Conference

There you are. There's your clue: for me, 'Blogfest' becomes 'Conference'. When you reach my grand old age, keeping up with developments is not easy. At my age, a 'fest' was something that happened in, say, Germany and was to do with sinking enormous quantities of beer. Last week, it applied to a gathering of bloggers and was one of the nicest and most fun days I've had in a long time. Mind you, I think I highered the average age of participants by at least a decade. There were distances and stairs and low chairs and all the impedimenta which roll off the eyeballs of the young and younger and make my life harder. But there were also friendliness, and croissants and delicious buffet food. Above all, there were seriously interesting people with seriously interesting things to say.

In my professional life I attended more Conferences than I have kept memory of. I have written papers for them and travelled many miles to them. Giving a paper is one thing: one just pretends one is at home reading it through to an attendant cat or a long-suffering partner. One may also picture one's Mother, proudly drinking in every incomprehensible word. Asking a question is another. Dear Reader, that's just what I did. I gave it almost no thought - the act, not the question - so spoke before I could settle back on to the bed of nerves known to paper-givers everywhere. The subject around was, more or less, confidentiality. Now, kind followers will know that Liz's blog is based on her experience of being more  than her allotted three score and ten in the actual world and around about forty in the inner world.. This means, inevitably, making use of daily happenings and interactions with the rest of humanity. Mostly, the interactees are total strangers and I can address them as such even if they are not. The most relevant exception is the Guru, whom loyal followers will know is very real and very significant in Liz's life. He knows. He reads the blogs. He is totally compliant and very encouraging. People who know Liz off the page, so to speak, may well identify him. It seems unlikely that kind followers in Mountain View California could do so. What is more important is that this is alright with him. But do let me know if you know who  is the jerk who said to his companion as I stumbled on ice walking passed them; "That old girl shouldn't be let out on her own".

The reason for telling you this is that I did ask a question. When I was actually forty I doubt I would have had the courage. Well, not exactly a question in the QA sense. I aired the question of the need for the use of personal material which could be done discreetly and anonymously pointing no fingers and hurting no feelings as a sort of 'Why Not?' Thank you all for greeting it so supportingly and warmly and also the learned, dissenting professor who was so incensed I lost track of what she was actually saying for fear of the blue flames which emanated from behind me where she sat. Later,when I was surrounded by well-wishers she came and shook my hand which I took to mean one of us could and should forgive the other. I'm not sure which who was which. Wonderful! Nearing three score and twenty, (must be four score) and still being dressed down by the professor. Bore da.

Chaos

What ever your age group, you may well be apprised of the fact that getting in and out of the bath requires more and more enterprise and initiative as time goes on. In my age group I am passed  enterprise and initiative. I am in to 'cannot do it'. It needed only one experience of feeling I was going to spend the rest of my life at the bottom of this white plastic - not even porcelain - cave for me to take to the unpleasant alternative of having water pour over my head , down my back and between my toes: id est, to  shower. However, my shower happens to be in my bath. This did not present a problem before my  recent near miss life/death experience. Subsequently, I have been unable to climb over the edge of the bath to place myself under the deluge without help. Help there is. I am still under the eye of a carer. My Bank Manager tells me this has to stop. My pride tells me this has to stop. My body tells me it wants to manage itself. Dilemma: can't climb in to the bath unaided. Solution: remove bath and replace with walk-in shower. Wonderful, simple, a solution to solve the worst of the 'cannots'. Pause for reflection: removing a bath and installing a shower is not like taking out from a drawer a red sweater, having a change of heart and taking out a grey one instead. It involves every room on every floor of a small but three story house. Believe me, there is dust on the lower ground floor where reside a lodger and a washing machine. Both of which are essential to the smooth running of Liz's life.

Having stated the stark, I shall indulge in the detail. A film of fine dust has covered walls, ridges, clothes, bits and pieces. To H... with prevarication. There is nowhere unaffected by the 'clever' soluition to the can't- climb -over- the-edge- of-a -bath problem. The bathroom is en suite with the bedroom. The plumbing for the shower lies in a cupboard in the bedroom (Don't ask . I'm a blogger, not a builder.) That cupboard holds all my best clothes. Where are they? On a couch on which a recovering invalid reclines while she regains her strength. Only at the moment, lounging has to be on the bed while an army of men, none of whom speaks English, marches back and forth through the room, with eyes averted,  a tread that shakes the bed and moves the dust about ever more efficiently. I speak neither Russian, Polish nor Latvian and have to wait for the boss, who speaks everything but Welsh, by which time whatever mistake is concreted in for ever. What would you have done? There were options. Keep the carer and the bath for ever - which may not be so long given my recent experience- and break the bank. Struggle over the edge of the bath alone, and risk breaking my neck. Fine if it were fatal, expensive if it were not. Wash bit by bit at the basin. I don't think so. I havent had a strip wash since I was 6 and affected by war-time conditions. Pop in to a neighbour and beg a shower. Come on. We live in the real world most of the time so clearly no option but that which |I chose: remove the bath and put in a walk-in shower which even my cat can get in to without stretching a leg. She will miss the dripping bath tap which she used as a fresh- water fountain but she has had a lot to get used to in the last few months. Even her fur is covered in this dust and she doesnt like the taste. I can feel it under my fingers though I promise you I have kept the keyboard covered ab initio. All my toiletries are dusty, even my toothpaste tube and, yes, I did put them elsewhere. However, there IS no elsewhere. Even the very downstairs linen cupboard was emptied because the on/off taps for the warer supply were in there. It took three women two hours to restore and replace. That's six hours work according to my Maths. The front door is permanently open and I am heating the street.  I do see this may not be of the least interest to you youngsters, but we oldsters who are young at heart and have memories, cling to the one that has us lying in a bath full of lovely hot water with five whirlpool jets and all the time in the world, smelly stuff in, radio on. Where are the ablutions of yesteryear? Gone, alas, like our youth too soon. Prynhawn da.

Formality

Have you noticed that how you are dressed will affect how you feel? It seems to me  there are four categories of dress: 1) very casual, i.e., dressing gown, pyjamas, even nightie with track suit over, slippers This is borderline 'stay-in-bed' wear.You wouldnt expect to feel sufficiently competent to deal even with the window cleaner - particularly  not the window cleaner if you hadn't been expecting him. In this garb you would either be very relaxed and happy or decidedly depressed: definitely not on top of things. 2) Casual, i.e. track suit without the night wear underneath.(What IS underneath is my business): trainers. You could deal with the windowcleaner - if expected, greet the postman and accept a delivery. You would feel competent enough but  rather lazy and hoping the chores would go away. 3) Ready for the day, i.e. fully dressed, trousers, top, supportive underwear, proper shoes,make up. ( No: I don't think of trainers as proper shoes and make-up applies only in 3) and 4)). You could go to work, welcome a friend, have lunch in a cafe. You would feel efficient and in a good enough mood. 4)Seriously 'Best.'  /formal, i.e. glitter on top, velvet below, skirt suit with silk shirt and a" foulard" thrown over. You could go to a wedding, out to a very glamorous dinner or lunch in a three-week-wait-for-a-table restaurant.. You would feel beautiful, attractive and interesting to talk to. There is an unmentionable category 5) - see below

I spend much of my life in category three (3). During the hospital stay, it was entirely (1). Much of the time I felt peaceful and without responsibility. More of the time I felt weak and depressed. As I began to recover, I moved from hospital gown to own nightie. Hospital gown is associated with the pits, especially when an example was thrown over my modesty and my boiling self when there was no-one present other than me and the nurse. So strong was the revulsion, I found myself appealing to her relation, The Good Lord, explaining He was unlikely to give a Rhett Butler about my being starkers if I were cool rather than tangled up and roasting - in Hell,  as she would assume I would be. My supply of nighties had to  be quadrupled so now there is no room for them all at home in the drawer marked 'Nighties'. Enough of that. There is a more current dilemma. I have been venturing forth at level 3). I take taxis because my confidence is not quite up to 'bus level. Unfortunately, level 3) seems not to indicate the possibility of  incapacity. You need help in and out of those monsters only if you look as if you need help, that is, in a beige anorak. Believe me, however 'professional' or 'City' I  may look I cannot get in or out of those things unaided. All those yellow grab-handles, none where you need it.  What to do? I haven't a  real category, not even 5) for beige anorak, only 'bin it', so I shall have to keep the formality and suffer the indignity. Nos da

Boredom

Convalesence is boring. At least, mine is.  Why aren't I doing all the things I longed to have time for when I was still a working person? You may well ask. Laziness, lack of energy contrariness may all qualify as reasons.I can still keep house, or keep it oiled, anyway. It will be clear to the faithful among you that I am not what you may call computer literate. When the hose of the vaccum cleaner breaks - no: it's not a Hoover - I immediately start working out how I can get to John Lewis and would I have to take the carer. The carer, when apprised of the problem, asks why I don't find and buy the part on line. She is thirty. I am the age I am. Fifteen minutes later the part is ordered and we are waiting for the 'dispatched' email. I couldnt have got my out-door shoes on in that time never mind have travelled to John Lewis. (For those of you over the pond or elsewhere, John Lewis is a remarkable household goods and all-you may-ever-need shop, headquarters central London, branches here and there. I love it ). The extraordinary thing is that while I was in hospital for eight weeks, none of the computer literates coming in and out of my house, thought to get the vacuum cleaner mended. Ah well, nice to know you are needed, even if only by the inanimate.

I have close relatives on the other side of the Atlantic and, springing from the aforementioned boredom, idly put their name in to Google. (Google is going to be another Hoover if we pedants aren't careful). Imagine my horror to find them listed there! How does this happen? Who collates for and feeds this information machine? I learned that the lady bit of the couple was the only one with that name in the whole of the United States: the ONLY one. This fact stretched my imagination to snapping point. Out of humdreds of millions of assorted Yanks, as we used to call them when they were over here during the war, she is the only one with that name  .I cant get over it. Of course, she owes this distinction to her marriage. Her original surname was far from unusual and, even combined with her first name, wouldnt have made the records. (Her first name is Shirley. That's all I'm going to tell you). I then put in my own name and found myself, the Father of my children and my children all listed, neatly, one under the other. It's not a feeling I am comfortable with. I thought having someone help me deal with my underwear was intrusive enough. This ranks even more so. How can it help you, me, the world, the universe to have a list of me and my attachments? What is the listing for? And so on and so on . I can always get out the green ink and write my concerns to those concerned, if anyone is in the least concerned about the take-over of communication  by a keyboard and electricity.  While I have been thus reflecting, the light has gone. There's something for me to do, go and put some electricity to good use. Nos da

Monopoly

 The theme of childhood keeps me in its thrall. As I write, I am in the hands of carers. Well, not exactly as I write.  The current good lady is in another room. In principal, however, I am in their hands. It seems that overnight I went from a pretty competent, early old aged woman of some sparkle to a cliched geriatric. In order that (subjunctive to follow) the picture may come more easily to your inner eye, there are certain items of underwear I can't put on by myself. Which? You do know. Why not? Well, I can't bend sufficiently well to bring foot to opening, so to speak. Of course, you are right, I could sit down to do it but I am stubbornly trying to change as little as possible and I never did sit down to put this item on. The bra is different. I simply can't manoeuvre to fasten it so it has to be done up from the  front and then dragged round to the back. Or, worse, the carer does it up for me. Of all the good, kind and sensitive experiences I have undergone, though, I am left, as an abiding impression, with what it feels like to have your knickers and/or tights, yanked up from the waist band. You must remember dressing your little ones: pull the vest down, pull the pants up and a little pat to show it was all over. Quite: I'm glad you would find it infantilising and humiliating, too. I have to say I had a little hissy fit and, before good manners could prevail, snapped "Don't do that, if you please". I have, though, made one effort at solo outing. Yesterday I took a taxi - I know, but I couldnt have done it otherwise - to have lunch with the Guru and his loved one. He drove me home but the loved one, trapped in the back of a two-door, had to push him out of the car in order to help me out. I must be making progress. He has stopped treating me delicately.

As for hissy fits, the Cat - than whom no-one is more important - persistently hisses at one of these carers. Actually, the one of the waist-band yank. Goodness knows how she knows, but she does and is not shy to hiss and tooth-bare when this person comes in to the same room as her/us. What resources would a human little one have against this assault on the ego? Well, tantrums should do it. (Is that the plural? Should it be tantra? But then, should it be mantrum?) Anyway, my predicament has set me thinking about the minefield of actual littlehood and the awfulness of dependence on those who may not have the skills to recognise the potential for hell-on-earth that nestles is the so-called idyll of childhood. The revolution - I was looking for a word to convey more of a revolving, in the sense of coming full-circle - carries so many identical dilemmas that it surprises me I have  any adult recall left at all. Fortunately, I can now manage food so that it doesnt have to be cut up. I am steadier on my feet so the carer has to be near but not attached to me. Along with the pint sizes, I cross the road to the pond, nearby, and watch the ducks. I stopped carer number one from bringing and throwing stale bread because the siamese twin thing would have been  seriously impossible to tolerate. I am not vying for a space nearest to the edge of the water just so it's MY bread the ducks will eat, nor am I going to kick and scream when it is time to go home - at least, not aloud. So where have three score and more than ten years gone? It seems one returns to pass 'GO' without necessarily collecting £200. So there is nowhere else to go but back round. However, on the way one may have bought property, gone to jail, had children, had a job and generally impinged on the lives of others. Throw all you like, my little ones, but remember you have a whole board to play before you can come round for the second time. Prynhawn da.

Childhood

As I was saying, I was in hospital for eight weeks and have been home for three. The scarlet swimsuit - and the Guru - missed their sea-side holiday and the beloved four-legged friend was left with nothing but depression and memories for all that time, explanations being impossible though the Guru did try. Hospital was an amazing experience. Which is to say, that which I experienced was. Much of the time I took leave of myself and have no recollection whatsoever of where or what I was part of. At one point, early on, I had to change hospitals. I have only the vaguest recall of the father of my children explaining this to me and of drifting awake in surroundings different from those in which I had drifted away. Acres, hectares,even, of time had disappeared. I remember wishing I were unconscious, that I could be given something to remove me from the pain, but, the reality is that I was unconscious a lot of the time. The mind boggles reflecting on what happened to me in that darkness. What about bodily needs, acceptable and unacceptable? Fine when one is elsewhere: distressing if one is present. Eventually, when I was, for the most part, alert, I discovered a method: take yourself out of yourself and observe from above. Things were being done for and to me that had last been done when I was between eighteen months and two years old. I kept thinking of my own little ones and hoping that I had wiped and creamed and cared for with  respect and tenderness enough. I have a clear memory of being strip- washed and the discomfort of being cold and damp at one end while being briskly rubbed down at the other. I used to beg my Mother to dry as she washed. Sadly her empathetic memory provided no tenplate for doing this so I tingled and wriggled in vain She must have wondered what the fuss was about. After all, how long does three feet of human need to be dry all over..
I was fed via pipes and stuff in my veins. I didn't miss food much. I missed my favourite drink, a mixture half of grapefruit juice and half of water. I pictured a glass of this and held on to it through all the terrifying dreams and imaginings. What do the little  ones picture when they are hungry or thirsty? \No words to describe things to themselves nor to catch the attention of The Fount of All  that is both Good and Bad.. You can scream or mew, if that is the sound  your voice makes, but, basically, you are dependant on the intelligence and imagination of those with whom communication is not easy.. My Goodness, how differently I would have treated my little ones had I had this insight at the time they needed it.
 It was strange to be told I had nearly died. I didn't die and now I shall have it all to go through again when the 'right' time comes. Strangest of all, though, is to have gone through a happening that encompassed babyhood and old age  together, contemporaneously and jumbled up in a kaliedescope that shook down at eleven months or seventy nine years or both. Was it the baby or the sick old lady being given a blanket bath or yet both ? Think Russian dolls. Must be some vital philosophical revelation in there somewhere: discuss   Prynhawn da

Near Miss

Liz is back! Not at full power, yet, but back among the land of the living - literally. Two inflamed discs, resulting in kidney failure and pneumonia confined me to hospital for just aboiut two months.  I am told I was on the list as a late blogger but confounded the fates by recovering. Now, I have no wish to bore or drive away any of you who remembers and enjoyed previous blogs so that is as much information as you have  to put up with. Naturally, many funny and bloggable stories came out of the experience but I think I may need another day or two before I can muster enough concentration to write my usual screed.

But I'll give you one example. Where I was incarcerated in an Intensive Care Unit, I was facing a very beautiful blue screen which was behind the nurses' station. Looking at this screen afforded comfort and reassurance. At night, the colours changed and there was movement as if of birds and butterflies. In a lucid moment, I told  daughters number one and two about this phenomenon. They found it very hard to believe and asked a passing nurse. Nothing moved . Nothing changed. It was all in my imagination. Whatever it was I was on began to seem rather desirable to them. Anyway, back \I am. I feel I may need to rename the blog 75 going on 85, and even had another birthday yesterday to strengthen the anomaly.  PLEASE, do watch out for my posts and resume your fidelity and do be in touch so I know you are still there after what the lovely Guru so aptly and in just the right tone called the break in transmission. Prynhawn da.