Hospital visits and holiday plans.

We rise at seven to a beautiful morning, the sun is shining, there are blue skies and the birds are in full voice, it is a most welcome change, old Normy even has a spring in his step, as he jogs out into the garden. I make breakfast in the kitchen, we are having scrambled eggs, with our usual rye toast and Italian coffee. After breakfast I read the paper and then take my time getting dressed, the bath and pedestal mats that I bought yesterday, look well in the bathroom and feel good under my bare feet, after I get out of the shower. I try to ring Sam, to firm up on arrangements for tomorrow, but I lose the signal on my phone before she answers, the reception is lousy in Tickton. She rings back and I place her on loudspeech, so that I can hold the phone by the window, in a spot where I have three bars, in order to tell her about the birthday presents for Laura and arrange to make fresh pizza with the girls for lunch tomorrow, when I call after church. Norman and I then leave for the Poppy Seed at half past ten and soon run into a traffic jam, which is backed up from the level crossing down Norwood, and so we divert through the Swinemoor estate and park just this side of the Mill Lane level crossing, before walking into town. Actually this parking spot is better than Norwood, as there are no parking restrictions and is about the same distance from the Poppy Seed cafe. It takes Normy and I a little over ten minutes to walk past the supermarket, across the road by the registry office, where a wedding party is bifurcated between opposing relatives, who clearly don't seem to know each other and don't seem to want to know each other either. At least at a funeral most of the guests/mourners are on the same side! We then wriggle through a series of snickel ways, before eventually emerging into Saturday Market, where the fine weather has brought out the good folk of Beverley this Easter Saturday. Across the road at the Poppy Seed, there are a full table of friends already drinking coffee when we arrive, but they make space and Norman and I squeeze in, before ordering my usual strong tea. I am pleased to see Felicity's sister, Joy, who confirms that she has persuaded Melissa to have a day off from visiting her mum and is pleased that I shall be holding the fort, by visiting this afternoon. Jill is also there and has decided that she would rather regain her hearing than continue with the anti seizure drugs she was given after her stroke, and which rendered her deaf. Hanne, Barbara, Annie and her daughter Sarah are also in attendance and Sylvia arrives later. The conversation is about the ballet on Thursday and the consensus is that it was first rate. Normy and I listen to the chatter and arrange provisionally to bring Felicity to the Poppy Seed on Wednesday, if she has been discharged from the hospital to respite care at Molescroft court. The general consensus is that she will feel much less banged up in the nursing home and more like a hotel guest, if she can get out from time to time. The party breaks up around half past eleven and Norman and I then have a mooch round the market, where I buy some new slippers, as my old ones are on their last legs. We wander through town as far as Wednesday Market, stopping to say hello to people along the way and generally enjoying being outside in the sunshine, although it remains cold. Hanne, who is a no nonsense Dane, says there is no bad weather, just poor choices of clothing and there is plenty of evidence of that this morning. Teenagers in jeans and tee shirts, with goosebumps as big as eggs. The only other purchase of the morning, is a tub of sour cream, to accompany the last of the vegetarian chilli, which will form today's lunch/dinner, as I intend to drive straight to the hospital to visit Fliss, after our walk. The contrast between the rural bustle of Beverley on Market Day and the congested clutter and aggression of the motorists yesterday, in the greater West Yorkshire Urban area, that comprises Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield and Halifax, couldn't be more stark. You can almost feel your blood pressure subsiding when you cross the border into East Yorkshire and the gently rolling countryside of the Wolds. We arrive at Castle Hill hospital at one thirty, to find Felicity looking much better, she has had a bath and her hair set, and seems in an altogether happier frame of mind. We walk the corridors to the hospital restaurant again, only to find that it is closed for the Easter weekend. There are in fact two restaurants, and this one closes on Saturdays and Sundays. Undeterred, we retrace our steps to ward 21's day room and sit and chat in there. An elderly lady, serves tea, she is obviously a volunteer and she chats to us for a moment, before moving on further up the ward. I complement Felicity on her improved walking, the physiotherapist has taught her to walk upright and not to lean her body weight on her wheeled Zimmer frame, except if she needs to stop for a rest. She tells me the nursing staff won't tell her what is wrong with her, what they are doing and when she might be discharged, but it transpires that she hasn't actually asked them. This omission is soon rectified when I find her key worker, a nurse called Linsey, who joins us in the Day Room and explains everything. Felicity's medications were knocked out of whack by an antidepressant administered by her GP, this rendered her delirious, her medications have now been adjusted, her observations are stable and she is being discharged on Tuesday to Molescroft Court. All of this information has been passed to Melissa, but somehow become lost in translation to her mother. It is reminiscent of Leslie, who made exactly the same claim. Somehow when older people are admitted to hospital they can become frightened, vulnerable and passive. The busy staff often don't take time out to explain what is happening to them in a way that they can absorb easily. Old people have a much slower cadence than busy hospital staff, I have often noticed in the past, that the best care workers have this wonderful way of changing down gears when they talk to older people, and talk more gently and more slowly, without in any way being patronising. Felicity is happy now she knows what is happening and happier still when I tell her she is going to the Poppy Seed on Wednesday. Around two thirty her friend Pat, who Felicity calls the Wolverine, arrives and within minutes I detect that Pat has something she wants to discuss with her friend that can't be done while I am there. The two of them have been pals for donkey years, so I excuse myself and drive home, after first texting Melissa to tell her how well her mother is doing. When we get in, I feed Norman a dog tin and then boil some brown rice in the microwave, to accompany the chilli and then make salad and whole meal pitta bread to accompany it. I have been thinking all week what to eat with the lamb steaks in the freezer, that will form my first carnivorous meal after Mass tomorrow, but when I take them out to defrost, an evil fairy has transformed them into pork loin steaks, or there again, perhaps my stomach's wishful thinking has deceived my memory. After lunch/dinner, I strip the beds and put on clean linen, before tuning in to listen to Hull playing Huddersfield on the radio, while I do some ironing. It is a late kick off, at twenty past five, and all the clubs closest to Hull, at the top of the championship, have lost, including Watford, who we are due to play on Tuesday night. If we win today it will put us in a very strong position for automatic promotion to the Premier League, and if we beat Watford on Tuesday, our position would become almost unassailable. I finish my ironing before George Boyd scores the winner for the Tigers, and then do some more research on my putative holiday to Lippstadt. The tourist information office there has replied to an email that I sent them last night, providing details of the shuttle service to Paderborn/Lippstadt airport, a list of local hotels in the town centre, and an update on my old swimming club, Teutonia Lippstadt, and their open air pool down Jahnweg, which she reliably informs me, has been transformed beyond recognition since 1969. Her name is Regina and I reply thanking her for her prompt response and my surprise that she was working on Easter Saturday. I spend the next couple of hours starting to piece together an itinerary, the only direct flights to Lippstadt/Paderborn are from London City airport, which means taking the train from Hull to London. So I check on travelling by Eurostar instead, and find that it wouldn't take much longer to go by train through the channel tunnel and would be slightly cheaper, if booked well ahead. The Deutsche Bundesbahn website is also first rate and they offer special fares for seniors, so I check the connections from Lippstadt to Dusseldorf airport and find that it would only take forty minutes longer than from the local airport. There are also direct flights from Leeds/Bradford to Dusseldorf and by booking well in advance, the return trip, including rail fares would be less than £100. Finally I check Schiphol to Lippstadt, this takes a little over four hours, but means I could break my journey and visit my brother in Rotterdam, as part of the trip and flights to Amsterdam are slightly cheaper than Dusseldorf, although the rail connections would be more expensive. I shall mull it over and probably confer with Graham before I book. To bed for half past ten.