An Idyll

Today I bring you an idyll written based on a memory from camping by Loch Long in Scotland.  This poem paints a picture of that day for me and hopefully will draw up some wonderful images in you mind's eye.

An Autumn Memory

A crisp clear blue sky overhead,

The water still and clear below,

Trees dressed in their autumnal coats,

Birds sing, and, somewhere, caws a crow.

Mountains stand tall and menacing,

Casting their shadows on this scene,

In the distance a train goes past,

The grass glistens in shades of green.

Autumn leaves on a bonfire burn,

Sending out their musty perfume,

On the water there is drifting,

Smoke, like haze, in evening gloom.

Sun then hides behind the mountains,

Nature’s colours all change their hue,

Everything has lost its shadow,

Sky is no longer clear and blue,

Pinks and reds become the colours,

Through the sky and water below,

The darkness is fast approaching,

All now has a wonderful glow.

Soon night will throw her velvet cloak,

Over all this wondrous view,

The stars will shine like fairy lights,

And moon will glow and sparkle too.

Then when morning star has faded,

The sun will come back out to play.

The sights of autumn will return,

We will have another new day.

Freda (Dec 2008)

How about a wee story for a change

This was a story I wrote for my story performing assessment at college.  I don't write stories as a rule but have to say I was really pleased with the result.

Angela’s log pile.

Angela sighed as she stepped out the door into the cold winter night. There was a full moon shining brightly casting long shadows from the outbuildings. A movement caught her eye. In the corner of one of the buildings was a large black cat. The shadow it cast gave it a long, lean appearance. She stepped forward and her movement startled the animal. The cat leapt up onto the wall of the garden and disappeared into the dark shadows beyond.

Swiftly and silently and owl flew overhead, not a single solitary sound from the movement of his wings. Seconds later Angela heard a slight startled squeaking sound. She knew that the owl had seized his prey.

She moved, on, her footsteps making no sound on the soft snow. In the barn she could hear the cattle moving in their stalls. The chains round their necks rattling and jangling against the walls.

She reached the long low log pile. Bending over she selected a few and placed them in the wicker willow trug she had carried over from the house.

Moving swiftly she turned to make her return journey to the house door. By now she was extremely cold and her breath could be seen clearly in the bright moonlight. She was wishing she had taken a moment to put on her hat, gloves and scarf before she left the house.

The trug hindered her return somewhat due to the weight of the logs. She carried it using both hands; it felt as though it got heavier with each step.

She never understood why her father insisted on the logs being placed by that particular wall instead of near the door. It was always Angela who had to go out on cold nights to fetch logs in. Never could she recall her father carrying out this task.

Angela also had the task of cutting and stacking the logs. One time, several years ago, she decided to move the log pile so that it was easier and quicker to reach. A mistake she never repeated. He got so angry and lashed out at her, striking her several times on the face and head. He yelled at her over and over about how stupid she was and that the logs had their place and that place was over by the garden wall. It was a lesson she learned well, one which added to many other similar events in her life.

She could hear him yelling to her from inside the house so she picked up her pace and hurried towards the light glowing through the door window. She didn’t want him to get angry, she knew what could happen if he did.

Angela placed the heavy trug on the ground, opened the door and then carried the trug in. He yelled at her to close the door, she was letting the cold in. She quickly kicked the snow off her boots then closed the door over.

He was sitting, as usual, by the fire, his back to the doorway of the room. He told her to get a move on, get the logs on the fire before it went out. He called her lazy, stupid and hopeless. That she was good for nothing, just like her dead mother.

At that point, Angela lost all reason. She picked up a log walked slowly and silently over to the chair and bashed it really hard down on his bald head. She continued to bash him till the moaning and groaning sounds stopped. He slumped to the floor. She calmly stepped over him as he was lying, dying on the floor and stoked the fire with the log.

Angela felt that at last she was free. She went outside, got the barrow and started moving the log pile over to beside the back door. Never again on a cold clear frosty night would she have to walk the length of the garden for logs. Never again.

As for her father well pigs will eat anything won't they

The old Story teller

Part of a writing course I did in 2009 was about story telling and learning how to tell a story and not just read it.  I was inspired to write this piece when thinking about how old people love to tell stories of their youth.

The old story teller

What will it be like when I grow old?

Will my legs wobble?

Will my back fold?

Will I get narky and shout at kids

For running around

Banging dustbin lids

Will I have glasses to help me read?

Will I become deaf?

What will be my needs?

One thing I know about growing old

I will have stories

Those need to be told

There will be songs which need to be sung

To add to the things

To share with the young

Just as my parents shared them with me

I’ll share with children

Sat on my old knee

Sitting around my old worn armchair

I’ll be a teller

Of how things once were

Bringing alive tales of being young

Telling them the stories

Of how things begun

Then I won’t care if my back is bent

I’ll tell them these tales

Till my life is spent

Freda February  2009

My very first poem Warning it can be a trigger.

This is the first poem I wrote.  I got involved with a writer's group whilst having counselling therapy to deal with my childhood abuse from an uncle.  The group were asked to submit work for an anthology and a professional poet was selecting the work to put in.  I didn't submit this, a friend did it for me and the person collating the work asked where my other stuff was.  She was surprised to hear that I hadn't written anything before this.  Anyone who was sexually abused as a child will recognise some of the phrases used.

Silence!

Don't scream,

The pain will soon be over

Don't scream

Just let me be your lover

Don't scream,

Just take it don't say but

Don't scream

It doesn't really hurt

Don't scream

I'll make you better soon

Don't scream

They'll hear you on the moon

Don't scream

You'll soon be on your feet

Don't scream

I'll take you for a sweet

Don't scream

My little turtle dove

Don't scream

It isn't pain it's love

Freda 1998

Is anyone of us perfect, I doubt it.

Anyone who knows me will know that I have been through some serious life changes and that I have been judged by many for my appearance and a lot of my life choices.  Anyway it was the fact that people judge others but often need to look at themselves first that inspired this piece of  poetry.  I don't see it as one of my better works but I thought no point in only sharing the good.

Perfect?

Walking along, down any street

How do you judge those that you meet?

Is it the colour of their skin?

Or that they are too fat or thin?

Being pushed in a wheelchair?

Or perhaps they have different hair!

They may be young with a pram,

Wearing high heels, looking glam.

What are the judgements that you make

Within that first glance you take

Fat and lazy? skinny and broke?

Having a baby but no bloke?

Immigrants living on the dole,

Putting your country in a hole

Benefit fraud, can really walk

Since when do you have room to talk?

Are you perfect to make that call?

Sit in judgement above them all.

That is the type of attitude

Which shows a person who is rude!

What do they see when you walk by?

Are you really a perfect guy?

Is your body exactly right?

Is your history snowy white?

Next time you judge, just stop and think

Are you perhaps too fond of drink?

Do you smoke or did you sniff glue?

No one is perfect, not even you!

Freda Brodie (April 2010)

Poetry and stuff

A very dear friend of mine suggested I could use my blog to post my poetry.  I had never thought about it before but I have a lot of stuff I have written that I could put on here.so here we go.  Poem one is one I wrote when I was involved in a Pride event years ago.  The subject of the poem is my son David who is a professional drag queen currently working in Sparkle Show Bar in Playa Del Ingles on the island of Gran Canaria.

Strange? Not you

They sent for me at nursery.

When you were only three!

A Doctor! a Psychologist!

Theywanted you to see,

The problem that they had

Was you weren’t like the other boys.

You didn’t play with cars or guns,

Or any of those toys.

When you played in nursery school,

It was with the girly things!

Like dresses, dolls and make-up,

Bangle sand sparkly rings.

I couldn’t see their problem,

But they thought that I was wrong!

If they could see you now,

They would sing a different song.

When you became a teenager,

Your differences shone through.

Other people thought, that you were strange!

But you were just being you.

As an adult you were hassled,

By people with narrow minds.

They didn’t like you being different,

They were stupid and unkind.

Now you have your niche in life

With make-up, bangles and sparkly rings!

A female impressionist!

A Drag Queen, of all things

These problems throughout your life,

Made a stronger man of you.

Being different made you what you are

And it shows in all you do.

On the days, when you don your frocks,

Your make-up. and your wig,

You show the world you are special,

And that you just don’t give a fig!

Then David becomes Daniella.

The most beautiful girl in town,

In her diamante necklaces,

And her long, pretty, evening gown.

People throng to see you,

They applaud all your routines.

If only those nursery teachers knew

You would become a beauty queen!

When people see others like you,

They often look away,

But they really need to accept,

That gay people are born that way!

Written by Freda Brodie for her son Daniella Mantrapp in 2001

wonderful friends and surprises

Normally I dread the post coming and cringe as the mail hits the floor, but not this morning.  A wonderful gift in the post from a lovely friend.

Now I just need to get my muse on.  Although it's so nice I'm not sure I want to write in it :)

Metal bones and nylon sockets

29th August, hubby went into hospital to get his nice shiney metal femur head and pristine white hip socket put into place..  We had a nerve wracking couple of hours where we didn't know if the op was going to go ahead because of traumas being admitted.  Anyway a nurse popped her head round the door to tell us all (3 elective ops) that yes indeed there were beds available and all 3 ops would happen.

By this time all forms had been filled in, signed and things explained to hubby all over again.  The hairy moment came when the anaesthetist was discussing risks which of course include pulmonary embolism (the very thing that took his mum)  I had to explain that his mum had recently died of that very thing.

By the time it came for hubby to go down they still hadn't vacated his bed so he had to go into a room they use for dressings etc to get ready.  We had just got him into his sexy gown and paper knickers when the porter arrived.  He did get a bit weepy but a huge hug and some reassurance and he was fine.  Mind you once he was on the trolley and away I had a bit of a moment myself.

When he eventually came back to ward no one remembered to let me know and I was to put it midly a bit miffed.  Anyway I got to see him for a wee while and as he was groggy from the morphine I left and came home.

Day 2 was Friday I got the wee bus over to see him and he was actually out of bed and sitting on a chair.  Very sore and very swollen but being his usual self and grinning and bearing it.  He did admit that no way could he have gone home on op day as he threatened to do.  I had a chat with the physio and they promised to get him up and walking with his frame before they left.  A phone call later on from hubby confirmed this had happened.

The next few days go past in a blur of visiting and nudging at the staff to remind them they are supposed to be making sure he was moving around.  His first major accomplishment was going to the toilet instead of using a bottle.  He was so much happier about being able to do that.

On the Monday he was discharged to go home, however being the way that the system works, they couldn't get him home until the next day as ambulances have to be booked 24 hours in advance.  I was so glad when he turned up home at about 10 on Tuesday morning.

We obviously haven't been doing much of anything from then but he has been doing his physio, had little walks outside and he is more able to get himself up dressed, washed, etc. I saw the wound on Friday when the nurse was in.  Very impressed at how neat it is.  Very clean and healing beautiful. There are lots of staples so it looks a bit like a zipper.  He can't wait to get them all out and be able to have a proper shower/wash.  The nurse should be in to take the clips out on Thursday.

For now it's more and more practise at walking on it and keeping up and increasing the exercise

His pain is massively decreased, he no longer has morphine patches, no more dicolfenac and is more or less just taking paracetamol and low strength codeine.  Things are looking up.

anyway then the stitches came out.

yea the stitches.

I was super keen to get those out.  Most people don't need them but because of my large well bosoms, the surgeon thought he would put some in for extra support for the wound.  The nurse came to take them out and I was so relieved when she took the first lot out as they were really pulling on my skin.  Don't think I would have been so keen if I had any idea what they were hiding.

A few hours after they were removed I was in agony.  I had a massive amount of pain spreading across my body and down my arms.  I was on fire and screaming.  We had to phone 999 and get me back into hospital.  The pain was so bad I would have taken anything to ease it.  The ambulance men couldn't really help because of my veins.  All they could do was give me entinox.  Was really weird, only time I had that before was when I was in labour.

Arrived at the hospital and they managed to get a line in and gave me some Ketamin then morphine for the pain but they were all baffled by the pain. Couldn't work out what was causing it.  My temperature was through the roof and I was delerious.  Eventually I was transferred to the heart hospital and treated for an infection but just didn't know what it was.  There was some sign of infection at the lower end of my wound so they took swabs and sent them off.

Next day a young student was cleaning my wound and as she wiped me down from the top of the wound.  Next thing there was an explosion of pus pouring out of the wound at the top.  Not where they thought the infection was. She called for help and her and a staff nurse were scooping swab fulls of pus off of my body.  My surgeon came in at some point during the day and opened up some of the wound to let more pus out.

All of this meant I was stuck in hospital for another 10 days being pumped full of very high dosage of antibiotics.  I was so ill and those med made me feel so sick and unable to eat.  Nothing tasted right was a nightmare.  Took me months before I could enjoy food or drink.  Also took months for the wound to totally heal.

For whatever reason all of this set me back a fair bit.  I had been walking and getting on fine before the infection thing (which by the way was septicemia) but it was weeks before I could walk any distance afterwards and months before I was back to walking normally.

The rest of this year has been a series of deaths and lumps of bad news.

First death was our cat Tiddles, he just gave up and passed away.  Then there was a fight in the house between 2 of our dogs and the Llasso ahpso was so badly hurt in the fight that he was seriously brain damaged and his body started shutting down and we had to make the heartbreaking decision to put him to sleep. On the same day my beautiful pedigree cat Leo lay down in his bed curled up, went to sleep and then just slipped away.

Now we are more or less up to day and we get to end of July.  Hubby's nephew got in touch with me to tell me that my mother in law had a bit of a fall and was in hospital.  She wasn't injured but they were worried about her because she had her legs under her for a few hours and had been unable to move. The hospital assured us it was nothing to be worried about but they were keeping her in to keep an eye on her.

After some minor problems the hospital was working towards her getting home.  Hubby spoke to her every day and she was happy and cheery and just like her normal self right up to and including 11th August.  Hubby spoke to her in the afternoon, his nephew visited her in the evening and she was in fine fettle.  Late evening she had her supper climbed into bed and just passed away.  Seems she had a clot that had been floating around in her body and it hit her lungs.  It was more or less instant.

Poor hubby hasn't been dealing with it very well at all.  He was very close to her and it had hit him like a ton of bricks.

Now he is working towards his operation.  he gets his new hip on Thursday 29th August and hopefully we will be able to move forward from there.  I would say things can't get worse but every time I do then something always proves me wrong.  All we can do is really hope for the best.

what a year!! and this is only the first 3 weeks of it.

Gosh it's been such a long time since I blogged I'm not quite sure where to begin.

Probably best to start at the start really.  That would be early afternoon on New Year's day when I sent my hubby off to Tesco (why it is open on that day I'll never know) to pick up some puppy food.  Whilst he was there he bumped into someone with his favourite breed of dog, an Alaskan Husky, and ended up being much longer than he would normally take.  What he didn't know was that in the meantime I had gone off for a lie down because I didn't really feel right.  I had just eaten a bowl of cereal and thought it was that disagreeing with my little pouch tummy.  How wrong can you be?

When hubby arrived home he didn't come into the room to see how I was, he presumed I was sleeping.  I wish I had been..  No matter what I did this almost crushing sensation just wouldn't move.  I got up off the bed and using the wall to hold me up, I thought my legs were going to cave in, I tried to get to the sitting room.  A few steps up the hall and I called out to him for help.  I said I don't know what is going on but something is really really wrong with me.  So he helped me back to bed and phoned the out of hours doctor who, as soon as hubby mentioned chest, told him to phone 999.

By the time ambulance arrived the crushing feeling had passed but they had to take me to hospital anyway.  There was a tiny electrical blip on my heart trace and anyway all calls for chest pain have to go to hospital.  I joked on Facebook that I was off to hospital with a suspected heart attack.  Well how was I to know that was exactly what was wrong.

All the tests in the A and E department showed nothing of note but they said they had to keep me till they got the result of the blood test which had to be taken a set number of hours after the pain subsided. So hubby was sent off home and I was admitted for observation.

Following morning a nurse came to speak to me, hubby was there already.  She explained what the blood test was for, what they were looking for and how it all worked.  In my head she was saying that what they were looking at wasn't there and I could go home.  Instead she said that in my case what they were looking for was there and I couldn't go home.  They needed to do more tests.  I just sat there looking at her as if she was stupid and saying to her "are you saying I've had a heart attack?" over and over then saying to hubby "she's saying I've had a heart attack isn't she?"  I was in a state of shock.  As was hubby.

Fast forward 3 days and I've had various tests and am in the cardiac care unit.  I'm now to go for an angiogram.  Apparently this means opening my femur artery and inserting something which sends dye through my heart whilst they watch it on a screen. I ended up having to be sedated as I got so upset getting it done. Hours later the heart consultant came to see me and informed me that my heart was basically a mess and I needed 4 arteries repaired or bypassed.  It was so bad that they would not advise me going home and I had to stay in hospital until a slot was found for me at Liverpool Heart and Chest.  I just couldn't get my head round it all and the fact I needed a quadruple bypass was a major shock.  I had not previous symptoms, no blood pressure problems, no high cholesterol none of the things associated with this.  Absolute bolt from the blue and one that scared the shit out of me.

All in I spent 19 days at Whiston before being transferred over to Liverpool.  It felt like an age.  Poor hubby trailing in and out to visit me, whilst coping with a young pup at home and trying to get things done that needed doing.  Thankfully he managed to get off work at this point.  The biggest surprise was a couple of days before I was going to Liverpool my son turned up at the hospital.  He had been so concerned that he had been given time off work and flown home from Gran Canaria.  Sort of made me realise the seriousness of it all.

Anyway transferred on 19th and surgery on 21st. I don't remember much of the next 48 hours but apparently I was in theatre for longer than anticipated and when hubby got to see me post op he was in pieces as I looked like death.  I was very grey and hooked up to all sorts of machinery.  I spent the next day flitting in and out of hallucinations and unconsciousness brought on by morphine. I was convinced I was on a set for some documentary and demanded to see where they had my permission to film me.  I also tried to climb out of bed at one point but not in the normal manner, I tried to climb up and over the back rest of the bed.

After being moved from ICU over to the cardiac ward it was a flurry of nurses rounds, Physiotherapy, doctors rounds, blood tests, tubes being removed (OMG those drain tubes coming out were awful felt like they were pulling my insides out with them), blood transfusion, vistors and etc.  A few days of this and noises were being made about being sent home.  In fact my consultant (after telling me I had the worst vessels he's ever seen in a woman my age) said I could go home on the weekend.  However that wasn't to be because one of the junior doctors decided on the weekend that because my blood sugars weren't settled then I couldn't go home.  This really annoyed me and also really pissed of my consultant when he came in on the Monday and I was still there. There was also confusion about how I was getting home because the person that was to give me a lift had made herself available 3 days in a row and I had to tell her they had changed their mind, 3 days in a row.  In the end after me causeing a proper stink the hospital provided me with a taxi to take me to Whiston for the warfarin clinic then another one to take me home from there.

Home at last and recovery well on it's way.  I was doing so well in that first week home that by the beginning of the second week I was able to walk the half mile from here to St Helens Hospital.  I felt brilliant well maybe not brilliant but was doing well, or so I thought.  That was before the deep sutures came out but I think I will stop here and save that for the next part.