Thursday 18 February
It’s 9.30am and I am sitting in my car in the car park of the Colchester United stadium. The blustering wind is gently rocking the car and the broken clouds slide across the sky at pace, allowing the sun to flittingly reveal itself.
I’ve just had my first vaccination against Covid-19. In and out in about five minutes and now have to stay put for fifteen further minutes to see if any immediate side effects materialise. Then the phone rings.
It’s my sister. With dogs yapping in the background and her very much at work, she tells me that she has just received a phone call from Mum’s care home. Mum has had another seizure and has been taken to hospital, this time a carer has accompanied her in the ambulance. I’ll go there later today, if I am allowed to.
12.40pm I’ve called the hospital as they are not allowing visitors due to the lockdown. Only one primary carer can attend, which I guess is why the home sent someone with Mum this time round. Last time, I went and spent the day with Mum, I felt then as if they were allowing me to be there as a favour. This time things are much different.
Mum is heading back to the care home after all the necessary tests have been done. The suspicion is that this is a further development of her Alzheimer’s, meaning the brain simply shuts down. I’ve just realised how we refer to these illnesses as being ‘owned’ by the person; ‘her Alzheimer’s’, ‘she has got it’. I wonder why that is? I suppose the alternatives are much more clinical or negative? ‘Infected with..’ or ‘suffering from..’.
Anyway, it’s a horrible thing. She survived Covid-19, but her dementia persists. The headlines are taken by the ‘new infection on the block’, but the old-timers are still there going strong.
Driving home earlier, I was aware of how being rocked by worrying news intensifies what the senses take in and how the brain churns it over. The music I was listening to, lyrics and instrumentation, seemed more emotive than normal. The way the weather pulled and played on the trees and the telegraph cables. The way the birds were being pulled and pushed about in flight. Even the way people walking along pavements, slightly hunched, drew hoods over their heads and gripped them at the sides to prevent them being blown back down. It’s a classic autumn day, but in winter, just as spring is starting to show itself.
3.45pm We’ve just returned from our walk this afternoon. Lovely open space with big skies. The wind is sweeping in from the south-west dragging warm air, this is chasing a body of cold, cloudy air ahead of it.
I love the simplicity of weather systems. They can produce such dramatic views and this afternoon the two fronts delivered; one was cold and receding, the other was warm and advancing. So, part way round we all stopped, closed our eyes and faced the sunshine letting the light soak into our skin and light up behind our eyelids. We just stood there and everything calmly halted for the briefest of moments.
The Bald Birder 