The up side about doing a PhD is:
Phone In Freak Shows on the BBC.
Dear All – Dad has taken a bad turn and I will be flying over to be with him at the weekend. I don’t want to write about it this time. Instead I have distracted myself by doing a piece on the BBC Late night radio show I ended up doing a cameo on. T x Disclaimer: This is my recollection of the show last Friday. It is written without recourse to transcripts or copies and has been flamboyantly reworked. […]
Drip Feeding in February
It’s a funny thing but this time last week I was in South Africa in Pretoria East Hospital sitting with my Dad who was attached to a remarkably noisy array of machines some of which blinked, some gurgled and some which went ‘ding’ like the number 57 bus to Highbury circa 1970. I suppose ‘funny’ isn’t the right word. There is nothing funny about a father who has VERY nearly died from complications arising from serious infection and multiple myeloma […]
Fear and Loathing in London
It hadn’t started particularly well. I had put my hair up in a Chinese style chignon but it was TOOO tight and although I looked hugely perky it was because I couldn’t really shut my eyes. Due to that (and also the fact that with visual impairment like mine I can’t always do the blink reflex in time) I then managed to stick the thick wool collar of my coat into my eyeball as I was getting ready to catch […]
Canary in the Coalmine
It is a gorgeous day… …for a protest march. High blue hanging tapestry of sky with crisp, cold air just enough to make your breath mist as you shout obscenities at the government. Not that we would of course. Most of us haven’t go that much breath to waste, confined as some of us are in wheelchairs or strapped into various bits of engineered exoskeleton, hanging on to guide dog harnesses or canes or friends or a combination thereof. For […]
A French Toast!
Weather has changed and just like that, like the bran dust, the single, sour little cranberry and the oat debris in the bottom of the luxury box of muesli, summer is nearly over. ‘Fleur’ (c) T,Bush 10 I escape to France for a few days to see Mum and to raid her library on African flora and fauna as I have decided that the heroine in my Zambian thriller is able to survive on the streets of Lusaka by sourcing […]
Packing Up (Lusaka tomorrow)
It is late and I am not packed. I can’t quite seem to get my head straight. I feel fragile, insubstantial..like the spit bubble of a baby, or a moth caught out in rain. I am not anxious or sad just out of time… waiting. image from internet Earlier today I sat in my novel seminar at Bath Spa Uni peering at my group through vision all smoky. Some days my sight makes me feel as if I am […]
Winge on Wednesday
So this is how I look this morning..(apologies..haven’t had enough sleep and scruffy as per usual) and this is how my eyes are actually working this morning. Copable, yes…sure but so frustrating. I have just been to the supermarket to pick up soup stuff and somehow managed to not walk into any screaming children, irate exhausted parents or confused Polish people but now I am knackered and just want to lie down. Its always a battle but no one can […]
Luck of the Irish
I have a sore throat. Its sunny and I have a sore throat. Not only that but I also ache and want to sleep. All the time. And my nose is thinking of running. Sunshine and snot do not, I tell thee, make for a good summer.And- she whimpers – things are not going too well in the old wallet. Today I had to wash my hair with soap and the dregs of a conditioner I found from a left […]
Clotted cream and crab sandwiches
Cambridge last week and Dad and I head over to the car and then he stops short. I look closer too and yes..someone has slashed our tyre. Not just slashed.. Eviscerated. Apparently they didn’t like us parking in front of their house. I can see their net curtains twitching as we struggle with the spanner and the flat, spare tyre and Dad’s knuckles get bloody trying to wind the ridiculous jack. I wonder if I should phone the cops but […]