rumour Mrs Bradshaw put her bin out in a most revealing lacy negligee and she had a fine set of pins on her, or so the story went!
   When he heard the rattle of the wheelie bin he started whistling Moon River as he turned the corner. She was only three doors down.
   “Can I help you with that?” he asked as she seemed to struggle with her task.    Caught unawares she pulled her pink spotty dressing gown closer to her ample breast.
   “Oh that’s Ok, there’s nowt in it really, being on my own and all.”
   She blushed a little. Then there was an awkward silence before she asked, “Do you want to drop your poo bag in, save you carrying it while you walk?”
   Charlie was taken aback, couldn’t help but stare, he’d never seen her so close up before. Her face was soft and delicately lined, her eyes a mysterious bluey grey, her nose Roman but neither too large of too small for the rest of her features. But her crowning glory was her hair, on the brassy side of blonde but caught in the morning sun it shone.
   Mona used to have auburn hair, beautiful wavy and natural. But when it went grey, she never coloured it, “just as nature intended,” she would say, “like Terry.” She would pat the dog whose coat had almost changed colour from dark to light over night the way most Bedlington terriers do.
   He hadn’t minded that so much but when he found grey hairs on the pillow, clumps in the shower and a strand in his shepherd’s pie, he found that hard, but never told her.
   The treatment was harsh and she spent her last days covering her head in a green knitted hat, not quite how nature had intended.
   He was roused from his thoughts as Irene lifted the bin lid with one hand and gently took the bag from him with the other.
   “Oh you are too kind, Terry always does his business just around the corner by the post box. But I always pick it up.” He added hastily.
   The action of taking the bag from his hand left the dressing gown gaping a little, she must have felt the cool breeze on her skin but never pulled it close.
   Charlie lifted his eyes back to her face and thye smiled at each other.
   He doffed an imaginary cap as he turned, “Come on Terry.”
   He had only reached the house next door and whistled a few notes when she called after him.
   “Hey what’s that song? The one you always whistle when you walk by.”
   So she'd heard him before then?
   “Moon River.”
   “Thought so, one of my favourites.” She waved and walked back to her front door.   She really did have a good set of pins on her.
   Charlie Pipe continued whistling with a smile and somehow the slightly melancholy tune took on a sweeter melody from that day on.  

An unfair disadvantage?

Well I learnt something new yesterday.

It started with an innocent comment as mum and dad were watching the women’s FA Cup final at Wembley on TV. ( I was sat in the conservatory trying to read.)

“Is the Wembley pitch bigger than other football pitches?”

Dad said no, and I shouted from the other room, “Don’t be silly, of course they are all the same size.”

I texted oldest son, as a sports journalist he would find this banter amusing.

“Do you think It’s because the women are naturally smaller than male players and it is an optical illusion???” I queried.

“The pitch at Wembley is bigger.” He replied

“Liar!, I’m not that gullible.”

“Looks like the joke is on you. Haha.”

Well I am well known for being gullible but as a I have a degree in Library and Information Studies I do like to check my facts so I turned to Google.

I discovered that the Wembley pitch is bigger than some pitches, all Premier teams should conform to the Wembley standard if the size of stadium allows. However 5 of the premier teams have smaller pitches – Aug 2017.

Well I was stunned!

How fair is THAT????

After all an 800 metre running track must be the same length the world over? A tennis court surely has the same dimensions in Paris, Melbourne, New York and Wimbledon, even if the surfaces differ?

Talk about moving the goalposts with football! On one pitch you can judge your corner to perfection with the slice of a boot on the ball and on another pitch your aim is too hard of too soft!

I’m shocked that our national game is not totally fair, unbiased and beyond scrutiny!

But then life itself isn’t fair.

I’ve just had another spell in hospital. My gall bladder rebelled, I don’t think it liked being blasted with chemo every fortnight, I became ill and it needed removing urgently.

So the chemo is on hold, which is great as my body returns to normality, albeit without a gall bladder, but once it starts again it will probably eat into the summer months… no certainties yet until I see the oncologist on Thursday.

There are wins and losses.

But I was reminded during my hospital stay of just how unfair life can be. As I sat there basically cancer free, others in Ebay ( no bids on any of us we are all broken!!) still live with cancer in their bodies every day, festering, growing, or perhaps the chemo is shrinking it? Working its toxic magic.

But what of those whose chemo has been stopped for good, their bodies just can’t take it anymore? At least some of the women were in this position and one younger than me – how unfair!

How unfair that we should be sat inside hospital on a sunny Easter, treats of hot cross buns and Belgium chocolates were very welcome but its not the same as being at home with your family. Able to go out for the day or just potter in a much loved garden.

As one woman remarked, “other people out there have no idea.”

Then after my op I ended up back on the ward I’d been in before Christmas, some familiar faces among the nursing staff were a joy to see.

The operation went well, keyhole surgery, no big scar this time and I am recovering very well.

But others were still waiting for treatment, waiting to be seen, waiting for a diagnosis of why they feel so ill. And sat there through a weekend with fewer medical staff on call seems unfair, when you can’t eat because of the pain.

At least I was recovering. I.ve leaped another hurdle.

And now I’m home, well back with my parents recuperating and discussing the size of football pitches.

Life as unpredictable and unfair as it ever was, both on and off the pitch!