Visiting Aunty Dorothy

We are up for seven o'clock and wake to a lovely spring morning, my resident blackbird is singing his head off and the sun is shining brightly into the Garden Room. I have toast and honey for breakfast and Norman eats his usual Baker's, then I listen to the news, while I drink my usual Italian coffee. This morning I have to be at Saint John's for ten, as I am helping with tea and coffee after mass and being shown where everything is before attending the ten thirty service. At nine, Norman and I have a walk down Carr Lane, as far as the little bridge that spans the dyke. The ditches are fully dried out now and some of the fruit trees have begun to burst into blossom. The alpacas are chewing their cud in the pasture beyond the farm and watch us contentedly as we pass. Norman is looking a little shaggy, as I haven't stripped his top coat during the long hard, winter, it is another job to be tackled in the next few days. When we return home, I leave him some fresh water and then park outside Sarah's house, calling in briefly to present Louis with his football albums. Sarah is making a full English breakfast for them all, and Alice is sat playing with her air book. The coffee room in the annex is empty when I arrive, apart from a lady in red, who I know as she usually sits in the row behind mine. Father Roy's wife, Sue, arrives and shows me the ropes. It isn't rocket science and within a few minutes I am familiar with the procedures and know where everything is. It is the third Sunday of Easter and the priests are still dressed in their golden robes when they enter the church to the sound of the bell. We sing the opening hymn and then the comforting and beautiful ritual of the Mass begins, I have said prayers for Aunty Dorothy when I first entered and also for Felicity and all those that I usually bring to mind. Father Roy's sermon is unapologetically taken up with the church funds, we are a little over spent this year and like many churches have more long term maintenance work than we have funds to carry out the work. After communion I make my way back to the meeting room and help to dispense coffee and tea, while chatting to fellow parishioners, who stream in in threes and fours, once the service ends. At noon, I excuse myself, as it is time to collect Norman and drive to Irene's house in York, and collect a gift aid form from Father Roy on my way out, the church can recover my income tax, which will provide a little help for the funds. A strong westerly wind has blown up and as we come down Arras Hill, overlooking the Vale of York, I can see dust storms blowing red brown top soil off the fields. It looks like a scene from John Steinbeck's, "Grapes of Wrath", Oklahoma in the 1930's. We have had no rain for eight weeks and until the last few days a cold, dry, easterly wind has dominated the weather. We arrive at Irene's house in Copmanthorpe, a village on the outskirts of York, at half past one and then drink tea with them, before we set off for Saint James's Infirmary, in Leeds, known to everyone as Jimmy's. David, Irene's husband, drives us, eager to show off his new 4 x 4, a Hyundai Santa Fe. We will be driving from Rotterdam to Austria in it next month, after catching the ferry from Hull. The hospital car park is full, but someone leaves and David squeezes the huge vehicle into the space and then we give Norman a quick toilet walk on the grass before putting him on a blanket in the boot to sleep. The oncology wing at Jimmy's is brand new, airy, light and with chairs and couches grouped in little islands adjacent to the three sets of lifts. We take lift C to the high dependency unit, where Aunty Dorothy is recovering after surgery on Friday to remove a secondary tumour on her kidney. When we arrive in the high tech ward, we are told she has just been transferred to a normal ward, which is a good sign, and we are directed to ward 83, which is on the same floor around several corners. A nurse is just settling Dorothy into her bed space, but as my Aunt spots us, she raises her arm and waves. We fetch some chairs and sit around her, she tells us that she feels a little woozy from the epidural line that is delivering morphine, and is under the control of a handset by her side. I had the same set up after my prostatectomy eight years ago, but only needed it for 24 hours. We chat about all the things that families usually chat about, relatives long since dead, holidays and weddings that we have attended together. Dorothy casually slips into the conversation the fact that she has refused chemotherapy, more interested in the quality of her remaining days than their quantity. The surgeon has told her that she should be ready for discharge on Friday and I tell her we will drive to Scarborough and take her to Mother Hubbard's for fish and chips when she is feeling better. We leave at four O'clock, visiting time is over and she is very tired. As we leave I recover my earliest memory of her, we are involved in a church pantomime, my mother is playing the Dame and I have to sing " I am a lonely little petunia in an onion patch", I am five years old, Aunty Margaret plays the piano and when I finish, Aunty Dorothy comes on and sings in a beautiful soprano, she is twenty years old, petite and dark, looking like Snow White. She always blushes when I mention this, but I suspect she is secretly pleased. In all the years I have known her I have never heard her complain, she is always positive, optimistic and takes everything in her stride. A lovely and remarkable human being. I take Norman out of the boot and he sits on my knee as we drive back to York. David suggests we buy fish and chips from another branch of Harper's, opposite York Racecourse, which we take back to their house in Copmanthorpe to eat. David has bought Normy some haddock pieces, which he serves in a bowl on the floor. After the meal, I take my little dog for a walk round the village and he duly performs his duty before we return. David has the FA cup semi final on the television, Manchester City are playing Chelsea, so we sit and watch the game with him. City win 2:1, but it is a pulsating match. Irene's son, Andrew and his partner Karen arrive, they have been staying at the flat in Scarborough and have their large greyhound with them. Norman takes a dislike to him, despite being about a tenth of his size and growls from a position of safety on the settee. Andrew and Karen live in Oxfordshire and leave around seven and we follow them ten minutes later. David and Irene are coming to the second Catholic Mass to be celebrated in Beverley Minster in the last five hundred years. It is taking place on Sunday the 4th of May, to celebrate Saint John of Beverley's day. Saint John was Bishop of York and when he retired, founded a monastery in the great wood of Deira, in the seventh century, in the lea of the beaver. This became Beverley, his hand carved stone throne can still be seen in the Minster. We arrive home for eight, the car covered in red dust from the numerous dust storms. I read for an hour and then go to bed around ten thirty.