Emmaus South Lambeth

Hello again,

If only the NHS did ‘Frequent Flyer’ tokens, we’d be quids in this week; Kings had the dubious pleasure of my company three times in 7 days, but I reassure you now, all’s well. Having been taken to A&E for the ricked ankle last Friday, I had to attend physio on in on Monday and they gave me a series of exercises to do 3 x daily which are agony… However, when I’m tempted to give up half-way through, I seem to see the allotment fading away, which gets me through.

The final visit was on account of a Companion having an infected wisdom tooth removed surgically, which required an escort. We arrived in good time, and didn’t see toomany previous patients wandering out moaning and clutching their jaws! I was bemused when they asked for MY telephone number, even when I explained I would stay right there, in the waiting room. No sooner had my charge disappeared and I’d sat down to read my book, than I looked up and saw the ‘NO MOBILES’ sign : what’s a girl to do?

My compromise was to hold the phone in my hand for the duration; I have to tell you, it’s not easy to read a book whilst balancing two puffa jackets, one handbag, one carrier for the book – and a mobile in the other hand, but I managed to keep the waiting room amused and/or having a private bet as to what was going to fall next…

90 minutes later, my name is called and I gather me bits and go to where Leo is sitting with a cheerful smile on his face and an impressive tube stuck into his hand, chatting away to the surgeon, a lovely change from the ‘Spirit of Agony’ his face had been for a week or so. The nurse commands my attention and gives me a ’survival kit-bag’ for ‘just-in-case’ circumstances, and explains the procedures. Having checked Leo could walk steadily, we are discharged.

Get to the lift, Leo remembers his watch, goes back – only to be reminded he’d put it on the otherwrist! Relief! Downstairs, I check if he’s really feeling steady : we have money for a cab, but no, he says – it’s just one bus journey, he’ll be fine. Standing at the bus stop, he gets in a panic – they’ve given him medication, he’s left it behind… I reassure him, they gave ME the stuff, and look, it’s all here in the bag!

Bus arrives, packed to the gunwales : I check – stand all the way home, or shall we wait for the next one? Leo’s happy to stand, and I privately calculate that even if wooziness does return, he’ll have absolutely no chance of finding enough space to fall to the floor, so we board. Maybe just as a talking point, he wonders why the hospital insists on having an escort in attendance, so I remind him of the watch, and his medication, never mind the possibility of a sudden nausea; having spent all the time and money on the surgery, they don’t want a patient buckling under the wheels of a bus moments later, for want of an escort who can guide their charge!

Next day, I miss him before he goes off on the van, so I can only check at lunch: DID he remember the salt wash after breakfast, as I explained last night? “Er, yes thank you, mumma, I was a good boy!” he grins, and I cluck like the mother hen I become in such conditions.

I managed to do stacks of seed sowing at last : sprouts, peppers, cabbage, broad beans etc., and a 5-second visit to the allotment to reassure myself the onions made it through the snow, which they have.  The spring bulbs all seem to double in size daily, and should be producing a cheerful front-of-house display pretty soon, thanks to Betty, their generous donor.  Up at the Horticultural Hut today, a lady at the counter tried to interest me in a very pretty basket of hyacinths, but I explained that lovely as they were, I had no budget for them;  Betty explained about Emmaus, whilst the lady was fiddling, then handed some money to the till lady and said, “there, you have them, I’ll pay for them!”  Aren’t people kind? 

I think that’s a sufficiently ‘up’ note on which to finish.

Take care, Elizabeth