Special Needs

Again another week went by with me hardly noticing. I didn’t make it to Aunt Sally on Wednesday because Joe had asked me to open up the Half Moon and run it for the night. He told me he was expecting it to be a quiet night and he had his daughter over from Australia, who he was taking out for the evening. It was Woods’ birthday so there would be few musicians in and a bit of party food; should be cleared up and away by 1:30am, and home by 2am. I opened up at 5pm, filled up the ice bucket, stacked the fridge and the shelves, and stared out the window for about 3 hours, chain smoking roll ups out of boredom. There were one or two customers; in fact I was one of them as I bought a birthday drink for Woodsy, a large port. Woodsy would go on to drink about two bottles of the stuff throughout the night. By about 10pm a few of the musicians had turned up and started playing at the end of the bar, with Woodsy joining in on vocals every now and again. I am not particularly into folk music but they played and sang sweetly and were all excellent musicians so it was hard not to like it. At about 11 pm someone bought all the birthday food down and a good crowd had gathered. The night was getting busier. At about 12:30, some thirty or so luvies from the Creation Theatre Group turned up and suddenly both bars were filled to the gills! By 1 am the place was fucking mental! I didn’t stop pulling pint’s for next 3 hours. As glasses were filling I was emptying the washer and loading up the dirties, non stop! I did a glass collection run, difficult in such a crowd, and all I could hear were luvies talking about them selves to other luvies that weren’t listening but talking about themselves at the same time. The musicians were moaning because it was too crowded and noisy to play, and I was just sweating (it was like a sauna) working my bollocks off, trying to keep everyone served. I managed to get rid of most of them by 4am; just a few of us stayed for another hour or so and I played a bit of harp.

Thursday morning’s sun hit me in the eyes as locked the pub door and headed to my car. I managed to get a few hours kip in then drove to the home to visit my mum. She wasn’t in the best of spirits when I got there. We watched a bit of TV together, did some of a crossword and talked about things she remembered. Her short term may not be too good but she has good pictures in her mind of things from yesteryears. She cheered up a bit but I think partly her blues was because she was tired; she said she hadn’t slept well the night before. I left her at 7:30pm and she was going to bed for an early night. Sweet dreams mum.

The flying Circus had drawn a different crowd in this Thursday. Sparky was sober but knackered. He told me he had done 80 hours hard graft that week. As well as a fine poet, Sparky is a gardener. I did a session and went to the back bar for a cigarette. I sat at the end of the bar talking with Joe when I spotted a girl I used to go out with 23 years ago. I hadn’t seen her since that time. When she came through the back bar, to go to the toilets, I said hello. She recognised me immediately and we talked the next hour away. It’s amazing how you can catch up on 23 years each, 46 years in an hour! In short: Me, divorced, still writing poetry, currently single; Her, married, three kids (one doing his driving test soon), still living in the same house, working at the university. She looked much the same as she did then. A bit of aging but that’s life, not aged as much as me though. It was nice and a bit strange to be talking to her again. She was one of the people that I have never forgotten; she was one of the good ones.

It was another 3am finish at the Half Moon and the real moon was nearly full when I left. I was really ready for my bed! On Friday night I was cooking for some friends and would have to spend some of that day shopping. It was still warm and small creatures of the night plopped into the canal as I headed back down another moonlit tow path mile to the boat. I was in bed within moments. Dream soup flooded over me as I sank into a deep sleep. In the morning I could have written it all down but I didn’t and now I can’t remember one single bit of any of them, but it was soupy stuff.

Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s and the Co-Op, all used to sell fresh lemon grass, the same with loose red chillies; maybe Friday is a bad day for shopping but I tried all three and came up with nothing. I would have to make the Tom Yum soup without lemon grass and use the green chillies I had instead for the red curry. Fresh, uncooked prawns were another thing that seemed to be nonexistent on a Friday. I got back in time to catch some late afternoon rays on top of the boat. I kept waking myself up by snoring, that’s how tired I was. However, the siesta did me good and I had all the cooking under control by the time my friends arrived. The food turned out well and we ate, drank, listened to music, and talked. Mostly I don’t remember what we talked about because of the wine that had been flowing all evening. I think I impressed The South African barmaid who works in the Bells, who had come along with them. She had only ever seen me propping up the bar and trying hopelessly to chat her up when I had drank enough. Now she saw another side of me: a domestic god, a gentleman’s gentleman!

3 am by the time they left. I used to do it all the time when I was younger, but now I need my sleep! I woke up mid morning, still tired and a bit hung-over, both as a result of the wine. I was good for nothing. It was a day for doing nothing. I took a throw up onto the roof of the boat and wallowed in the sun, drifting in and out of dreams and daydreams.

I hadn’t had a signal all day and it was only when I walked up to meet Ratty that I got the voice mail form my sister. My mum had passed out and been rushed into resuscitation at the hospital with a suspected heart failure. I called the hospital and managed to speak to sis. Mum had recovered and was sitting up smiling and talking but had scared everyone else half to death in the process. There was no point in me making the two hour drive to the hospital, she would be asleep by the time I got there, so I went out as planned but found it hard to her off my mind. Ratty drove me to the Flowing Well in the Bel Air. It was Phil from Redox’s birthday gig. I sank a few Ruddles and got into the swing of things. A special needs teacher asked me where I was from and I asked her out. I wrote my mobile number on the back of one of my poems but her friend snatched it off me before I had a chance to pass it on. They said they would turn up at the half moon on Thursday so watch this space. We got back to the cut at around midnight. A big moon filled the sky. There was the a few drunken pirates sitting around a big fire, the leftovers form a b-b-q party. Marcus, who was having trouble standing, talking, and walking, decided it would be a good time to try out a coracle for the first time in his life. A coracle is a one person boat with an ancient lineage. Coracles (from the Welsh "cwrwgl") have a history dating back thousands of years. The coracle was originally covered with animal skins and in some countries they are still made this way. In Wales they are now skinned with calico which is waterproofed using a bitumastic paint. Marcus was under water in no time. I stayed and had a few glasses of cider with them, played a bit of harp and went home to bed. It was nearly 3 am again.

Sunday lunchtime I did 12-5 in the Half Moon. It was quiet as a mouse. I made a sign up for the window: “WATCH THE FOOTY HERE”, but no one did, not even me, I have no interest in the game. It’s all about stars and money now, not really my thing. I called the hospital and they said mum was being released back to the home, she was OK. It hadn’t been a heart attack but a TIA, a Transient Ischaemic Attack – a ministroke. I now know that a transient ischaemic attack is a type of stroke where symptoms last less than 24 hours. It is due to a temporary deficiency of blood supply to part of the brain. It starts suddenly, and may cause weakness or numbness in any part of the body. Symptoms may involve the face, arm and leg on one side or just one part of the body. Vision may be affected, often in just one eye. The attack usually lasts between 1 and 6 hours. Also, most TIA’s are caused by clots blocking small arteries which supply blood to the brain. These clots often do not form in the small artery itself, but are carried there by blood flowing from a diseased artery closer to the heart. They can even come from the heart itself. They may consist of a clump of red blood cells or other cells called platelets. These block an artery but then break up so that blood flow to the brain is soon restored. Some people have TIAs as a result of spasm in an artery or a sudden fall in blood pressure. My sister had said that mum looked terrible at resuss and her eyes were all over the place. The heart nurse later told us that the clotting may have been due to mum being taken off warfarin, one of the cocktail of drugs she has been on to control her blood and heart and to balance her life.

At five I finished my shift and drove the Prelude to London. Mum was in remarkably good spirits when I got there. She didn’t remember anything about the TIA but she seemed happier than she had for a long time. She could have so easily died but I don’t know if she really understood that, or perhaps she did and was happy because she had pulled through once again. Mum, still scaring the life out of everyone at 91!

Teen rang me as I was tooling back down the M4, heading West into an almost set sun. Her and Ferret were at Tricky’s, sitting in the garden drinking white wine and eating the last of an earlier b-b-q. I got to the Baron’s house at about 9:30, I needed a shot of friends after all the problems with mum. My Friday night dinner guest were also there but not with The South African barmaid, and still no feed back from her. We chatted and drank and laughed; it felt good. I was asleep in my bed by 1am, the earliest night for nearly a week.

Monday I was back at work. At eleven I had a call from my sister telling me that mum was back in hospital. She had gone to the toilet without her walking frame and fallen over. She had hit her head and her side and the hospital were checking her out for other injuries. I rang A&E after lunch and they said mum was fine and she was going back home again. I rang the home when I got back from work and they said she had settled back in and seemd quite happy again. Ozzy John came over to the boat in the evening and we finished off the remaining Thai Red Curry and went to the Rock for a few beers. We sat in the pub garden and I pointed out to Ozzy John the spot where Marcus had his falling out with the coracle. As Ozzy John cried his way through a continuous hay fever attack, I filled him in what had been happening over the last week: the mental Wednesday night; The South African barmaid coming to the boat; meeting the Special Needs teacher on Saturday; and the fright of what happened to my mum. A new week now stretched out in front of us; what would it bring.