One flew over the cuckoos nest

Wake around seven thirty, the heavy rain finally arrived overnight and I could hear it lashing against the bedroom window in the early hours of the morning. This morning however, the storm has passed and it is dry outside, but a strong northerly wind is whisking the clouds across the sky like yachts running before the wind. I open Norman a tin of dog food, as I am having smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye toast for breakfast, which I eat in the Garden Room with my usual Italian coffee. I shower and dress, bring in the bin after the bin men have been and then drive to Cherry for half past nine to collect Dolly and Teddy. The strong northerly wind makes it a colder day today and I am wrapped up in hat, scarf and gloves. The usual peace and calm of the woods is broken by the rustling of the wind in the leaves and the soughing of the branches as they are orchestrated by the dying storm. We encounter an elderly couple emerging from the woods, the husband has slipped and is sitting on his bottom on the muddy grass. I help him to his feet and stay with them for five minutes to make sure he is OK. His wife is very agitated by his fall, but the pair of them eventually calm down and then make their way back to their car apparently unscathed, apart from the mud on his trousers. Away from the trees we feel the full force of the wind, it's actually quite exhilarating, and the dogs just take it in their stride. We walk the whole of the Westwood again, sheltering in Burton Bushes from the wind. As I have mentioned before, these woods are primeval forest and have never been cultivated. As a consequence, the paths through it are constantly changing, as trees fall down from time to time and a new path has to be established around them. We are out for almost two hours and it is a quarter to twelve when I drop Dolly and Teddy off, and noon when I get home. I left my phone on charge when we left this morning and I notice I have a call from Leslie and a voicemail. He has persuaded the consultant to discharge him today and says he will let me know later when they are letting him out. I try to ring back, but his mobile is switched off. Norman has a drink and some biscuits, and I make tea and finish the last of the apple pie I bought from Morrison's yesterday. Then I make some oaties and knock up a Bolognaise sauce made with lamb mince and put it in the slow cooker to ferment until tomorrow. After this I meditate for an hour and then clean the kitchen, bathroom and then run the vac through the house. Norman wants his dinner so I give him a tin and then experiment trying to make a Dutch apple pie. Unfortunately I don't have a deep dish pan, so have to make do with an oval Alsace iron ware bowl. I layer apple purée, cinnamon, raisins and sweetener with thin slices of Bramley apple and then put it on a medium heat in the oven for 45 minutes. While the pie is baking, I walk Normy down to the bridge and back, the sun is setting as we return home and the smell of apples and cinnamon fills the house. I take the pie out of the oven and set it to cool, it looks alright, and smells wonderful, but I will have to wait until it cools before I can put it to the test. I pop some oven chips and fish fingers on the baking tray and put them into the hot oven. They will cook in fifteen minutes, which gives me just enough time to cook some garden peas from the freezer in the microwave, make tea and butter some bread. The oven pings, dinner is served, simple, tasty and effective. Afterwards I am drinking tea in the Garden Room when I realise that Leslie has phoned again. The consultant says he can go home if I will pick him up and put him to bed and then get him up again in the morning. He can get agency staff from tomorrow. I try phoning him back, but he has switched off his phone, so I look up the hospital number and then get them to put me through to his ward. Sod's law says that the mobile signal fails and so I have to repeat the exercise on the landline, but eventually I get through again and it is agreed that I can come and pick him up. Arrive at the hospital for a quarter to eight, ward
19, the geriatric ward, is like the Marie Celeste, hardly a nurse to be seen. Leslie is sat on his bed, packed and waiting for me. One of the problems with the NHS, is that it is very difficult to find anyone who will admit to being in charge, somebody tells me that the nurse who is seeing to Leslie will be along in a while and that I can sit with him until she comes. We sit and chat for a while, and after a quarter of an hour has elapsed, I go to find out if the message has been passed to the responsible nurse. I am told it has, but that she is busy and we will have to be patient. Another fifteen minutes passes and eventually the tea lady tells me that a nurse called Suzanne is filling out Leslie's discharge papers. Ten minutes later he is in my car and on our way home. The old boy is so happy to have escaped. He tells me that all the staff were very kind and helpful, but that he could feel his autonomy and independence evaporating with each passing minute. When we arrive at Leslie's bungalow, Social Services have been and fitted higher seats to both his toilets and there is a portable trolley to transport his meals in the kitchen waiting for him. I make tea and we chat for a while, despite its shortcomings, mainly the way the staff are so self referential, rather than customer or patient orientated, as they would be in a business. To it's credit the NHS takes the fear and uncertainty related to the cost of treatment out of the experience of being ill. Leslie tells me, that in the USA unless you are well off, there is a constant concern about cost, or whether you can afford the best treatment. I stay with him until he has put on his pyjamas and then leave around a quarter to ten, promising to be back for eight o'clock in the morning to help him get dressed. I get home for ten, make a glass of milk and test my apple pie. It tastes just like the Dutch original, except there is a little too much crust in relation to filling, but this will be remedied when I find a deep pie dish. To bed do eleven..