It's raining this morning. As it's been dry and sunny for the past few days, it's rather a shock to find rain. Alfie poked his head out of the patio door when he wanted to be let out early this morning and went out but he doesn't really like rain. I can understand because he gets cold easily.
I've been walking to the hospital each day this week to visit Carol. It's not that far, walking along the Redway and through into the hospital grounds, but if it's raining I think I'll go in the car. I did yesterday late afternoon.
It crazy that the ward is so hot. In Carol's side-room, it's quite claustrophobic and it's TOO warm. I can understand why they have to have it warm if people are ill, but then Carol has to have a window open and they've give her an electric fan to cool it down. It just doesn't make sense somehow.
Poor Carol is having enough trouble with food. She can't have solid food of any kind and is on what they call a 'Low Residue' diet. As a result she can eat such things as yoghurt, jelly and custard. I bought her some Aldi mousses yesterday. They are to die for. Excellent all round for flavour and texture and they're very reasonably priced. I was in yesterday evening at the hospital and they were bringing round the dinner (at around 6 p.m.) Carol was bought a bowl of custard. Well, they said it was custard, but it didn't look much like what I'd term 'custard.' The consistency of something you'd use to cover a wall, that stuff that used to give a rough surface, my mother had it put on the ceilings of the home we lived in when I was a child, which gives a sort of rough texture and these ceilings had sort of swirls in this stuff a bit like plaster. Well, this custard had this sort of resemblance. If you moved the bowl, the custard stayed in the same place. It didn't move or do anything and the colour was pale. It looked ill, intact, that's a good description for N.H.S. custard. Probably made like that deliberately. You could lag a pipe with the stuff or fill in potholes. That would be a good use for it. Carol said it might be because it comes a long way from the kitchens and has to be kept warm. Dear goodness, is it not the easiest thing to make? Just some custard powder and some warm milk, whisked up in a pan??? How on earth difficult is it to make that? Not this pale and inspire and totally unappetising stuff? I thought the idea was that you went to hospital when you're ill, not given this stuff which would make you very, very sick. Lumpy custard, insipid soup (Carol texted me to please get her something NICE to eat, as the soup she was given for lunch was AWFUL! Are we really stuck in the 1950's, when things were bad just after the war? Why can't they make something decent for the patients to eat? I think they put lumps in specifically, a bit like the awful stuff we were supposed to eat when I was a shoddy Rushmoor School. Not just the custard there, which wasn't lumpy, just watered down. Just about stayed on your plate, it was as thin as possible so they could make as much profit as possible out of a very small Bird's custard tin. The gravy there was just as bad. More like something out of the school in some Dicken's novel like Dotheheboy's Hall run by Mr Squeers in Nicholas Nicklby. The whole place should have been condemned by Ofsted years ago and I'm surprised it's still in existence. Do you get the impression I didn't enjoy my period there much? Well, you'd be absolutely right on that score. Strange how I made the link between N.H.S. food and that served up in private education establishments.
Poor Carol is having enough trouble with food. She can't have solid food of any kind and is on what they call a 'Low Residue' diet. As a result she can eat such things as yoghurt, jelly and custard. I bought her some Aldi mousses yesterday. They are to die for. Excellent all round for flavour and texture and they're very reasonably priced. I was in yesterday evening at the hospital and they were bringing round the dinner (at around 6 p.m.) Carol was bought a bowl of custard. Well, they said it was custard, but it didn't look much like what I'd term 'custard.' The consistency of something you'd use to cover a wall, that stuff that used to give a rough surface, my mother had it put on the ceilings of the home we lived in when I was a child, which gives a sort of rough texture and these ceilings had sort of swirls in this stuff a bit like plaster. Well, this custard had this sort of resemblance. If you moved the bowl, the custard stayed in the same place. It didn't move or do anything and the colour was pale. It looked ill, intact, that's a good description for N.H.S. custard. Probably made like that deliberately. You could lag a pipe with the stuff or fill in potholes. That would be a good use for it. Carol said it might be because it comes a long way from the kitchens and has to be kept warm. Dear goodness, is it not the easiest thing to make? Just some custard powder and some warm milk, whisked up in a pan??? How on earth difficult is it to make that? Not this pale and inspire and totally unappetising stuff? I thought the idea was that you went to hospital when you're ill, not given this stuff which would make you very, very sick. Lumpy custard, insipid soup (Carol texted me to please get her something NICE to eat, as the soup she was given for lunch was AWFUL! Are we really stuck in the 1950's, when things were bad just after the war? Why can't they make something decent for the patients to eat? I think they put lumps in specifically, a bit like the awful stuff we were supposed to eat when I was a shoddy Rushmoor School. Not just the custard there, which wasn't lumpy, just watered down. Just about stayed on your plate, it was as thin as possible so they could make as much profit as possible out of a very small Bird's custard tin. The gravy there was just as bad. More like something out of the school in some Dicken's novel like Dotheheboy's Hall run by Mr Squeers in Nicholas Nicklby. The whole place should have been condemned by Ofsted years ago and I'm surprised it's still in existence. Do you get the impression I didn't enjoy my period there much? Well, you'd be absolutely right on that score. Strange how I made the link between N.H.S. food and that served up in private education establishments.
This evening (Saturday) Carol was bought her evening meal ON A TRAY as I sat in the ward with her. It was a plate of pasta with some sort of meat sauce (presumably a sort of bolognaise bake), a slice of cake wrapped in cellophane and another bowl of 'custard.' None of it looked appetising and was just slapped onto a plate without a great deal of effort. I appreciate it's a ward in a hospital, and that the nurses don't have time to present the food better, but it really looked horrible. I think Alfie's dinner looks more appetising, and he's a little dog. Why can't the food look better? I also know they have to work to a very tight budget, but this was just, well, words fail me (no, they don't, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, and I love words, but you know what I mean.)
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