My elderly stepmother had a fall and was taken to hospital on Christmas day. Once again I found myself speeding down towards Salisbury where once again I managed to park in exactly the same spot in the hospital car park, the lucky spot that means you can get into the entrance by nipping through the hedge rather than having to walk round the proper way. Simple things please simple minds.
There is something bizarre and sad about hospitals at Christmas, with the swathes of tinsel and sagging balloons failing to cover up the peeling wallpaper and disinfectant,piped carols of the Cliff Richard variety, inflatable, gently deflating Santas and the Christmas tree in the foyer with empty cardboard boxes wrapped as presents ( because people actually walk off with real ones..). Each bed in the ward I visited had stuffed monkeys in Christmas hats with long Velcro arms swinging from the curtain rails, though the elderly patients barely noticed them. Every five minutes or so a thin sad looking Spanish man would shuffle silently across to my stepmothers bed where he would stand looking into space, making a quiet tutting noise under his breath, before a cheerful and patient nurse would appear and lead him tutting back to his ward, only to start all over again minutes later. His all seeing yet unseeing expression reminded me of when I woke up one night at boarding school to find EM , a girl a couple of years below me standing at the end of my bed, pale as a ghost. She was sleepwalking even though her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be staring straight through me.
Hospitals are strange worlds, where the food arrives on trolleys and you get whatever the previous patient ordered for their lunch but checked out before eating it, where people come and go all night, its hot, airless, you lose sense of time, and this is even before you take into account the pain and disorientation and all that goes with being elderly and way out of your comfort zone. The nurses were heroic and kind but over stretched, the paperwork never ending, the waiting bewildering and exhausting and we were very relieved that after a couple of days she was allowed home.
We went to the lake district for New year, to a village in the national park with fat squat cottages, Christmas lights in the holly trees and plumes of woodsmoke bleeding into the slate grey sky. The sort of village where sheep escape into front gardens, everyone knows everyones business and where people take their boots off when they go into the pub, standing about sipping pints in their socks and the phone box has been turned into a book swap space.
The North lakes are exactly like Swallows and Amazons, books that fuelled my soul as a child, and though I was absolutely convinced that I had spotted Wild cat island and houses that looked just like Holly Howe with its gardens leading down to the water, with the faded obligatory boathouse, in fact I read that the books are based in the south, on lakes like Coniston.
Everyone in the lake district is outdoors mad, and indeed the best bit of the holiday was being outside, cheeks rosy from the cold and that sense of wellbeing that comes from walking in the fresh air and good company ( and knowing there will be a pub at the end). However we could not compete with the never ending display of lycra on display, the sticks and the boots, the breeches and snoods, gaiters and those plastic pouches you keep your maps in. Indeed every shop was full to the brim with everything you could ever wish for in the fell walking fashion wear department. Along with sheep mugs, those comedy kitchen aprons and whiskey flavoured Kendle mint cake ( take immediately to the bin).
I usually have a feeling of dread about New Year, too much pressure to have a great time, when in fact you have eaten and drunk yourself into oblivion and all you want to do is lie on the sofa, or slope off to bed with your book, though obviously this is the behaviour of sad old people. But though I am forced to concede I am indeed old ( but not sad) it seems that I am not alone in this guilty secret. We had a great evening, a quick drink in the sockless pub, a supper of ginger smoked ham followed by chocolate fondant ( whisked and frothed with the aid of a balloon whisk attached to a Black and Decker drill) a few rounds of an appropriately annoying board game and we were all in bed by 12.30. And for the first time in years I woke up with a clear head and didnt have to raid the medicine cabinet for aspirin.
And on that rather self satisfied smug note I wish you love, joy, health and happiness. I hope that 2018 is the year us humans will come to our senses and start behaving like adults, before its too late.
Happy New Year
Theresa's writing 
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