My front door has developed a groan from the cold. In one of those marvellous twists of fate the groan is identical in every long note to the opening trombone blast of Bob Dylan’s ‘Everybody Must Get Stoned.’ ‘Baohh Baohhhhh!!!’
image from internet I walk into the house behind Grace and every time add in the descending ‘Baow, baow, baow, Before launching into the verse. ‘They’ll stone you when you’re trying to be so good They’ll stone you just like they said they would….’
It is hardly possible to feel the fates are against you when your door is a Dylan fan.
However, having said that, we were quite sorely tried this week. My darling Grace got food poisoning on the commute home from Bath and was exhausted and very stressed for several days. I decided not to travel until she got her mojo back. ‘Sick as a Dog’ (c) T. Bush 09
Then the blokes came on the dot of 8 am (the DOT?! Isn’t it normally between 9 and 5pm?) to put a new sink unit into my kitchen……only ‘someone’ forgot to check the measurements and neither of them could connect up the drain or stuff the washing machine back in. The carpenter scratched his head, then his arse, made a couple of calls, put his tools away..and left. They’ll send a man round,’ he muttered over his shoulder but he didn’t sound convinced. ‘You’re a man,’ I said to his retreating overalls but also without conviction.
That night I cracked my toe into the washing machine sticking half way out into my skinny kitchen and dropped the entire bag of paprika into my supper. I am not Hungarian. the food was wasted.
Tuesday night and Grace and I were floating home after our meditation class and we were nearly run down by a yoof. I shrieked and leapt back dragging poor Grace. He was so close he actually caught my hair as I jumped back. Gasping in shock I glared up at his back. His hood was up, his back relaxed, straight and he didn’t turn around but casually cycled away. A chill went through me as I realised that this boy/man had actually driven at us. Tried to knock us or at very least give us a fright. I didn’t shout at him. I was scared he might come back.
Image from internet
I was anxious that, with my dreadful night vision I had missed something. Perhaps he had tried to warn me? Or perhaps I could have avoided him somehow..read the signs? That is the problem with visual impairment in an emergency. Everything moves to fast for me to scan and especially at night when my vision is almost nil I don’t stand a chance against an idiot like that. I HATE being so vulnerable. I can’t fight what I can’t see. I am not a ninja. (Not yet Bro…not yet..)
(Creepier..There was someone parked across the road. I know this because he had turned his headlights off when Grace and I came to the kerb..but noone got out of the car to help or offer reassurance. I wonder more about that person. I would have got out of the car…wouldn’t you.?) But But Remember my door…I am fine. Grace is now in good form too and in two weeks I shall be with my fabulous Dad in the stonkingly delightful though often remarkably smelly Lusaka. Grace will be on a farm with a bunch of dogs she knows and loves, horses, chickens, geese and a bantam cockerel called Zeb who is more beautiful then Brad Pitt..(and therein possibly one of the reasons why I remain single…chicken lust. Or is that just a too refined appreciation of cocks…sorry..) ‘Photo: Zeb’ (C) T.Bush 09 Anyway, back to the homework and back to Bath at the weekend. More soon and much love to all but that sodding little hoodie…. image from the internet
‘….Well they’ll stone you when you are all alone
They’ll stone you when you are waling home
They’ll stone you and then say they’re all brave
They’ll stone you when they send you to your grave
Last Sunday my journey cost me my entire week’s income support. All of it. There is nothing quite like knowing on the Sunday that the rest of the week is all oozing out of the overdraft. The problem was that there were no trains to Kings Cross and we had to reroute and take taxis across London. By the time Grace and I were squeezed onto the Paddington to Bath train we were dishevelled, disgruntled and the stress had caused my eyes to blur. Grace disappeared under the seat in disgust to hoover up old chewing gum and I squinted at my homework through my magnifier.
The train was full to bursting and within a few minutes there was a queue for the seat next to us. I huffed (very quietly in my best British manner) and took my rucksack off the seat to let in a large man with long shaggy grey hair and wire-rimmed specs. He didn’t mind dogs he said and somehow managed to manoeuvre his legs into the spaces left by Grace. His young son had to sit on his lap. There was just no other room. They were on their way home from a match. I listened for a while as they spoke ‘football’. ‘What was Lampard thinking?’ ‘Rooney got one in…..did you see?’ As happens eventually the man and his son asked about the dog and then – because the magnifier was giving me a cracking headache and I was needing to feel empowered again, to feel worth something, I began to whiter on about how I hadn’t always been this way…blind and alone..…oh no.! Once, darling… I had been in the movies, talking pictures..ahh yes..back in the day…..(sighs, turns diva like to camera, lights cheroot, sips dry martini. ) ‘I wonder if he is impressed,’ I thought knowing full well that he and his son were probably quite happy to keep discussing goal tactics. Refusing to release my captured audience on I went. ‘In Zambia,’ I boasted like some hideous ex-colonial ‘I tried, single handed, to jump start a non-existent film industry… ‘ The man laughs kindly and something about the mannerism is somewhat familiar. A little chill runs down my neck. I peer at him closely. ‘Err … are you in media?’ I ask. ‘Well yes I am,’ says the man. His glasses catch the light and I can’t quite tell his expression. ‘I make my own films and stuff.’ There is a pause. His son is looking at the back of the seat and trying not to grin. ‘Umm.. would I have seen any of your ..’stuff’’? My voice is a little high. ‘Now lets see.’ The man genuinely thinks about this for a second. ‘You may have seen my last release. ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’?’ Turns out I am sitting next to Paul Greengrass . That’s The Paul Greengrass. Two Bourne films and ‘United 93’ among other remarkable and ingenious works. I notice my mouth is open. I shut it.
After a while I manage to open it again and we end up having much banter for the last remaining minutes before they get out at Reading station.
After they have gone I resist the urge to stand up and shout to the other passengers in the carriage, ‘Oy! Did anyone just see that?!’ I nudge Grace but she just chews her gum and turns over.
So after all the delay, the stress, even so, I still feel exuberant and blessed. Of all the trains in all the world I am the woman who gets to have a personal hero from the movie industry and his son spend 15 minutes making me laugh by telling stories of Matt Damon mistakenly hitting someone in the face on set.
I wonder who Grace and I will bump into this week!
(Forgive me readers it’s been 2 weeks since my last blog session. I have recently found out that one of my favourite people in the world is going to have to battle multiple myeloma and it has shaken me up….shaken all of my family up. It goes without saying this is going to affect my writing but I know that the person involved would rather I didn’t go into too much detail right now.)
So I am a packed train from Cambridge to London with the heavy weight of bad news on my back and stiff from several nights without proper sleep when the scary man opposite me starts chatting. He is a pit bull in an expensive leather jacket, a parody of the Mitchell brothers, East End gangster. His voice is low and soft and cockney as Bow Bells. I can faintly make out prison tattoos on every knuckle and a large bird tattoo on the web of skin under his thumb. An military eagle?
He asks me what I do and I say ‘I write.’
His name is Mickey G and he says he has just written a book too. He is a good writer he says then stops. Thinks. ‘My handwriting is very neat,’ he confirms.
He went from care to the Norwegian navy to borstal to prison. Been out for fifteen years now. He writes about the underworld. The REAL underworld.
‘Not those muppets like Mad Frankie Fraser. Wouldn’t know a bare knuckle fight if it kicked his bloody head in…’ Mickey himself was one of the Kray’s henchmen. He has a lot of gripping stories. ‘Gripping’ I look at his huge hands, swallow and nod.
He is searching for a title for his biography. ‘Conviction Without Evidence,’ he growls narrowing his eyes. ‘Or, ‘Nothing To Prove’?
‘Goodness, either sounds really…umm…well ‘dramtic”, I begin weakly. ‘ Aren’t you worried about people getting upset about what you write?’ I ask. ‘Could it be a bit..errr..dangerous?’
Mickey looks faintly amused.
He shows me two bullet scars on his face, one zipping his eyebrow to his ear and the other puckering his cheek. He has a cartoon bite mark taken out of his ear.
As I lean in close to Micky’s face to have a good look, I notice the rest of the crowded carriage has fallen deathly silent. They are all enthralled and aghast at the man talking about his scars to the blind lady. ‘Can’t she see he is a ‘bad man’? ‘
He has knife scars all over his body he is saying but to my relief doesn’t stand up and strip off to show me.
He has, in true gangster tradition just been to visit his old mum in Kings Lynn. She is elderly, losing her sight. Mickey leans over and pats Grace and she grins nervously at me. I nudge her and she wags her tail politely.
As the train pulls in he gives me his number, says he will need a ghostwriter.
‘Plenty of money in the underworld’ he grins wolfishly.
I gurn and bow and grin like Grace, almost wagging my tail but I manage not to promise anything. There is ghost writing and there is becoming a ghost …writing…if you get my drift…
…………………………………………………………………………………..
With the bad news from last week now heavier, sitting on my shoulders with its clammy, bony legs wrapped around my throat I still can’t sleep and my breathing is shallow all day but Grace and I are booked to go to a writers’ retreat with the MA group in darkest Dorset.
Another train.
It turns out to be a beautiful place in the Toller valley next to an organic farm. I can only get cell phone reception by balancing precariously on a cow bridge and am forced to leave the phone in my room and participate and so I do; writing, eating, drinking and laughing..a lot. I find myself not wanting to go to bed but to stay up yakking and giggling around the fire with new friends. The bad news slips half off my shoulders, its grips loosened by red wine and fresh air. Grace on West bay: (c) Tanvir Bush 09
On Saturday Grace sees the sea for the first time and is flabbergasted. She is perturbed then delighted and grins manically for the rest of the weekend. Sand and sea water and the smell of wet dog everywhere. Only a few months ago this would have repulsed me but now I breathe in Grace’s honey stinky scent like Chanel No. 5.
This is my poor mutt at home after our first week at BathSpa University for induction and introductory seminars. I think she is a bit…..err…weary. If I had been a nicer person I would have stolen a baby buggy at Kings Cross, softly popped her in it and pushed her home instead of making her guide me..
Induction..what can I say? A marvellous literal (for me) and literary blur with a requisite tally of confident, young men in glasses and small, glowing, pretty young women in short skirts and biker boots. Others older, cautious, smiling from behind wine glasses, shifting from foot to foot as we orbit slowly around the various beaming lecturers as they hold forth on the course.
There are some lovely people in this crew and obviously some brilliant and talented. They may not be the same people. Life’s like that but I can’t wait to read all of their work!
I did make a couple of serious miscalculations that might well have had me in hospital and it is probably about time I sat myself down and gave myself a good talking to. ‘Tanvir, you are MORE then half blind in daylight and you are COMPLETELY night blind….and I don’t mean cutesy ‘things are a bit washed out’ night blind. I mean ‘bugger if that wasn’t a hippo I just prodded with my cane on the way to the bog’ kind of night blind. ‘ (There are witness to this very comment, that very hippo and the self same bog.)
‘You have to be more careful. You have to think ahead and plan torches and sighted help. Damn your ridiculous pride and recklessness!’
Of course one thinks..ahh..but she has a guide dog. But problem is a guide dog cannot guide in a totally new area without help. She is a dog not a sat nav and neither does she have the light-engulfing pupils of the cat. Plus she is also only 18 months old and fresh out of school but she huffed and puffed and pulled my arm off and still managed to guide me to and from the right seminar rooms after only being shown them once!
We are staying in a remarkably beautiful cottage in a village called Newton St Loe, owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The view from my boudoir dontchaknow!
We are being hosted by the writer and fellow student JA who has been showing us the maze of campus, taking us out to local pubs and generally spoiling us rotten. She has been essential in our reconnaissance and for that we thank her wholeheartedly!
So now we are home for a couple of days with several tonnes of homework (sodding forgot about the homework…hmm) and a bag and half of washing. Wonder what Grace is dreaming about…? I bet it isn’t literary criticism….
There is a tiny woman with nicotine-blonde, over-curly hair in the side-alley ahead of me. She seems unsure of which pavement to go to and is turning around and around on herself in the middle of the road. She spots me over the roof of the parked cars and immediately her small gnarled face lights up. She leaps forward, forcing me to slow and stop then stoops slightly as if bowing.
‘Isn’t the weather lovely?’ she says in a bright rehearsed voice.
I am about to agree with her. The sun is indeed glorious. We’ve been walking happily for hours and sweat is trickling down between my shoulder blades but the woman suddenly notices Grace and sways as if struck. She peers up at me with wide, red-rimmed eyes for a moment and then says with a curt nod. ‘Oh but never mind. You’re blind.’
‘I’m not.’ I retort hotly then sigh feeling like a plonker in my huge dark glasses and sporting a very fashionable guide dog.
‘OK just a bit’ I acquiesce about to launch into a lengthy explanation about the difference between visual impairment and blindness and why even disabled people can enjoy the bloody weather and……. but the strange, sepia lady has spied another couple of pedestrians turning into the alley and immediately, fearless for her life, has leapt back into the road and is stalking them like some bizarre little bouffant mongoose. In the very same bright tone I hear her from behind as she blocks their path
‘Isn’t the weather lovely?’
‘Ah.’ I say to Grace. ‘She’s bonkers.’ Grace looks at me. ‘Well I’m not totally blind..,’ I mutter narrowly missing the lamppost Grace is trying to pull me around. . ‘Hardy at all in good light actually.’ ‘Bonkers is as bonkers does,’ wags Grace’s tail.
It is very still and dark and I am deep beneath my duvet, awake but only just. In the living room I can hear the dog’s medallion tinkle against her collar as she stirs. I hear her clamber out of her bed and shake herself. Next the clicking scratch of her toe nails on the bamboo mat in the little corridor. I can’t see her but I feel her move into the bedroom, sighing in the darkness and after a pause the soggy, well-chewed, soft-toy bunny is shoved lovingly onto the pillow and into my face. Its her way of saying ‘I love ya but I gotta pee’.
Its 5am and I can’t find my clogs.
Its cool outside but without the slightest chill; plumb pigeons stir uneasily in their sleep as they are goosed by wild little eddies of warm wind which whip in and out of the elder trees lining the fence.
Behind me to the East, the dark night has split at the horizon like an overripe fig, purple skin tearing apart to reveal a fragment of soft white, red and pink. Above my head, hanging over the concrete dog-run, is the moon; brim full of reflected light, glistening and so full and heavy to my eyes it bleeds wet, gold, glitter into the surrounding night. It is wonderful; I seem to have come outside into the very place where ancient earth magik is brewing. The monstrous moon reaches out and attempts to grab me by the back of my neck. I hold my breath and am aware Grace too has stopped circling to find the best place in the run to relieve herself. Now she stares upwards, alert, her hackles raised. I don’t think either of us would blink if Aslan leapt over the fence from next-door’s garden or an ancient hobgoblin hissed from the flowerbed.
‘A quest!’ I think, my eleven-year-old child leaping from my chest with the strength of hundred thousand wishes. ‘I am to be given a quest.’
Suddenly a police siren goes off in the distance and Grace yawns loudly, squats and pees. I flinch, duck away from the lunatic moon’s blinding shining and following the steady dog back inside, into the half lit house and am back in my warm bed in under 60 seconds…
The dog’s kennel is not the place to keep a sausage. Danish proverb. I feel stronger. The sun has made a resurgence this week and even if the light is slowly leaching away from each day, this warmth and high, blue sky has been a brief reprise. Friends have reminded me of how winter can be inspiring and cosy; good for long boots and classic clothing. I am soothed. I have a stock pile of scarfs and socks. (Note potential winter hat!)
And there has been good news.
I am finally nearly possibly definitely maybe positive that I shall get a chance to go and do the Creative Writing MA at Bath Spa University. You have NO idea how complicated it has been to even get to the point of ‘fairly’ as opposed to ‘faintly’ possible. It has involved endless phone calls to the Department of Work and Pensions, rather uncomfortable ‘Disabled Student Assessments’ run ins with my bank, tears, tantrums and finally I am green lit. Sort of. Ish. If the local benefits agency decide to refuse me they will let me know about 6 weeks after the term has started. Ho hum. But I am EXCITED and life has purpose once more!
I have to thank my family, especially my Dad and my Mum (and extended family Susan, John, Hattie, Pol, Hannah, blogger pals and those on fb!) for their support and love with all this. I would have given up long ago without you!
So I am preparing! I shall have to commute between Cambridge and Bath going up at the weekend and coming back midweek. (I’m still looking for a cheap room in Bath..anyone got any ideas? If we don’t find anything we will sleep rough and Grace will have to get used to pooping down deserted alleys when no one is looking. )
Talking of Grace I took her to my pole dancing class on Friday. I have been going into that gym for months and never a peep from the chaps behind reception as I walked through with dark glasses and cane…but last Friday, as I clumsily clambered through the doors hanging onto Grace, they leapt up horribly perturbed.
‘Can I HELP you?’ Yelled one spotty youth pointing accusingly at the dog and me. I realised that he did not recognise me at all. He thought a blind woman had wandered into the gym by accident.
I pointed at Grace. ‘It’s her fault.’ I said. ‘She’s taking the pole dance class tonight. Gotta follow the dog…’
The youth swallowed and then gagged a small smile and nodded a curt ‘carry on then’, managing to look outraged, aghast and mollified at the same time.
Grace was a little anxious at first watching us jiggle around and then do funny things on silver poles but after half an hour she fell asleep. It wasn’t very flattering to hear her snore through the routines but she seemed happy.
As we left I glanced right but reception was empty. Then I realised that for the first time this year we were leaving into darkness. The end of summer had caught up with us and I had not even thought ahead. For me the outside of the gym felt like walking into a cafetiere of filter coffee before the plunger plunges; a thick, treacherous, darkness and I was frightened.
‘Hell,’ I thought. ‘I haven’t got my cane with me. I have a ruck sake and now added to this I have a BLOODY DOG to look after.….’ and then it sunk in at last. I have Grace and she is a GUIDE DOG. DUHHHH!!!
All this time and I have been using my residual daytime vision and now there weren’t no daylight! For the first time for real I had to give it up to her.
‘Steady,’ I whispered to her unsteadily as we stepped into the gritty night.
I slackened my grip, relaxed my left hand so I could feel her gentle pull on the harness and follow her as she moved adeptly right, left towards the lights of the underpass.
‘Steady.’
Back at the flat I filled her dog bed with toys and chews as she yawned and rolled her eyes. She had not a clue as to what the fuss was about.
I have two black dogs at the mo. This one is doing great. (I love her. A LOT. She works ..well…like a dog! She is just fab!)
But the other one has me by the throat and is shaking me hard. I have tried to write it away here but I can’t. I am overwhelmed, flea ridden with anxiety and already autumn is biting when my entire summer seems to have been spent in a hotel room in March.
I am out of whack, off colour, too blue. It keeps welling up ..salt water through my capillaries. Salination I believe…. If people ask me how I am, even in the queue at post office…tears rise up and make me blink. Most embarrassing. With the constant leaking I am beginning to rust.
Meeeooowww. I miss old friends. I miss my colur vision. I miss my cats Pyewacket, Milligan and Small cat who I had to leave behind in Zambia. I miss romance. I miss my old Daewoo. I miss not missing shit.
But I know this is just ‘seasonal adjustment.’ I don’t do well in the upcoming dark and cold and this is the equivalent of winter PMS. Pre Murky Season Syndrome. Plus it has been hard to stay up beat and perky these last few months. And now a reaction to ‘perk’ is natural. I will be back to my old self shortly.
In the meantime here are a couple more pictures of the mutt to make you smile whilst I locate mine again.
I am home after 21 days in a hotel room with a large canine.
Pic of me trying out dog-bed in hotel room for potential river escape the night before the beast arrived. It’s a bit disconcerting being home….I am horrified to find that when I leave my bedroom no one sneaks in and makes my bed. No one has changed the towels I threw into the bath tub. I sit down at my table and there is no waiter service…there is no chef. I have lost the ability to even wash up my own coffee mug. I am worried I may starve to death in a sea of filthy crockery and dog grooming gear waiting like the Lady Of Shallot for room service. Tirra lirra.
And such a beautiful hotel….such veiws of the carpark..(Actually hotel did brilliantly and everyone was very kind considering we took four dogs into their restauant twice a day…)
Grace however is settling in well. £54 worth of dog toys and we arrived back to find a 9’ by 6’ concrete base had been put down for the dog run in the corner of the garden where the tent had been for me birthday. (This wasn’t a shock. I had asked for it.) The dogs are taught to pee and poo on command and on concrete in order to ensure that the handler knows at all times when and where the dog has done its ‘do’. This means that handler and dog can then go out for several hours hopeful that the dog need not do the ‘do’ again out in public or somewhere hard to …errr..find it… (remember the handler is a bit short on sight..)
Plus of course concrete is easier to clean then grass. . Unfortunately the command to do the ‘do’ or ‘spend’ as they say in the trade is ‘busy, busy’ to be spoken in a bright and upbeat kind of a voice even at 5:30 am (Grace’s preferred time of day) ‘Busy busy’.
Oh yep. Apparently used because it is nigh near impossible to sound miserable when saying it. The dog’s need to know they are loved during this particular maneuver as they would much prefer to go on grass and are really doing you a massive ..favour…. Hmmm
You will note (some of you) that I removed my last post. It was written when I was tired and scared but that isn’t an excuse to have been mean to my fellow students. We were all tired and scared. None of us were getting more then two hours consecutive sleep a night with the dogs in the rooms. We were having to cope with isolation,fear, loneliness, confusion, bone-grinding boredom in between moments of nerve-wracking dog in traffic and group (dis)obedience training, a set hotel menu that didn’t change for 21 days and really hard water. And I mean hard. March is also Very Highly Chlorinated. My skin was a rash of nasty and my hair stared falling out. (The old guys didn’t have much hair to begin with so even worse for them…) I wrote every minute I could and will post a couple of bits and pieces over the next week but for the moment just nice to be home and finally almost on top of the landslide of bills and worse I found waiting for me on my dining room table.
And now I am a dog handler. A visually impaired dog handler who at some point is going to probably forget the dog tho’remember to hang onto the shopping or grab the dog and forget her house keys… I still don’t know about this. Do I still have too much sight to really need all this? Could I actually cope with all this with LESS sight? Cripes Scooby! What kind of a fix have I got us into now?
But I know about Grace. She is smart as a chimp and funny and daft and knows her left from her right. She memorises a route after one single walk. At night when I am almost totally blind she makes me feel like I am flying.
So ..we’ll see. Or not (arf arf…did you see what I did there?)
Also folks I do apologise for getting out of touch with all blogs. The sodding hotel had no internet access?! March is just like being in 1985. they even played early Michael Jackson at breakfast and 10cc every evening….anyway..promise to read up on you all pronto!
What is it with people? The next person who puts on a baby voice and asks me if I am ‘excited about getting my doggie-woggie’ I shall bite on the nose. Savagely.
I presume you don’t get this kind of patronisation when you first get a wheel chair ‘Ohhh you must be sooo excited about getting your wheelie-beelie.’
In case you may still be confused about why taking on a guide dog is emotionally more complex then just ‘getting a doggie- woggie’ please imagine being suddenly handed a toddler to care for over several years. Then cover your eyes with several layers of cling film, Vaseline and glitter and try changing a nappy. In fact the next person who even thinks ‘doggie woggie’ near me I shall wrap in cling film and dirty nappies… breathing out…feeling better….
Of course there have been many more of you, thank god, who have been incredibly astute and useful with your insights – and with your silent support ….and I certainly don’t mind the barrage of canine related and ap-paw-ing puns flooding my phone (a horrendous amount may I say from my dad) and I can only say thank you. Your support is essential and I am so grateful.
It’s about Obama’s recent speech on equality and disability. She ain’t impressed….
Remember that chances are we will all be disabled in our lives at one point or another..even if that is just a leg in a cast for several weeks, temporary deafness from an ear infection, chronic back pain from a slipped disc, old age…or various forms of blindness to the rest of humanity.
It comes to all of us. ‘Twist’ Self Portrait: (c) T. Bush 2008
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