Present sounds: past emotion

I am now firmly plugged back into BBC Radio.  Like The Guardian, I can only do without it for the length of a short summer holiday.  No longer.

It is odd to consider that the whole concept of ‘going on holiday’ has changed utterly in my lifetime.

My first foreign holiday at the age of 7, was with my mother and father and my uncle and aunt.  We went by bus, train, train, boat, train, coach, train, train, coach, coach (taking well over a day) to Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava in Catalonia.  I loved it.  I spent the majority of my time in the sea, trying out my new swimming mask and losing one of my new flippers.  I ate my first squid. 

And I realise that as a well-behaved and utterly polite child with four grateful adults, I must have been spoiled rotten!  Perhaps that holiday more than anything, ingrained in me a love of sunshine that has lasted up to today – though ‘today’ is not the best advert for Catalonia as it has been raining solidly for the last two days!  That is, to be fair, unusual.

We spent 15 days on holiday and during that time we didn’t have any British newspapers, we didn’t phone home, we didn’t watch television – except for me to see, with wonder, Bonanza in Spanish, that I found endlessly funny!  We were, in effect, cut off from home – and thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I was old enough to go on holiday by myself, then all my parents expected was the odd postcard letting the know that I was still alive at that point in my vacation.  My only attempts to phone home were total disasters that ended up in my feeding public phone boxes with money for no link to Cardiff. 

Three weeks going down the Greek Islands from Athens to Crete and staying in what could euphemistically be called ‘basic’ accommodation; five weeks travelling across the United States; a couple of weeks in Italy – none of these had me phoning home, nor reading a newspaper, nor listening to the BBC. 

My holiday effectively erected a cordon sanitaire around my previous life that was only broken through when I came back to Heathrow, or Luton, or Paddington and made the phone call home.  While the ring tone sounded I mentally wiped out all my family and waited, with a concern that I had not (oddly) felt for the previous weeks of the holiday, for my mother or father to answer.  And then my first question was inevitably how my other parent was!

My next task was to catch up on the world news that sunbathing or scouring galleries or swimming had allowed to pass me by.  And, as I did so, each day would bring in the post cards that I had posted weeks before!

Nowadays, thanks to the mobile phone, kids are never beyond their parents.  Pictures can be sent immediately.  Keeping in touch costs nothing, no matter where you are in the world.  News is a click away.  Google Translate is there for those tricky moments that used to be solved by a combination of mime and use of any foreign words you might have known said in an accent appropriate to the country in which you were stuck!

It is deeply ironic that “getting away from it all” usually involves sharing with everyone you know exactly where you are and exactly what you are doing moment by moment!

Young (and indeed the old) are all linked in to modes of instant communication that will make the 3 week hiatus of my first backpacking Greek holiday as a situation akin to travelling with maps that had areas marked “Here there be dragons” on them.  Communication is good, but sometimes-enforced separation is good for the soul!

These thoughts came to me when listening to my new Internet radio, a Sangean SIR-100 (that looks suspiciously, exactly like a Roberts Stream 107 that it is replacing) and, having worked out how to use the pre-sets enjoying the morning music programme on Radio 3.  They played the second movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony with The Tune.  Beautiful.  Hackneyed?  Well, it is very well known and the sort of thing that Classic FM plays at least twice a day – but I wondered when the last time I had heard it was, and then, by progression on to the first time I heard it.

Music for me carries a personal history.  I can still remember the LP covers of the Music for Pleasure and Classics for Pleasure 

budget LP manufacturers when records could be bought for ten bob (10/- or 50p) and I was getting to know the Classical Canon.  Some music I recorded, Beethoven’s 1^st and 8^th Symphonies on cassette in my (ground breaking at the time) Philips portable cassette recorder.  Hearing the music takes me back to my bedroom in 32, Hatherleigh Road in Cardiff where they were first recorded and listened to, amazed at what sort of sound could be got out of such a small loudspeaker and even more amazed when played through my Boots Stereo Record Player.  But the tape hiss and the slightly cramped sound still stays with me.

Mahler’s 4^th is bottles; Nielsen’s Helios Overture is corn fields; Beethoven’s 5^th is a Constable painting; Immortal Melodies is a large flower bloom; Sibelius’ 1^st is broken snow mounds; Britten is Aldeborough; the 1812 is that graphic cannon – and so I could go on, remembering the cover art of my LP collection (now long gone in favour of CDs) but forever imprinted on my mind, and having some sort of intangible effect on the way that I heard the music and continue to hear it.

Place is also important.  The quickest way to learn new music is to play it.  As an inept trombone playing member of Cardiff Youth Orchestras as well as a member of a various Brass Groups and the School Orchestra I ‘learned’ a lot of music by being there.  I have to admit that in most orchestral pieces the trombones are usually tacet (i.e. being silent) and much of our time is taken up with counting bars (or asking the members of the orchestra in front who play more to give us a nod when ‘figure E’ has been reached in the score) and then lurching into action hoping that the embouchure was still good enough to get most of the notes!  But you did learn music and appreciate the structure of orchestral sound.

For trombone players the best pieces of music (or the most threatening) were when We Had the Tune.  The overture to Tannhäuser is an excellent example where the trombones come into their all, though the first time we played through this piece the awful realization that we were the only ones playing in the orchestra brought us all to an abrupt embarrassed silence!  I still get a little rush of combined panic and pleasure each time I hear the music!

All music, no matter how hackneyed it might appear to be, is new and original to somebody who has never heard it.  I was played the 4^th movement of Beethoven’s 7^th Symphony by my piano teacher in the days when it was still thought that I might be able to do more than the first few bars of Für Elise on the damn thing.  I was much taken by the music and bought a cheap LP of the symphony and when I listened to it, I was stunned by the second movement: simple repetitive and magical!  I was not at all surprised to discover that this movement was given an encore on its first performance!  My listening to the symphony is always in some ways bound up in my abortive attempt to master the piano, together with the patience and feel of the piano in my music teachers dining room in a house exactly like my own home but made so different by the decoration and the smell and feel.

There are also parts of well-known musical pieces that have associations.  The BBC National Orchestra of Wales has given me many and varied delights and I used to go to the concert series in St David’s Hall when I lived in Cardiff where some of the performances were among the best I have ever been to of the pieces played.  The orchestra that one hears today is a development from other variations on a National Orchestra that have been tried in the past.  I can remember as a school boy going to performances in the Assembly Rooms of the City Hall, other performances in Broadcasting House in Llandaff and yet others in the Coal Exchange in Mount Stuart Square.

One early performance stands out.  It was of Beethoven’s 3^rd The Eroica and the part that particularly stays with me is the horn’s solo.  The symphony was taken at a lively pace until the entry of the horns when everything slowed down for them to try and get the notes, then the music returned al tempo for the rest of the orchestra.  I still can remember my exquisite embarrassment for the horn section and my relief when such an exposed passage was over.  I still feel some of the tension whenever I hear that particular section.  Still.

Lest this memory be the abiding one from this piece, I should mention a couple of performances of the Turangalîla Symphony by Olivier Messiaen that I heard in St David’s Hall.  These were played spectacularly well and left me literally open mouthed in astonishment and musing about how far the orchestra had come in terms of sheer technical accomplishment. 

And, after all, I have an abiding debt to the orchestra from the time when I went to a performance of The Firebird that I had never heard before.  I was sitting in the middle of the audience and when the fff chord introducing a piece was played the entire audience jerked back in their chairs.  That sort of thing spoils you for every other performance because not one of them, on record or live, has had the same effect!

But, as always, I live in hope!

Cold and weight!

Today is cold.  Not British cold, but cold for us here in Catalonia.  And I begin to wonder if my medication (Clexane twice a day via injection for ‘thinning’ the blood) has anything to do with my heightened perception of temperature.  For the first time in my life, my feet are often cold when I go to bed.  I do realise that this is a fairly common occurrence for many people, but it hasn’t been for me.  The comparison between hot water bottles and me has often been made by those who are near and dear to me, so not to retain the calorific qualities of yesteryear (or indeed yestermonth) is something new to cope with.

Today, Sunday is weigh day, when the weekly ritual of standing on the cruel machine that gives our weight is duly noted.  Bear in mind that my diet is now a low fat and no salt one.  I eat chicken, turkey and fish.  I garnish the meat with pulses and green vegetables.  I do not drink alcohol.  I have one cup of tea a day.  I drink water.  I am, as is clear, a good boy.  And if I have a tendency to deviate from the strictness of my regime then I have a pair of eagle eyes watching me and articulating prohibitions before my backsliding becomes reality!  In other words, the weight should be slipping effortlessly from my frame.  Admittedly I am sedentary – not by choice, I might add.  But still 

So it was with a certain degree of light confidence that I stepped onto the scales and found that I had indeed lost weight.  600 measly grams!  A little more than a large bar of chocolate – a cruel comparison, and I can assure you that chocolate has gone the same way as the occasional small glass of red!

I tell myself that I must take comfort from the fact that the trend is still downwards.  I have lost 6 kilos in total and it is inevitable that weight loss will slow down after the initial confidence boosting loss of the first couple of weeks.  But, 600g!  The compensation is that we have never eaten so healthily in our lives – at least not over such an extended period.  Admittedly eight days of appropriate diet was enforced on me from being in hospital, but we have been fairly rigorous in our application of the suggestions for a suitable diet for my condition.

It is a sobering thought to think that I am still between 15 and 20 kilos away from what might be my ideal weight, so, if weight loss continues to slow down then I am looking at the best part of a year to get to the weight that matches my height.  In some ways, it is better to think of this ‘project’ as something as long term.  If I think of reaching my goal in February 2019, then that length of time will allow for the odd week when the trend is bucked, and, more importantly it will allow for placidity as the weight loss is thought of over the longer time span.

I have read through the working drafts of my first ‘Hospital’ poems for inclusion in the chapbook that I intend to publish about my experience, and I am reasonably satisfied with the progress I have made so far.  With any luck, I will work up my notes for another poem today into a working draft and begin to think in more detail about the form that the chapbook will take.  I am inclined to make this chapbook into a prose/poetry production, but I have not yet worked out the practicalities.

There is also the production of my next book, The eloquence of broken things, which is now severely delayed, and I have to admit that my hospitalisation and period of recuperation have not helped.  Its initial publication was for the autumn of last year, but that date has been put back through production problems.  But that is something that I am working on and I hope that the draft of the book will be ready for the printers in the next month or so!

Don’t forget you can read my previous poem drafts at:

http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es

Now, to work.

A taste of things to come!

My taste buds are adapting.

At least I’m telling myself that, and I am, in part believing it.  All of this is a direct result of my having to have a diet of low fat with no salt.  And believe me, pepper is no real alternative to the lack of sodium chloride, no matter how much I add to my flavourless food.  And yet, I persist in telling myself that my taste buds have become more sensitive and are able to take what pleasure they can in the rather more subtle flavours that saltless preparation offers.

This evening, for example, I had salmon with broccoli and I enjoyed it.  A sprinkle of salt would have improved it, but I resisted and made the most of what my taste buds could get from the food, that in the event was quite a lot.

I am going to have to look into the range of spices that I can add to food that do not have a negative influence on my condition (thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and weakened heart) and can make the eating experience a little more exciting.  When I asked the doctor how long my present diet would last, his answer was, “For ever!” which makes the finding of ‘safe’ condiments something of urgent necessity!

Today, I have got down to the graft of getting something like a working draft of some of the poems that I have been planning out put down on paper.  I have four poems now in a working draft and I count that as something of an achievement.

It may just be the way that I work but I find that getting to the working draft stage of my poems is not sitting down and waiting for some mythical muse to touch my brow with inspiration, but rather hard work.  The slog of writing out notes, working them up into phrases or ideas and then trying again and again to put all that together into something that is satisfying.  At least to me.

I have not put any of my new poems on my poetry blog, but you are welcome to see past drafts of my other poems at:

http://smrnewpoems.blogspot.com.es

The ‘problem’ of how to fill a day being confined to my seat for the bulk of my waking hours, does not exist for me.  As someone who delights to read, being forced to be sedentary and do something is an invitation to do the thing that I like most.  I now have the (enforced) leisure to read The Guardian thoroughly – though I am not sure how efficacious reading so much factual description of the idiocy of various countries’ leaders around the world, does not make for tranquillity.

The idiocy of Brexit and the glaring ineptitude of a hopelessly riven political apology of a party failing to articulate a reasonable response to it are constantly frustrating.  We still don’t know what exactly May is trying to negotiate for and the reports of her asking Merkle to “Make me an offer!” is cringemakingly embarrassing and terminally humiliating.

Trump, meanwhile, in the publishing of the shameless piece of political chicanery in the publication of the partisan Republican “Nunes Memo” shows that he is prepared to trash anyone and anything to protect himself.  This is a time when American Institutions are being pushed to their limits to contain a person who has no regard for anything other than himself.  He is of course aided and abetted by a Republican Party of such low moral imperatives that they are as much a threat to Democratic Institutions as the monster in the White House.

And Catalonia is in a bad place at the moment.  We still have no President and the PP is using the courts to muddy the waters.  Things should clarify in the next few weeks, but I find it difficult to see a realistic solution if the obtuse President of Spain refuses to be a politician and try and find a negotiated solution to the problems.

It is ironic that at present I am reading Andrew Marr’s History of the World that covers 70,000 years of human history.  The irony is that the problems that we see in the present are covered again and again in the sweep of the historical view that Marr offers in his eminently readable book.  Perhaps his book should be compulsory reading for the leaders in the world and perhaps they might see themselves and, more importantly see where actions like theirs have ended up the populations that they are supposed to serve!

Of course there is no way on earth that a person of the calibre of Trump could be encouraged to concentrate for long enough to read a multi-hundred page book.  Has he ever read a book of over a hundred pages?  I know he is supposed to have written a book, but I don’t think any reasonable person actually believes that particular fiction, not even the grandiose fool himself.

Still, I tell myself that worrying overmuch about world events that I cannot influence is not good for my health.  But not knowing about them is even worse – the Catch 22 position for anyone interested in politics!

The Doctor Calls

My daily cup of Earl Grey and my morning injection over, I have the rest of the day to consider and plan.

I have found that, much like my time in hospital, meals now occupy much of my thought and structure my day.  Toni is discovering new skills as he produces the low fat and salt-free meals that I am supposed to eat, and I have to say that he is showing surprising aptitude in producing tasty food that I wolf down with alacrity.

Although I am eating healthily, my enforced lack of exercise does not allow my body to take full advantage of the calorie denial that it is going through.  I am hoping that, after another week, my ability to go for short walks will add at least some exercise to my sedentary existence at the moment and encourage my weight loss.

Perhaps the most significant event today will be A Visit By The Doctor.  The capitalisation is essential in this day and age when such a thing is not exactly the norm.  I seem to remember when a child and going through the usual round of illnesses that a doctor’s visit was a sort of physical affirmation of the medical rites of passage as measles and mumps and the like were ticked off the list!

I have made a list of questions for the doctor.  This approach is a direct result of my mother’s experience when she was ill.  She found that the Bedside Manner that some doctors had precluded significant questions and at the end of her time with them, she was able to recollect later that important points had not been covered.  Not one to suffer fools gladly (especially when she had been hoodwinked by technique) my mother wrote out what she wanted to know before hand and doggedly stuck to her points (rather than the doctor’s waffle) and sometimes cut through pleasantries to ask the next question!

One head teacher in my experience had the ‘deflection through mutual intellectual conversation’ down to a T, and I recall leaving his office with a smile of satisfaction on my face, but no extra money in the Faculty.  It’s a good trick if you can master it.

Anyway, thrombosis, embolism and dickey heart are not elements that are made better by ‘a smile of satisfaction’ but rather by concrete changes in attitude and life style.  I need to know exactly what I need to do to get back to where I was.  And indeed if it is possible to get there.  I need hard facts or clear details about what has happened to me and how I can change or work with what is going on with my body.

It is easy to feel positive because mine is a no obvious pain condition, but that in itself, is something that can be a false positive.  After the horror stories related to me by the doctor in the hospital of the fatal results of not following the guidelines for recuperation, I am satisfactorily unsettled.  I now need to know how to put that unease to good use so that I can progress to . . . to wherever I am reasonably able to go!  With Toni’s eagle eye watching for any tea-related backsliding, I have the incentive to extend this period of abstinence from my usual caffeine and fat related diet and make a steady improvement.  We shall see.

My poetry progresses slowly and haltingly.  Perhaps one of the reason for this is that, since I have returned from hospital, I have not been writing in my notebook each day.  My notebook is for ‘ideas’ that can be worked on later.  Usually I write in this after my swim and while I am having my cup of tea in the leisure centre café.  The ‘notes’ that I make are usually of a truly banal nature concerning the weather or some trivial details of my daily life, but the point of always keeping a notebook is that sometimes these quotidian remarks develop into something more significant, or, almost in spite of myself, I find a phrase or a sentence that prompts some other writing.

Another element, just at important as the creative, in my notebook is as a jolt or reminder of action that needs to be taken.  Sometimes I have gone as far as to write a signed and dated note to myself, agreeing (with myself) to get something done by a particular date!  Having written it down in a book, it is a constant reminder of those things that, in my case I have not done (and there is no health in me!) – ah, the cadences of the Book of Common Prayer are never too far from my way of expression!  And generally speaking they work, my little aide memoires.  Because when you really want to do what you have not done, all it takes is the slightest hint to actually get it started!

The doctor has called and my conversation with him was both better and worse than I expected.

He said that I can re-join the normal life of my fellow humans at the end of this week, when short walks and drives will be acceptable and I will be able to get out of the house for the first time.  Well, that’s not strictly true as the doctor arrived when Toni was scouring pharmacies to find more of the Clexana injections that I take.  Apparently these are in short supply, though god knows why as they seem to be the bog standard treatment for thinning the blood to treat thrombosis and embolism.

Anyway, the doctor said that they don’t really know why the thrombosis in my right leg formed and they were still studying the blood tests to see if there is anything that might give a clue.  They will also be checking my heart after the extra work that it had to do to cope with the thrombosis as that might be damaged as well.  The course of injections I am taking will last for six or twelve months, maybe longer.  Although there is a chance that I will fully recover, that chance is qualified by what may be found out further.  It may be that the damage to heart and lungs is permanent, but that is taking the most pessimistic view.  Which I, resoundingly, refuse to accept.  At least until further evidence to the contrary is shown.

I also asked about tea.  When I asked the doctor looked at me quizzically and said that I could drink tea.  I then pressed him by asking how many cups of tea I could drink.  To which his response was, “What sort of question is that?” to which I replied, “Yours is one only a foreigner would ask!”  At least he laughed and said, “I’m not going to worry about a cup of dirty water!”  Dirty water!  Only a lesser breed without the law would refer to Earl Grey as dirty water!

So, although I am going to be able to do the simple things in life a little earlier than I expected, the long-term problems are still to be discovered.  For example, when I asked about my present low far/no salt diet and how long it would last, the reply was, “For ever!”  Ah well!

My next doctor’s appointment is in three weeks time and then in March I have two tests back in the hospital to see what progress, if any, has been made.

At least I will be able to drive myself there!  I hope!