Always look
on the bright side of life…!
Some people are known for their optimistic outlook on
life. They greet people with cheery smiles and speak in an uplifting tone,
always seeing the positive side of life’s vicissitudes – and I don’t mean like patronizing
children’s TV presenters, who make you
feel bad about feeling bad. Nor do I mean those tedious types who see
themselves as life-and-soul party-animals.
And I certainly don’t mean those utter arses who tell
you to ‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen’. They’ll be third against the
wall when the revolution comes [just behind people who make a horrible noise
when they eat and people who say 'If you're making one' as an answer to 'Do you want a cup of tea?']
No, I’m referring to those people who have naturally
sunny dispositions and who are genuinely interested in other people. Those
lovely people like my friends, Jude and Carole, who always try to look on the
bright side and make you glad to be in their company. Some people just have
sunshine in their veins.
Sadly, I’m not one of them myself.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s a lot to be said for
grumpy folk. Grumpiness is something you imbibe with your mother’s milk, when
you’re brought up in Yorkshire. It's a
psychological defence mechanism. The logic, I suppose, is that f you expect the worst, then you’re more
likely to be happily surprised when things go well. But it also means that, in
order to protect yourself, you end up being more miserable than you need to be.
The pathways in your brain become sinister winding paths through lonely,
overgrown woodland at midnight. You find that you can’t always recognize the bright side, even when
it’s smacking you round the head and screaming down your ear-hole.
So, I’m trying to rearrange my mental pathways. I’m
trying to view things positively, make the best of things, count my blessings
and other such cliches. I’m starting by applying this optimistic attitude to my
account of recent events [below].
Clot
A fortnight ago, I had the opportunity to experience
Barnsley Hospital for only the second time in my life. Having developed a pain
in my right calf and shin [which gave me a good excuse to sit down with my legs
up and watch TV – see, I’m being positive!] - and, considering I had
experienced bad cramp in that calf muscle on a recent walk [which shortened the
walk and therefore gave us more time for the post-walk pub visit – I’m getting
the hang of this!], I became alarmed when I developed an extensive
red rash, with mild swelling which was warm to the touch [thereby providing a
means of warming up my arthritic fingers…no, I’ve lost it…]. So I did what everyone
does these days under such conditions – I looked up the symptoms on the
internet.
Oh, the joy of the wonderful internet! We are so lucky
to be alive these days, when we have constant access, at the touch of a screen,
to all the information we’re ever likely to need and much we’d rather do
without. Had it not been for Google, I might never have known that my rash and
pain was probably cellulitis, and that I should definitely see my GP
immediately as it could be serious, even life-threatening, if left untreated.
I made an appointment at my GP surgery and was pleasantly
surprised to discover that phoning them before dawn did actually get me an
appointment for later that same day. I also had the pleasure of listening to a
medley of classical favourites played on the pan-pipes for forty-six minutes,
entirely free of charge. We are so lucky to have the NHS.
The
GP examined both my legs [I was mortified to realize I hadn’t shaved them – but
I didn’t think shaving an angry red rash was a great idea, and anyway why
should women be expected to shave off perfectly natural body hair? – No, no, I
can feel a rant coming on and I’m supposed to be avoiding them. Calm, calm…]
"Wow! I thought you'd stuffed a ferret down your trouser leg, Mrs Wilford"
The doctor thought I had an infection, probably
phlebitis, and prescribed me Flucloxacillin, which was great fun learning how
to pronounce, but he also thought I might have a DVT [deep-vein thrombosis] and
therefore I needed to go to the hospital for a scan. [How wonderful it is to have a doctor who takes a
precautionary attitude and doesn’t just tell you to take Ibuprofen and lose
weight].
I didn’t actually think I had a blood-clot as I
thought the pain would be much worse if I had, but I felt I had to go to the
hospital just in case. They couldn’t get me an appointment until the following
morning, so I was given a blood-thinning pill to take that evening, and, the
next day, a Saturday, P and I drove to Barnsley Hospital. [I had nothing better to do on this Saturday morning than mark exam scripts and moan about the heat and my hay fever, so it was a day out really].
The staff in the hospital were lovely – friendly, kind
and competent. It
was friendlier and more cheerful than most social events I’ve been to. And even though my leg seized up in the waiting room so that I had to hobble into the examining room as if I'd put my legs on the wrong way round, at least it gave the other patients a laugh.
And the blood-thinner helped when the nurse turned up
to take an armful of my blood.
The place itself looked shabby and a bit grim,
however. The tiny waiting room was far too warm [one man was fast asleep
wearing a hi-viz jacket and a seriously pissed-off expression, as if he’d just come off the night shift] and was full
of patients who looked like 1960s northern stereotypes – an unsmiling elderly
woman with a steel-grey helmet hair-do and glasses that looked like the bottoms of fizzy pop bottles, wearing what looked like a charity shop coat - a skinny grandad in a wheelchair drinking a bottle of Locozade, his carer, a younger woman wearing a cleaner's overall - a young bloke who looked like he’d never moved at faster than a brisk walk in his life but always wore a track suit just in case he was unexpectedly called upon to stand in for someone in The Great North Run.
Yes, I know - people
aren’t at their best at such times and in such places, and I’m not judging
them. Let's face it, I hadn't shaved my legs since my wedding in 2021. It just reminded me of my childhood when every adult I knew had that look
of being under-nourished and worn down by life. Still, it’s a sign that life
has improved since the seventies and early eighties, and these days those
exhausted people are mostly confined to hospitals, mostly on the nurse's station.
Anyway, it seems the hospital agreed with me that I didn’t have a
blood-clot after all. So they didn't scan me [which was actually a bit disappointing as I was looking forward to the vascular doppler ultrasound scan I'd been promised!]. The blood tests also showed ‘no inflammatory markers of
the sort we would expect from a DVT’. Nevertheless, I do now have a valid reason to try
out those sexy compression-stockings all the girls are talking about…!
Party
P and I went to London a couple of weekends ago to
attend our friend Donna’s 60th birthday party at a pub in Bellingham. We decided to stay a couple of nights in Greenwich, where we lived for
eight years in the 1990s. Unfortunately, I booked the Novotel for Thursday and
Friday, instead of Friday and Saturday as I intended, because I'm a gormless idiot. It was a No Cancellation
booking and we couldn’t actually travel on Thursday due to a prior engagement, so it became just one night in
Greenwich. We actually got there so late that we had to go straight to the
party and even then we arrived an hour after it started. I was still putting my lippy on in the taxi. [To give this it’s
optimistic spin, the stress of pre-party Friday made the day exciting and we
both slept well afterwards!]
The party was lovely and Donna said afterwards that
she had a great time. We had a lovely few hours with her in Greenwich Park on
Sunday morning.
Donna and P at her Sixtieth Birthday Party
The thunderstorm that suddenly burst upon us
while we were taking a break in the Moto services at Sawtry, shorting the
electricity and plunging me into utter blackness just as I was about to make
use of the toilet facilities, added to the excitement of the weekend. There was
so much rain as we ran the hundred yards to our car that we both looked and
felt like we’d been pushed into a river and left to drown.
We enjoyed the stop at Moto Services. We were given
free pastries from Pret-a-Manger as the young man serving mysteriously told us he was
about to shut up shop and they'd just be thrown out. However, an hour later, he was still serving. Or maybe we just
imagined he was – and hallucinated the thunderstorm – due to the illegal drugs
he sprinkled on the pastries before he handed them over.
Other bits of Mrs Brightside
I do some examining for A Level and GCSE most summers. It does
take up a lot of time, but on the bright side it gives me a good excuse to
spend June and a lot of July indoors with the windows and the curtains shut. I have terrible
hay fever but no one in my family seems to see this as a reasonable excuse for staying
inside - ‘I have work to do’ is much more acceptable as an excuse for living like a summer vampire than ‘I have hay fever’.
To be honest, I’d much rather be wearing pyjamas, marking
exam scripts at my laptop, with the fan on, a glass of iced water to hand and P nearby in case I need a grape peeling, than pretending I’m enjoying someone’s barbeque with my
puffed up eyes running as if I’ve just watched Bambi, my nose exuding snot like a hagfish while also being simultaneously blocked
up, my throat itching and my head pounding.
The hot weather does make you feel sleepy,
though, doesn’t it? I fell asleep on the settee the other day while watching
Netflix – I was only watching TV while I ate my breakfast, so I hadn’t
been up long. You'd think I could manage to avoid waking up with my face in my scrambled egg, considering I'd only been up an hour, wouldn't you?
As a result, I missed my dental appointment and couldn’t book
another until November. Looking on the optimistic side, though, this meant I
missed my dental appointment and couldn’t book another until November…
******
