Thursday August 24th. 12.05 p.m. Well, I had intended to not write any blog posts until September, but I have got into the habit of writing something virtually each day, so here I am, writing this.
On Saturday, I went to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to visit a lady I know who is in there. I had been considering whether to go for quite a while, but first I had to make sure the car was alright, since I had the MoT done, and it needed work done on one of the rear brakes, and then I had covid and the lower back pain (which, incidentally, still returns. But I am not letting it interfere with my life. It took less time to get to Stoke Mandeville than I imagined, as the visiting hours began at 2 p.m., and I was imagining that the centre of Aylesbury was going to be busy with shoppers, which it didn't appear to be. On arriving at the hospital site I had to find a car park and eventually found a space in car park C. I wasn't entirely sure where the ward was I wanted to visit, Ward 17. I thought it was in the main building, but it turned out to be within the National Spinal Injuries Centre block. The signage isn't very clear, and once inside it was quite a walk, and then upstairs.
Terri, the lady I was visiting, said to me, would I go and get something to eat, such as a take-away? She told me there was a fish and chip shop about fifteen minutes walk away from the hospital, basically because all she would have to eat that evening would be salad. So I walked to the chippy but wasn't entirely sure I was walking in the right direction, so I asked someone on the way. I was walking in the right direction and soon found it and bought two portions of fish and one of chips and walked back. She was asleep when I got back to the ward, and she was asleep, and it took a while before she woke up, and we ate the fish and chips.
When I eventually left to go home, first I had to find my way out of the building! When I eventually did, I then had to look for a toilet and walked towards the main entrance and then decided to take a shortcut, which wasn't such a good idea, because it took me down quite a steep slope, and unfortunately I took a misstep and found myself falling over and landing partially in a rather prickly hedge and grazed my right elbow. I was unpleasant, and I think it was more embarrassing than anything. I managed to pick myself up and go into the main entrance and found a toilet, and then I had to get back to my car in Car Park C. Once there, I had to discover how I was to get out, with no indication of how or where to buy a ticket. I presumed that I would need to buy one from a machine, but there were none in or around the car park. I asked someone, and he told me I would need to go to the A and E department and find a machine in the entrance, which was what I did. The machine would only take card payments. By now, I wasn't in a particularly good mood, and a staff member showed me how to use my debit card to pay. It cost £6.50, which I thought was somewhat steep. Never mind. I returned to my car, quite a considerable distance, and used the ticket which the machine had issued to open the barrier and so drive out and then home.
On Tuesday I went to Camphill. I hadn't been the previous week, due to the lower back pain. The previous week the theatre group had been involved with the play in a week project and quite a few children had come in to take part. It would appear to have been extremely successful. We weren't starting work on the next project, but some filming for the silent movies was taking place, and we watched a video of the play which was created during the play-in-a-week project. It was quite amazing and all the participants did a really exceptional job, but it was a great pity that the sound was poor, which made hearing the dialogue more or less impossible.
I went home, and then I discovered that the door of my fridge/freezer hadn't been closed properly, which meant that much of the food it contained was thawing. I had an idea that some of it could be saved, and then I thought that it could go in the fridge, which is in the communal kitchen within Dexter House. I could take it down in the blue plastic box I had for recycling bottles and other glass, but when I went down to the communal kitchen, I found the door locked, so that idea was out. Then, I thought that I could ask Vashti the following morning if she would allow me to put my food in the fridge so that I could leave the fridge/freezer on for several hours to let it thaw out, but then I discovered that she wouldn't be in until mid-morning, so that idea was also a non-starter. My options were narrowing. Then, to make things worse, the strap on my FitBit came apart! The buckle came away from the rest of the strap, rendering it completely useless. So, as someone or other said, problems go in threes- 1-I fell over and grazed my elbow at Stoke Mandeville; 2- The fridge/freezer began to defrost; and 3- The FitBit strap fell apart.
So, I decided, fairly late into the evening, that the only alternative was to clear out the partly-defrosted food. My thinking was, if I was to eat it, there was every likelihood that I was going to get food poisoning, which I didn't want, as I know it can be quite unpleasant and, possibly, dangerous, especially since I have had two heart attacks. So, I loaded the contents of the freezer into two black bin bags and took it to the bin cupboard outside. I then switched off the fridge/freezer and left it to defrost. After several hours, it was beginning to drip and the ice to melt. I was left with a lot of water on the kitchen floor, but it was easily mopped up.
By around 6 a.m., virtually all the ice had melted, and I was then able to switch on the fridge/freezer. I was planning to go to Sainsbury's to buy food, some of which would go into the fridge/freezer. By around 9 a.m. the machine was working fully, with the temperature at at the correct level for restocking. Job completed!
On Thursday afternoon, we had a tenants' meeting at Dexter House. Exciting stuff about, wait for it, rubbish bins! I won't go into the gory details on here. Then, the question of Christmas came up, something I don't want to even consider, because, in all honesty, I don't really want to be here. We were asked for ideas and I came up with the idea of putting on a Pantomime. No, not seriously, but one of the women sitting around the table gave me such a look that it could have melted plate steel. She asked me what I would dress up as, and I said, the Dame. I don't think the idea will come to much, but it was worth a try!
No comments:
Post a Comment