Saturday 14 November
11.30am. I am currently sat in the reception of Colchester General Hospital waiting for Mum to arrive from the care home. She has had two seizures back-to-back and is being brought in by paramedics.
The year has been pretty horrible and I fear that, as we approach December, it hasn’t finished fishing out it’s bad news. To be honest 2019 was shit too but was personally so, 2020 has had the global crisis of a Coronavirus pandemic. We have all shared the shit. I can’t work out whether it is easier for us all to be struggling through it together or for only one person needing the waders. 2020 is like a series of shitty personal experiences painted on a background of shit.
Now I am usually a positive person. But I can’t help having my moments.
Six hours later. Just leaving hospital now. Long day. Mum is heading home after scans and x-rays. No stroke but dehydration and a protein deficiency typical of Alzheimer’s. Thankfully, Mum does not appear to have been permanently affected by what has happened to her. And I am honestly relieved on many levels that mum is going ‘home’.
I was desperate for some fresh air and sometime in the daylight today. I don’t begrudge doing what was needed today, in many ways I am privileged, but I have realised how hard the working week is at the moment. Not leaving until it is pitchbdark outside and not seeing much of the reduced daylight simply because if the nature of the job. And thus, how I look forward to Friday evening.
The weekends are very precious and those two days (that seem always to go quicker than any others) I look to fill with lungfulls of fresh air and daylight on my face. No football also means no refereeing. So, tomorrow I will make the most of what is on offer and every Saturday and Sunday will be underlined as the most important days of the week by far. Again, simple pleasures.
The Bald Birder 