Four Wheels On Our Wagon ...

...as we have another car and have been lurching around the autumnal lanes of Cornwall whilst The Old Man do get used to driving petrol again after years of diesel. It will get better we tell ourselves ... as he do make the umpteenth attempt to get out of our impossible parking space in this new wagon... or do try the key in the door and set off the alarm.
All this is good timing... for next week we do sample the heady delights of Penzance for a live broadcast of "The Marriage of Figaro" at the cinema and I do not believe the local buses would be obliging enough to be operating still by the time we emerge, definitely staggering, from the performance.
But the week have taken its toll ... and we stare at another barrage of medical appointments amidst our nervous and financial exhaustion. All together now....
"It will get better."

Hey-Ho - The Old Man Is Fully Mobile Again

Look at that. A Happy Old Man.

The car manufacturer's "roadside repair service" came out and was able to fix the car. A brake pad had fallen off which the man do say was most unusual but did mean that the car did not have to go into the dealers to be mended. The Old Man be so pleased that he do have to lie down for a little sleep.... after he have got in the car and collected his newspaper, of course.

Alors! 2015, here we come.
Full speed ahead and don't forget to apply the brakes!

It's All Down Hill

At the top of the New Year... The Old Man's brakes fail. On the car, you understand. It can only be down hill from now on....
Most worrying for The Old Man of course... is... How to get his daily paper (four miles to the shop... bus service as functional as a trike with broken handlebars....)

The man is distraught.

Pardon Me... But The Weather Here....

... as in most of UK... has been awful. But we be safe. I do sit here in West Cornwall and listen to things rattling in the wind and wonder if anything is going to fly off the house. It hasn't so far. The Old Man already do have the aerial replaced from the last blow... before Christmas.
And we do have just a drip or two come in when it do the horizontal rain thing. The other day the rain be coming in under the side door... so horizontal be it. But... we do not live right at the seaside.... nor by a river.... nor in a valley... nor on top of the hill.... We do have an unmade lane that we live by... no tarmac to repel the water into our home. And there be a field above that.... grass and stuff to soak up the rain.. Like I said. Under current conditions, we be safe.

Porthleven is fairly close. That has had a right battering and makes it on to YouTube and the national news. A friend has his small boat there. It was in the harbour when the inner harbour timbers went. But his boat is safe, thank heavens... hauled out in the rescue mission... and now back home in his garden.

Me? I do feel  rather stir crazy. Every time I look out the window and see a break and blue skies I do walk into another room and find rain and hail being slung at the windows by a mighty gust of wind. I know I should get out there before I lose the use of me legs.....

However.. a short break to London by train do seem out of the question right now.... what with floods, storms and landslips... I believe that be about two or three more places a train can't get through... let alone the destruction of Dawlish.

Yoga's Challenge....

My first Yogic challenge is .... how to learn some.
As has been said - by others to my furious little face...
"Of course you be not a group person... be you."
Perish the thought. Can you not see I be not a joining-in kind of gal?

Actually this be news to me..... but groups be groups..... frequently sharp of tooth and claw.... perhaps tongue also. And I do accept that a small person what do not drive is a useless thing in rural areas. Bus journeys do take longer than the events attended and may take one on to pastures new.... but not where one planned to be going always... (see subject tag "Transport")

So I take the cowards way out and get myself an MP3 download..... Maintenant, je yoga chaque jour with me earpieces in ..... peaceful as a thoughtful frog listening to birdsong.

The Old Man Goes Stir Crazy

Normally The Old Man lives to drive to a shop. It is not just the shopping that he do live for you understand. It be the driving also. But recently the car starts to make a strange sound.... And the garage says: "Bearings." The car must come in for repairs for a couple of days.

The calculations for catching a bus back from delivering the car by 8.30 a.m. are made and soon the deed is done. And  then....
The Old Man goes stir crazy.
He has no means to get anywhere except shank's pony (it be raining all the time) or.... The Bus.

The Bus.
We do look at the time table again.
...(Where I do find that the Bus Company have already removed the "reinstated" through-bus to Truro for instance... and have replaced it with the old system of changing buses. The journey will take one and a half hours each way. Admittedly this be an improvement on the two hour changing-bus journey it used to be... nevertheless... I am not so sure about plans to meet up with a friend for lunch. Three hours travelling for lunch? Well at least I do not have a medical appointment at the Hospital. Been there... done that... not fun. And I could read a book.... perhaps finish it whilst about it. And I do be a privileged money-wasting pensioner what do get a bus pass, hence the journey do not cost me the £7 or £8 or so that it probably be by now.)

One day into his driving "cold-turkey" experience, The Old Man breaks..... consults the bus timetable and sets off into the damp gloom for his two hour round journey to pick up the newspaper from the shop four miles down the road. Me? I's just relieved that he do leave the house after all that pacing around....and wondering when the garage will ring.... And I do find that it be true that The Old Man is also addicted to newspapers.

After another twenty-four hours of agony The Old Man sprints out of the door when the call from the repairs shop comes.... to collect his beloved vehicle of independence. He leaves his lunch on the worktop. The front door crashes shut. He do work out he can just catch the Next Bus.....

Bus Company Blues

So we get to the Council meeting about transport.

It's tea and biscuits all round. Served by the admirable Village Hall Volunteer Ladies.

There's a table at the front laid out with printed name labels: three from Rival Bus Company; one from the Bus Company From Hell; two County Council "Transport" and "Rural Transport" labels; three Volunteer Transport Scheme labels - and one for Madame Chairman.

Everybody is milling about being very jolly and greeting one another. GreyDoll takes a chair in the body of the hall. Drinks her tea.
And looks at The Agenda.

The hall fills up. Glancing at the top table, GreyDoll sees that the label for the Representative for the Bus Company From Hell has been exchanged for a hastily handwritten one with a different name on it.

The Representatives and Councillors file in. The three Rival Bus Company reps are outfitted in collar, tie, and logos. The bewildered looking rep from the Bus Company from Hell, with his biroed name label, is sitting disconsolately at the end of the table in his shirt sleeves.

"With apologies" he says in his introduction. "I was told late this afternoon to come to the meeting. As my colleagues could not make it."

I bet they couldn't.

Oh, I'll be honest. GreyDoll thought she'd never get to speak or ask a question. The items process slowly, with everybody addressed by Madame Chairman on first name terms. The first question involves a lot of interminable bickering about precise bus stop locations in Helston.

However the complaints about the Bus Service from Hell start to mount up. The Competitor Bus Company Reps look on with satisfaction.

Old Buses, dirty buses, expensive fares, inefficient services, doubledeckers on narrow country lanes. The Representative for Buses From Hell can provide no answers. On anything. It is all either "Out of our hands", or "I don't have that information with me, I'm afraid."
Even the audience begins to feel sorry for him.

Eventually the local councillor eyeballs Madame Chairman into spotting GreyDoll's presence. And - on autopilot herself - the GreyDoll decides to recount a particular journey to the County Hospital. Two hours each way starting at 9 in the morning; The Old Man without breakfast because of the examination he was to have; the pleading with the hospital to let him out by 5.45 for last possible bus connection; - and the eventual arrival home around 9 o'clock that evening.

This seems to shock a few people.

Plainly they aren't in the habit of using buses to get to Hospital.

Councillor claps GreyDoll on the shoulder. Apparently she has galvanised something or other. So debate grows more heated.
As does the attack on the Bus Company from Hell.

For good measure, at some point, GreyDoll throws in the magical mystery tour of July 2nd.

She is well matched by the mother from a nearby village whose teenage daughter has to surrender more than an hour's earnings of her part-time wage in order to travel to the said part-time job in the next town.

This is followed by a well caught pass describing the recounted experience of a German family on holiday who parted with £18 in fares to travel from one village to another two or three miles away. Their verdict on the bus and their journey involved the verb "Schtinken".

However - what dawns on GreyDoll, and a few others, is that those who live on the route run by the Bus Company from Hell - are stuck with it.

As the County Councillor for Transport points out. This is a commercially viable route. Run by a commercial operator. And the Council only undertakes to subsidise those routes which are NOT commercially viable, but are considered necessary.

GreyDoll believes this is starting to sound like that old chestnut: "Catch-a 22".

She staggers out into the village night. The "Rural Transport" Councillor and the Age Concern "Volunteer Hospital Transport" Lady both have a word, and offer help and contact on the County Hospital access thing. So thank you for that.

GreyDoll will await the promised emailed Drafts of Suggested Plans of Action from the Panel.

And fantasise about the prospect of her only available local bus route becoming either unviable commercially for the Bus Company From Hell - or very commercially viable for the Rival Bus Company.

In which GreyDoll gets Uppity

The thing is.
I got so fed up with the chaos that is the Bus Company from Hell. (see Bus Journey 26th June) that I complained to them about their rubbish timetable.

Which lists a local bus going from Penzance to Truro that in fact only runs from Penzance to Helston.

So they emailed back that the bus went to Falmouth not Truro.

And I emailed back: No. IT ONLY GOES TO HELSTON.... READ YOUR TIMETABLES....

And they said "Sorry." ... "But it was only the timetable headings that were wrong, not the timetables themselves...."

And I rolled my eyes and sighed.

And being in the mood, I then emailed about the Bus Journey of 2nd July that turned into a magical mystery tour. They haven't replied to me about that one yet. I 'xpect they are busy roasting the driver and making him sell his wife and children into slavery by way of recompense. Perish the thought that the management takes any responsibility.

Anyway.

So I emailed my local councillor - Old Man said to - so I did. And we know who he is cos he used to run the Village Post Office. Before THE Post Office closed it down. And then of course he had to close the village shop that contained the Post Office - cos that's what had kept the shop going.

Hey-ho. Village life.

Anyway. So he's a good councillor and I emailed him about the Bus Company from Hell. And why can't we travel to our main Hospital on public transport in under 2 hours each way? A car journey of 40 minutes?

And he emailed back: That there was a council network meeting for our area on the 14th - with representatives from the transport companies and the County Council and volunteer Transport schemes. And the Public are invited. Would I like a lift there?

And I said: "Yes."

Friday 2nd July

Last night, when I got home, there was large cardboard box on the doorstep. It contained a bouquet of flowers. Sent by a friend far away. Pink roses, phlox, and huge pink and white lilies. I took them indoors, plunged and trimmed them, then put them into one of the Old Man's vases.

This morning I feel fidgety and set off to the hospital by bus.

I get to Helston and, as is the way now, climb back onto the same bus, now transformed to another route. It has become an 82A. And is supposed to get me into Truro Bus Station about 12.46. So I should have time to get some shopping before getting a bus to the hospital.

The bus should take me via the Falmouth road and neighbouring villages into Truro. It's another sunny day and we set off.... shaking and bumping around the local theme park bus stop, next to another edge-of-town-supermarket building site. Then off to the old Falmouth road.

We get halfway along the proposed route. Then we seem to be drifting towards Redruth via some of the old mining villages. A pair of teenagers sitting up front, goin' on a Truro jaunt, seem a bit bewildered as well. I panic as we near Redruth and think I've got on the wrong bus. Then we swerve onto the Redruth by-pass and set off to Scorrier, then we go through Chacewater and approach Truro from the Hospital side. Sure enough we pass the hospital - which I didn't think we were supposed to do. Nevertheless I am so bewildered by now that I don't get off there. It's too early for visitin' times anyway. So then we bump along the top of Truro and down to the Bus Station. Gone 1 o'clock and too late for me to shop. Anyway, I just stand there in shock. I just get on the next bus back to the Hospital.

So - I may have finished with the Consultant from Hell.
But this is the Bus Company from Hell.

At the hospital, the Old Man has been moved to another ward. This is a sign he is on the way to be discharged, I think. He bemoans the loss of his luxurious bed. But he is looking stronger.

We get a bedside visit from the Hospital's specialist Heart Nurse. She will set up contact with a Community Heart nurse - which means the Old Man will get some continuity after hospital. The main discussion is the set of drugs he's got. And that the Nurse will be working towards him managing his own diuretics through weighing himself. This will monitor any sudden increase in fluid. Yes? A sudden jump up means accumulating fluid again. So then he takes more diuretics. Old Man offers that if he feels too dry he just drinks some more water. But the nurse says better to cut back on the diuretics than to risk mucking up the blood balance by drinking more.

This all makes sense and helps build up our shaken confidence in post-hospital health.

My two nieces have come to collect me.
Because of the changed ward and therefore the changed visiting hours, I run away quickly so that they get some visiting time with the Old Man.

Friday 25th June - Saturday 26th June

I visit Old Man in Intensive Care. My friend goes on to spend some time in Truro.

Old Man is doing well. They explain that they are looking to send him back to the Cardiac wards as their job in Intensive Care is done.

A cardiac consultant comes in to check on Old Man and my mistake is to try to discuss aftercare and whether he had come out of the other hospital too early. This man appears to be totally puzzled by my questions. Presumably the fate of the discharged patient does not cross his mind. He says: "Didn't the other hospital give you a booklet?"

Be warned, dear reader, with major heart operations and subsequent cardiac arrests. Aftercare? No probs. Just read The Booklet.

When old friend and I get home there is a friendly message from the Coronary Care Unit to say that the Old Man is back with them. "And how much better he looks than when we last saw him."

Later that evening old friend hands me a present bag containing a pair of green, embroidered cloth boots from China that I'd ogled in a Truro shop. She's better than a Booklet any day.



Saturday 26th June

Another cloudless day and my friend throws me out of her car at the hospital on her way back to her home 300 miles away.

I am confident about getting a bus home.

Find Old Man on his new ward and check him out. Then have to leave for their three hour "lunch and rest" slot.

I take myself back downstairs and pick up a sandwich and drink. And spend most of the three hours trying to compute the 25 miles back to my home by the rural bus services. Being a Saturday - one of the buses I had reckoned to catch does not come to this hospital. I will have to get another bus into the city in order to get that bus - in order to catch my home bus. Just three buses then.

During this computational period I am joined by a lady with a small case who has been visiting her husband for six weeks. She says that another bus route that I was contemplating is unreliable as to whether it comes or not.

We compare notes on the Caring Life. She says that one day she found herself on the floor at home. She lay there wondering why she was on the floor and then realised she hadn't got round to eating tea .... or lunch ....
She leaves me and sails back to her husband's ward for the start of afternoon visiting hours.

My visit is not due to restart for another hour.

I go out to the bus stop to check the times for buses into the city.

"Excuse me." I turn to see an Asian gentleman in sunglasses. "I am a new doctor here and must get into the city to get to bank. When is the next bus?"

"Well" say I, " Here is the list. See? Where they say Truro Bus Station? But you have to watch this column here. See? All these are saying Not on Saturdays...."

"It is very strange." he says "I have worked in Zurich and Amsterdam and all these places encourage people not to use cars. They have wonderful bus and tram services. Here. Everyone uses cars."

I can't begin to tackle pointing out the difference between European cities and the English rural South-West to this distressed gentleman. "City" is perhaps an administrative description of Truro, rather than a lifestyle description. I wish the bewildered doctor well and leave him to wait for something to come along ..... for somewhere.

I go back to see Old Man. And during my visit the Consultant From Hell reappears. He does not acknowledge me, of course. And during his discussion with the staff nurse at the Old Man's bedside he airily remarks that the Old Man may go home on Monday.

My own modest blood pressure racks up another notch. When the Lord Most High sails on his oblivious way, the staff nurse looks at us and pulls a face. "I shouldn't think you are ready to go home Monday" she says.

I must remember to ask the Consultant From Hell for his Booklet.

Old Man and I talk things through and plot strategy. I try not to worry him. But I am very worried myself. Does this system never learn about chucking out its patients too early?

It is about quarter to five. I tell the Old Man that I must leave to start my journey home. I kiss him on the bonce and go.

Outside I get my first bus. This is to the Main Street in Truro. Then I walk through to the Bus Station. There I have about half hour to wait for the next one, which which will take me to Helston where I will catch my final bus.

An optional bus comes in. But I decide to leave it on the grounds that I'd be more out of my way if there is a problem with the third bus.

I start to regret this decision as it becomes apparent that the bus that I've chosen to wait for is late arriving. All these things have a knock-on effect after all! Eventually it does arrive and I get on.

Along with a gentleman who also has experience of heart ops and proudly tells me of his own disappointing experience with possible eight month wait here in Cornwall. So that he shot over to France and had his op done in Toulouse in a matter of days.
"Be on the watch all the time." he says. "Take notes. And.... learn to drive, girl. Learn to drive."

He gets off the bus in a pretty rural village. He waves and wishes me well.

Our bus is rambling down tiny lanes and byways. It is very pretty on a fine summer evening. But I am now tired and aware that I am likely to miss my third bus. Slower and slower we go.
A car parked outside a house completely blocks the lane. The bus beeps. An apologetic man comes out of the front door waving his keys. He gets in the car. Fires up. Moves on to a pull in, and our bus passes him and carries on through the village. Horse riders. And the bus stops again. My optimism is running out. I am starting to fidget and swear under my breath. The one new passenger in miles takes forever finding their money.

By now I know I have missed my bus and resign myself to waiting for the next one at about 7.30.

When we get into Helston, the bus stops completely and the driver gets out.

Eventually another driver gets in and starts the ritual of form ticking and putting on a jacket.... There is no new number yet on the front of the bus. Its doors open.

"Excuse me," say I "Are you a number 2?"
"Yes. Didn't the last driver change the number? He's supposed to."

My luck is in after all. My bus from Truro has transformed into my Penzance-bound bus. I get on with a great sigh of relief.

With a shaking roar the bus takes off.
Little more than 10 minutes later the bus has screeched into my home village.
I get off. In shock. And watch the bus speed away in a cloud of smoke and diesel fumes.

I have been rescued by a Bat out of Hell.

In which Nursey Starts to Get Fed Up

OK. The novelty is wearing off now.

Basically no-one appeared yesterday to check the Old Man out. The Blood nurse doesn't come with a blood pressure thingy so she couldn't do it.

I went into the nearest town by bus - to get some shopping.

At the last shop - they asked after the Old Man. He's a devil, ain't he? They all ask after him.
Looking pointedly at the packet of chocolate biscuits in my basket - they say:

"Fancies a little treat, does he?"
"No." say I, "Nursey fancies a little treat. Them's for me."

Shopping went well, except for a longer than usual wait for the bus. I was anxious not to miss it and so was quarter hour early. And the bus was a quarter hour late. Add to that the algorithms of the timetable which alters bus times according to whether it is a school day or not: a tasty little trick that had quite a few holiday makers puzzled. And I stood there for nearly an hour - while me butter softened and took on new forms in me basket.

Got home to find the doctor had rung but the Old Man was not athletic enough to get to the phone in time. There's a surprise. The lengthy message was to the effect that he should make an appointment to come in to the surgery to have an ECG done by one of the nurses - and see if he could get an appointment with the doctor immediately afterwards.

Old Man looks at me and say: "No."

I quite agree. He's less than a fortnight after heart surgery; a week being home; and can barely stumble around the back garden.

So we ring again this morning. Ask for the blood test results which we normally get same day the blood is taken because it effects the number of rat poison pills he has to take, and ask again for a doctor's visit.

The receptionist rings back later with the results and says she's booked the doctor to visit tomorrow. We shall see.

Old Man still has puffy feet and legs - no-one has done anything other than take blood since Friday- And Nursey's getting IRRITABLE! Not to mention the Patient, who groans and shouts in his sleep when he takes a siesta.

As you can see. Nursey don't need to go to sleep to groan and shout. She can do it fully awake.