Emigrate

Eight years ago, I was sat at a dinner table next to the sister of a colleague, and over a few glasses of wine, listened with incredulity to the details of a programme that she was in the process of producing for Channel Four. It had been imported from Holland, and was going to be a social experiment featuring, amongst others, a skateboarding nun. I was sure it would be dreadful, and would never find a following amongst the cynical British Public. Sadly, I was only half right.

Hailz's sister won a BAFTA, and is doubtless as rich as Croesus. I spent today rehearsing Magic Flute in a freezing church hall with an antique piano and battered tea urn bubbling noisily in the corner. Goddamn those artistic principles. And now, again, I find myself trapped in the same house as Big Brother, with a partner who is ‘only watching it to see who’s in it this year’. Wasn’t the whole point of Orwell’s Big Brother that he should be avoided at all costs? This year, the same Dutch production company are producing a programme featuring a competition to win a kidney from a terminally ill donor. As soon as I can get my leg through the metal detectors at airport security, I’m leaving the country.

Maths

1 o’clock, Monday. Having locked myself out of the classroom last week, this week I am locked in. Supervising an exam clash. I dutifully didn’t bring any marking or reading, even though it turns out that I am, in fact, supervising two A’ level mathematicians eating their sandwiches. I’m sure even the ever-vigilant exam board wouldn’t mind me taking a moment to blog in these circumstances. And it ensures that neither of them is using the internet connection to upload the morning’s questions. Surely the sort of thing that a mathematician could do in the blink of an eye. Though it would, of course, require imagination. And English departments jealously guard A’ level students with that sort of faculty.

Only a maths department could incorporate such a room as this one. It is at the top of four flights of stairs, is roughly 15’ square, and is painted in peeling institutional magnolia. The only few adornments to the walls are posters from the National Office of Statistics pointing out, amongst other things, that pupils are less than half as likely to list maths as a favourite subject at secondary level than they are at primary school. Go figure. There are three small windows providing a magnolia-framed prospect of the distant cricket pitches and the vertiginous drop to the gravelled car park. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the windows have bars on them. Jumping must often seem like quite a favourable option to any poor sods trying to achieve an education in here. Even the computer I am using places literacy far enough down its list of priorities that I had to install ‘Word’ when it started. I might write some poetry on it in a moment. The shock will probably finish the poor machine off.

Meanwhile, back at home, William’s various health professionals are holding a ‘multi-disciplinary meeting’. It is a sad reflection of the boy’s plight when he has been reduced to an agenda. However, in a glorious twist, it has proved impossible to get adequate childcare for William today, and so he will be making an unscheduled appearance at the meeting himself. It will certainly focus everyone’s minds, though not necessarily on the issues at hand. I suspect William’s own choice of agenda will focus largely around playing with Thomas on any flat surface he can find, and generally hogging any limelight going. I am pleased with his overall world view at the moment. First thing this morning, he was quite insistent that Mummy should change his nappy, and Daddy should give him a cuddle and read a story. These are parental roles I am quite happy to reinforce. William is still my hero.

Duck

A week of moonlighting. Two Verdi Requiems, and a comedy concert of choral arrangements of easy listening. Robbie Williams in five parts. Which, if it wasn’t embarrassing enough, was coincidentally attended by two Tonbridge colleagues. I suppose it is too much to hope that a career in the performing arts can be done on the quiet.

For the record, two Verdi requiems in a weekend is a very bad idea. Especially whilst fighting off a cold. It is quite difficult enough trying to make pages of top notes sound like a sincere prayer to the God of vengeance, without having to do it whilst worrying about whether or not it is an appropriate moment in the score to blow your nose. I got through them. Just. But not without a few distinctly croaky moments by concert no. 2. And, as Tessa was singing soprano and had invited Bockers and several other mutual friends, it was another occasion that was impossible to quietly tuck away into the discreet drawer of individual experience. Though Bockers was far more interested in the comedy potential of my Fagin-like appearance in evening tails with new walking stick.

I am quite taken with my new stick. It occurred to me last week that the church where I sing on Sunday mornings is around the corner from what looks like London’s finest walking stick and umbrella emporium. So I paid a visit, and came away with a very sartorially elegant black stick. For £20, it was certainly worth it to finally consign my NHS crutches to the back of my wardrobe. I thought about going for the ebony and silver topped cane, but perhaps that would be a little much. And I’m hoping that it will be a short-lived feature. Perhaps the fact that using a stick looks so much like an eccentric affectation will be a spur to the final stages of my rehabilitation. Though it’s always possible that I will fall prey to the smooth lines of a luxury walking aid. Perhaps a ‘tipple stick’, with an integral whisky flask. Or one with a sterling silver handle crafted in the shape of a duck. They’re out there. And it’s only when you’re constantly handling a stick that you start to appreciate its tactile joys. More than once I have found myself fantasising about my stick’s possibilities as a weapon in a 1st year class. Think what damage you could do with a silver duck.

Custard Slice

Wednesday afternoon, and I have managed to lock myself out of the English Department. Annoying, because I have a pile of marking to attend to in my classroom; those A’ level students who have spent 3 terms doing very little having suddenly re-acquainted themselves with a work ethic. Pleasing, because the reason that I locked myself out was because I was busy walking down Tonbridge High Street with no visible means of support. So far, I have been only managing this indoors and on even ground. I made it. And I bought a custard slice, by way of reward. If I continue to do this, my expanding waistline will provide an increasing level of difficulty to my physiotherapy, thus speeding my recovery. It is surely ‘win, win’.

Custard slices notwithstanding, my physiotherapy has, in fact, reached an exciting stage. I am now attending ‘the gym’. Sadly, this is not the mirrored muscle palace with the steam room and pool in the basement that I always associated with the term gym. There are no tanned young urban professionals toning their thighs in serried ranks. There are no big screens or classes in the latest far-eastern self-improving philosophy. No masseuses. This is the gym at St. George’s hospital. Here you will find a variety of differently coloured balls, two exercise mats, and three electronic fitness aids, all vying for the same power socket. Throw in the odd eccentric patient with suspiciously stained tracksuit bottoms and an annoying tendency to sound superior about how the equipment should be used, and you have quite a venue. Still, it is progress, and you do, quite genuinely, get to work under the watchful eye of the true professionals. Some of whom, incidentally, are tanned young urbanites.

It has been a while since I blogged. In the intervening fortnight, we have been to Birmingham, and been told that a transplant is not a likely option at the moment, both as it would not yet perform the function of a life saving operation, and as William may be ‘contra-indicated’ anyway. I suspect this may run and run. We spent a weekend at William’s hospice. William managed to part company with his gastrostomy tube whilst in Mayday Hospital. And, on a more positive note, he has learnt to tell the time. After a fashion. And I’m not convinced he has the faintest idea of what time actually signifies. His day is still regulated by CBeebies and when he is allowed off his drip to ‘run free’. Meanwhile, I have spent the weeks frantically trying to keep up with the growing panic of my exam sets, singing quite a lot, trying to be of some use to Sarah in my few spare moments, and sleeping. There is no doubt in my mind that I have deserved the odd custard slice.

Running

A week of relative domestic calm after Sarah ran the marathon last weekend. Not only did she manage it in 4.46.59 – best rounded down, I am assured – but she was less stiff the next day than I was, having had to spend all day trotting around London with the kids. Thoroughly impressive/annoying all round. And, despite having spent two hours on Tower Bridge cheering on sweaty runners dressed as bakewell tarts, I am still in the bad books over the whole business, as we managed to miss seeing Sarah, and technical difficulties meant that I didn’t manage to get around to sponsoring her myself. Despite the lack of Brownie points though, I am still very impressed and proud of her. Even though I am still sure she started her running hobby weeks after my accident just to rub things in.

William has been doing some running too. We went for a picnic yesterday in the salubrious setting of South Norwood Country Park. I’m not sure if a patch of grass between Tesco’s, a pair of tram tracks and an athletics stadium truly qualifies as the country, but by South London standards, it does a good job. While we were doing our best to tuck into our cream buns, William was determined to fully explore the mountaineering possibilities afforded by the hillock that passes for South Norwood’s highest point. He was a little confused by the fact that he hasn’t figured out the difference between up and down, but that didn’t stop him toddling as far up the slope as he could get, then hurtling down, entirely out of control, and playing Russian roulette with the smashed glass that littered the path. He was having a wonderful time. “William’s having fun!” he told us. Unfortunately, Daddy had to follow, hobbling desperately down the hill, looking for all the world like a confused entrant to a three legged race. The William/Daddy combination must cut a fairly impressive dash these days.

This is going to be an important week for William. It throws my own growing relationship with the orthopaedics community of South London into some sort of relief when you are invited to Birmingham children’s hospital to discuss the possibilities of an intestinal transplant for your son. These are extremely rare, and extremely dangerous operations. I’m not sure it will be right for the boy, as we are yet to be told why it might work. I think a degree of scepticism is essential though, as there is nothing more dangerous than imagining that a huge operation is the way forward, simply because it is something that can be done. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons for this Friday’s meeting. It is going to be a very nervous trip down the M40.

At least we should be able to make the trip with me at the steering wheel. My hand is getting better very quickly, I am pleased to report, and two Velcro straps on my fingers are now the only visible sign of the mishap. It looks entirely likely that I will have had the time to break my hand and make a complete recovery in the space between two routine appointments for my leg. It tells you something when you attend a ‘hand therapy’ session, and find your therapists crowded around an x-ray of your leg, making impressed noises. There are still a few things that I can’t do with my hand, though. As one of these things is the washing up, I am actually quite disposed to enjoying this injury. However, as I had to point out to a trainee therapist who was busy ticking the relevant boxes on a form describing my hand injury, just because I meant to hit the furniture, does not mean that it was an example of ‘deliberate self-harm’. Unless, of course, the DSH box stood for ‘deliberate sofa harm’. I’m guessing it didn’t.