My flat is a tip. I am wading through teetering piles of paper, mostly study notes, bills and election leaflets. I ran out of hoover bags about..err…1998 actually and the dog has shed me a new carpet. There is stuff congealed on the cooker that seems to be sprouting tentacles and the fridge won’t open in embarrassment.

And it’s a bank holiday which means we woke to lashing rain and howling winds.

By midday the sun has made an effort and although there is no difference to the temperature, outside looks less arctic. Apart from that wind……As I watch a pigeon is blown backwards across the garden with a slightly baffled look on its face. I suit up for a brisk, bracing walk pulling on long johns, a big cardigan, extra socks and a rain coat and square my shoulders bravely harnessing up Grace but outside I am hit across the face by icy sodden blasts and my resolve dissolves. I whimper. Grace looks at me with disgust but I am defeated and retreat back into the warmth of the living room with its towering piles of detritus. Perhaps I could set fire to some for extra warmth?

Dad skypes from Lusaka and we have the ‘Zambia’ skype conversation

‘….Can you see me?..’

‘Yes..no ..now I can..’

‘….. I’ve lost connection…Can you hear me?’

‘Yes..no …now and now and…oops lost video..can you see me? ‘

Repeat to fade.

He is heading to Pretoria for his treatment next week which is both exciting and terrifying. Six weeks of tenter-hooks for us and tender bits for him. With the World Cup kicking off flights to visit him are exorbitant and impossible so I am going to check on the costs of sending myself by registered post.

We, Grace and I, are up to Bath again tomorrow and so with rather a lot of reading and marking up to be done I can see that the spring cleaning isn’t going to happen today. Perhaps when the sun comes out for real and the birds (and the pigs) start flying the right way round.

(I have to say so myself but isn’t this the greatest photo of the hound to date!! )

‘This Dog Has My Heart’ (c) T.Bush 2010

Is it me or is it a little creepy that for the last four days here in UK all news has been head-lining the kidnap and release of the little five year old lad in Pakistan? It is a two day story at most and surely doesn’t lead over the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian talks, the near extinction of the tuna fish or Beckham’s Achilles heel? I just don’t get it and immediately suspect massive conspiracy and cover up…

Well, I am grumpy.

I have a cold.

Its the kind of cold that blocks one and a half of your ears when you blow your nose making you list to one side usually into other people walking along the pavement. Its the kind of rubbish cold that threatens the imagination with flu and strep throat and bronchitis but only ever really produces phlegm. It hope it will sod off and I will wake up tomorrow fresh and without the puffy and unformed face of semi sucked jelly baby but now I worry that is just the state of my face

Anyway, its one of those things right. Like spending a small fortune on bird food then dropping a 6 litre bag of premium bird seed on the kitchen floor mid sneeze and managing to kick half of it under the fridge whilst skidding around trying to keep upright.
My, how we laughed.

That was until I tipped a plateful of warm melted butter into my lap trying to eat fish one handed whilst playing catch with the dog. I know, I know…I really do need to find a responsible adult to be on call at all times….

And talking of that I did get to spend a few days with my Mum who popped over from France. She flew into Bristol, spent a couple for days with me in the vicarage and trained with me back to Cambridge. It was lovely to see her and not really long enough but she left me with a new cafeteria, a bunch of sweet narcissus and some excellent new cleaning products – which given the buttery fish stains on the carpet, was the perfect present.

Today I also had a most interesting trip to another hospital,, where (unlike the last place I wrote about hiss boooo) the staff seem to genuinely be quite interested in the patients. I was so taken aback when the doctor actually introduced himself and offered to shake my hand I nearly fell off my seat.

I was there to have an interview about sleeplessness and sight loss and I have agreed to go back to their sleep laboratory in a few weeks time where they are going to wire me up to a load of machines that go ‘beep’. . I can’t believe they will find anything exciting and I have already apologised for wasting their time but they all seemed terrifically eager. And it might be quite good fun; a night out with someone else cooking and half a dozen people analyzing your snoring.

image from internet
‘I’m afraid you can’t bring your dog though,’ The doc looks apologetically at Grace.

‘ I’ll break it to her gently,’ I say.

Back in the full waiting room the woman behind the reception desk waves wildly in my direction and then in a stage whisper hisses; ‘As you can’t bring you dog, will you require any,,,,’ ( here she makes large circles around her eyes and head for emphasis) ‘,,,,Special Treatment?’

The room goes quiet.

‘Yes’ I say ‘I’d like everyone to be exceptionally nice to me.’

The receptionist nearly falls off her seat with giggles and I get a spattering of applause from the rest of the waiting room.

Sometimes the old lines are the best….

I know, I know and I do apologise…I have not blogged since before Christmas It seems odd to now ensconced in 2010. 2010. It’s not the sci-fi world I had quite imagined back in the late ‘70’s. Where on earth is my plasma gun?

‘Dad’ (c) T.Bush Dec 09
And so folks…I best fill you in.
Zambia was both wonderful and at times very difficult. On a positive note Dad’s condition got a little better for a while and by the time my younger sister arrived for Xmas he was up for cooking in the evening and enjoying visitors. My sister arrived anxious about the trip and feeling a little as if she were carrying her past on her back like a rucksack of paper cuts and although we did much together to dull some of those tiny little knives it was still sometimes hard for her to cope with all the changes in both Dad and the Lusaka she had last seen over 6 years previously. But she held her own and her last evening was a revelatory riot of fabulous stories from her time working in the Zambian bush and the local zoo.

Zoe on the hill’ (c) T.Bush Dec 09
It was also good to have a sister-in-arms for a while against some of the bullying we had to put up with from my father’s partner. Although my Dad has been with her for nearly 12 years and although I know she can be a kind and thoughtful person, her jealousy and insecurity about his children still exceeds her sense by a very great deal. (Saying she is difficult is like saying Dick Cheney is not really a ‘people’ person, or that Bill Gates has spare change or Tiger Woods has got balls. Sorry.. ‘had’ balls. It is a tad of an understatement.)

But I don’t want to dwell on that stuff because I was there for Dad and I got to be with him every day over the five weeks. It was great to see him feeling strong enough to go out for a meal and to cook salt beef again, to sit calmly next to him when he was hyped up on steroids and listen to the opera ‘Leonora’ at full blast (or as I call it ‘steroid-sound’,) to sit chatting with my sister, Dad and great friends and food on a cool porch in the New Year.
‘SJ’s Porch’ (c) T.Bush Jan 10

There was my beautiful friend’s 40th birthday party and more weight training with my dear buddy EM and that wonderful bright gold light that flooded into my bedroom at 6am every morning. (Sometimes not the most soothing thing for a hangover..) ‘Tash and Me’ (c) T.Bush Jan10

But time ticked on and I had to go.

At the airport in Lusaka at 6.30am on a Thursday morning, Dad and I said goodbye and for a moment I felt just like the 10 year old kid going back to boarding school. I wondered if I would throw up on my shoes.
‘I love you Dad,’ I said and walked into the trolley in front of me. From behind the barrier Dad looked anxious and pale, sweat beading his forehead, leaning on his cane. I tried to pull myself together and gave him a grin. It must have looked ghastly but vaguely convincing. He nodded and turned away and I staggered through customs to the boarding queue.
I finally sucked up the last drops of glittering hot African light from the runway and holding them deep in my lungs ducked into the dark cabin and was immediately waved into what the cabin steward called ‘the naughty corner.’
‘Give us a moment love,’ he said winking ‘You’ve been upgraded.’
Imagine!
That same steward drip fed me Kir Royales and delicious nosh until I could no longer figure out what buttons on the sleeping chairs did what and passed out happily.
There there was several hours on a creaking coach through the night

and there I was..

in Cambridge,

in my flat, iron cold, dark and empty.

‘Shit,’.’ I thought, sat on the edge of the bed, still clutching my wash kit from Buisness Class and feeling my tan ebbing.. Even the duvet felt damp with cold. Sometimes lonliness makes mincemeat of us.

Grace arrived a few days later thank goodness. Due to inclement weather and a few other problems there was no chance for her to do refresher training before she arrived. For five weeks she has been ‘just a dog’ competing for food, toys and love with three or four other dogs, two horses and a bunch of chickens. She charged around my small flat then sat down, head cocked and looked at me with both love and confusion.

‘How do I reboot her?’ I asked the trainer nervously scanning Grace’s tummy for red buttons. As it turns out it was me who needed rebooting. My brain was so full of Zambia, so higgledy piggledy with emotion I had forgotten even the simplest commands. Grace however although slightly shell shocked has seemed more than happy to reassume work. She took me twice to London last week …but that’s another story and I’m sure you have things to do and other blogs to read so I’ll let you go. More soon I promise! Grace back at work. (c) Tim Jan 10