A weekend away

So I spent the past weekend in an "English Country Cottage" just outside of a charming little town called Dorchester in Dorset...our cottage was about 500m from the house in which the writer Thomas Hardy was born...and in which he wrote 'Far from the Maddening crowd'.

And I say "our cottage"...because I should probably tell my faithful reader that I am wildly in love with the most beautiful girl in the world...(apart from my daughter obviously)...and who I have been dating for the past 6 weeks...which explains why there have been fewer postings than normal...and we went away for a romantic weekend to explore our burgeoning relationship..."Woo-Hoo"

*sigh*

Anyway...Dorchester is a very old and quaint town,with evidence of pre-historic settlements ,and is believed to have been fortified and settled by the Romans sometime around AD70.

Its built in a series of squares and is very easy to walk around once you have mastered the nonsensical one-way system, and we were blessed with beautiful Indian-summer days.

Now as TMBGITW and I wandered hand-in-hand through the town we couldn't but help notice that the local yokels looked like...well...yokels...and like there were lots of first-cousin relationships...indeed,driving into the town,we were surprised to find that the car stereo could only pick up station - "Hillbilly Radio"- ,...and the only song they seemed to be playing was 'Dueling Banjos' .

Walking around the town and speaking to people was a bit like a cross between "Shaun of the Dead" meets "The Stepford Wives"...because I can honestly say that without exception everybody we spoke too was polite and pleasant and helpful...

We went to M&S as we had a desire to get some lobster for dinner...
Yes...yes...I know that there is a recession but really...why take it out on the fishermen?

So we asked one of the shop assistants if they sold any dressed ready-to-eat lobster...-they didn't;and if there was anywhere we could get one in the town...-there wasn't.

But whirling around like a trolley-dolly on a low-budget,eastern-European airline, and gesticulating wildly, she kindly gave us a series of directions to three other shops all of which started "...turn left at the bread counter...straight down through lingerie...past hats...out the front door... ....until you come to a stall...that may,or may not,be open..."

Helpful though,like you just don't find anymore!

Nevertheless,as the sun started to set, we were aware that the town was silent,the locals were warily eyeing the two exotic foreigners and we kept a sharp eye open for the crowds with pitchforks.

We ate lunch here on Sunday and I have no hesitation in recommending this restaurant...we stumbled across it quite by accident...and had one of the best meals I have eaten in the UK...

TMBGITW had the roast-lamb lunch and I (being a peasant at heart) had the full English breakfast;and with desserts (orange brioche bread-and-butter pudding with custard and vanilla ice cream) and 3 soft drinks and 3 cups of coffee the bill still only came to £25-00.

The food was fresh and clearly 'home made' as it were.Neither of us were able to finish the meals...well...we did of course but it was a struggle !

Its well worth a visit and they even have gourmet tasting nights!

Mother and child reunion

The last patient on Sunday evening is always a killer...and 14 hours into a shift with the Unholy Trinity of colleagues...all energy-vampires,all loafers...all ugly...I had really just lost the will to live.

It was just one of those days where the volume of patients wasn't particularly taxing and I had faced no real intellectual challenges apart from that of how to heat-up my M&S 'Goan Prawn curry' in a 600W microwave when it only came with directions for a 750W and 800W machine.

So the last patient of the day was a 13 year old boy,overweight and dressed in an ill-fitting football strip who was accompanied by his mother. A dermatologist had removed a suspect mole ,using a wide excision, to his left forearm about 10 days ago ; but the wound had dehisced and was clearly infected, and his temperature was 37.6C.

The pair of them looked poor and truculent which is pretty much the default setting for most of the patients we see in this little corner of heaven on earth...and I was not a little irritated that they had chosen to come into the Unit at 21H25 on a Sunday night.

I introduced myself to the boy...Wayne...and his mother, started the consultation and immediately became aware that the young boy was answering all the questions...including those that were directed to his mother...and that when he didn't know the answer to a question...such as when I asked if his vaccinations were up to date...was speaking loudly...indeed...actually shouting at his mother.

"Really? I thought to myself.As his mother you're happy to sit there and let this kid shout at you and ignore you?"

"And actually...you cant be bothered to get involved in your child's' care?"

As we came to the end of the consultation he was also started to repeat my instructions for further care and management of his wound.

I decided to start him on a course of Flucloxacillin and dress the wound with a mepitel-and-inadine dressing.

I was really irritated by this point and asked 'Sweet Caroline', -(the Health Care Support Worker)-,to do the dressing whilst I finished my notes and dispensed the antibiotics.

Walking back into my room I handed him the Fluclox and asked him if he had any final questions.

He asked me again how often he needed to take the tablets...and repeated the answer to himself.Twice.

In one last attempt to engage with his mother,I asked her if she had any questions...about any aspect of the treatment plan.

Excuse me Nurse...my mum is really deaf...and we can't afford a hearing aid...can you please just face her and speak loudly to her so she can hear you?

And then he patted her on the hand...she looked at him...and smiled...

The Nurse wants to know if you want to ask him anything?

No...she smiled at me. Thank you.I can see you've been very thorough with my boy.

So that's an extra-large helping of humble-pie with the decaff-latte for the nurse in the corner then!!

"District 9" se moer!

Random thought : I think that if cell phone technology had been available even 20 years ago in SA,that apartheid would have ended quicker,and that less people would have died.

A few months ago my darling daughter,-who is involved in the film business in SA-,told me about a new film called "District 9".She predicted it would be a big hit and she is being proven right.Indeed,someone even posted a comment yesterday suggesting I go and see it.

Its about aliens stranded in Jo'burg and is in fact a "new" look at racism and xenophobia.

I won't be going to see it.

I believe in the concept of the 'narrative life',a psychological construct which suggests that people in fact view their life as being like a film...it appears to be open-ended;there is an implicit assumption that you can re-write the dialogue or the main characters or even change the location of the movies of your life.

You can see your life as a Rom-Com or a war movie or...even...(I wish)...a porno movie.It is a concept that I use in the thanatology work that I do;and with patients who are emotionally 'stuck' and who are nevertheless keen to change their life for the better...although all change is presumed to be 'for the better'...its actually called "Re-scripting"

Anyway....I have also appeared in my fair share of documentaries about medicine and politics in SA over the years...

But a key part of this movie is that it apparently features real TV footage of apartheid riot police officers having a go at anti-apartheid protesters.
Now I'm not the blinkered left-wing apologist that so many people think I am...but lets not pretend that apartheid was a good idea.

And so...to be perfectly honest,I'm angry that real people,fighting for their freedom,are now reduced to being simply stock footage,mere 'b-roll' for some directors wet dream.

I don't really know what it was like to be a black south african living in a township in the 1970's and 1980's and even the early 1990's...because I am a white south african and at the end of my day in whatever township I had been in...doing all the weird stuff that I was doing....I could always go home to my nice clean house with running water and a fridge full of ice cold Castle.

But I can tell you that it was always...always...scary.

Let me tell you a story.

In the winter of 1992 I was working as a Peace Monitor with the Wits Vaal Peace Secretariat,working out of the Joint Operations center (JOC) at Natalspruit hospital on the East Rand.
My daily job was mediation:- essentially trying to prevent the ANC cadres from killing IFP members;stopping the IFP from killing the PAC;stopping the PAC from killing the 'Boers';and stopping the Police from killing everybody.
So we shared the JOC with representatives from all the political organisations and from the Military and from diverse organisations such as various Church groups,MSF and various fire departments.

In truth,the work was often boring,entailing standing in the hot sun with a water bottle and a cheap crap walkie-talkie whilst listening to crazy people tell me why they should be allowed to kill each other.
Or not.

I would drive around a large area with representatives from the IFP,ANC and occasionally the PAC...they had a real problem with me because I am white...anyway...

I had a good working relationship with an IFP member called Jeff Sibya who was the de-facto leader of an IFP hostel at the end of Khumalo street,about 2kms from the JOC.
Now the SA Government had deliberately set up IFP hostels in ANC or PAC areas to try and cause dissent and chaos...and unfortunately it was a very successful policy.

In this particular hostel there lived a number of women and children,which was contrary to the rules of the hostel...and they were effectively trapped within the walls...unable to work,to take their children to school or to hospital...even to shop.

I had earlier in the week,against the rules of engagement and indeed against common sense...entered the hostel to provide first aid to three men who had been shot.Jeff was desperate and concerned that his people were going to die.He claimed to have no idea who had shot them.

He had asked the Army or the Ambulance team to take them out but the rules of engagement were quite clear about Governmental forces entering hostels....well...in daylight anyway!

I used to wear a red-striped shirt...it was my lucky shirt...(it really worked...I'm still alive)...and I had told all of the 'stake-holders' at the JOC where I was going and what I was going to do when I got there.
I drove carefully, avoiding all the traps in the road,parked the car,grabbed my jump kit,and with my hands held above my head in the universal 'I surrender'...please...please don't shoot me' supplication mode,entered the hostel.

One man was shot in both legs,one man had been shot in the arm whilst the third had been shot in the face.Having dripped them all,secured an airway in the GSW-face man and having dressed their wounds I was then stuck as I had no way of getting them to hospital .

At this point the embarrassed Ambulance crew radioed and offered to fetch them for me if I would take the injured men outside the hostel.

Sure enough,about 10 minutes later, an Nyala armoured car screamed down the road and disgorged 5 or 6 riot cops who formed half a defensive shield.They were followed by the Sandton Fire Department Casspir armoured ambulance,whose paramedics were both wearing helmets and bullet-proof vests...and they in turn were followed by a second Nyala with a few more cops who formed the other half of the defensive perimeter.

Don't you have any protection ? I remember one of the paramedics asking me

"Sure I do" , I said. "I've got gloves on....I'm practising universal precautions."
And then I stared to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Jeff then asked me to try and get food-parcels into the hostel.Again,the Army and Police and naturally all the good christian church groups felt that they couldn't be involved.

So I asked the paratrooper colonel to get his men to open all the boxes in front of the ANC and PAC members so that they could see it was indeed food and not firearms or ammunition;and then loaded the food into my car and did several trips down to the hostel.

It was now about 1600 and dusk was fast approaching...and even I wasn't stupid enough to drive around the Kathorus area at night as a single white man in a car.

So I arranged with Jeff to meet him the following morning at 0740 outside the hostel to carry on with the food supply.
I was specific about the time.

0740.
Not 0735.
Not 0745.
This gave us both a measure of safety that neither of us would be waiting in plain sight of either the PAC or the 'Third Force' snipers.
Cell phones didn't exist then in SA..and the walkie-talkie belonged to the JOC so Jeff wasn't allowed to keep one overnight.

I drove home,had a shower and remember going the Northcliff Milky Lane to have an "afwul-afwul" ice cream dessert.Later that evening my ex-wife phoned me to ask me if I could have my children for an extra day as she had to fly to Paris on business in the morning.

And so...happy at the prospect of an extra day of my children...I rushed over and fetched them.

Of course,I had no way of contacting Jeff.

But I had been very clear in my instructions to him....I had told him that I would be there at 0740 and that he was not to get there any earlier and he also was not to wait for me under any circumstances.

Later that day,driving around the Krugersdorp Game Park with the kids,I heard on talk radio 702 that Jeff had been involved in a fire fight that same morning outside the hostel,with some paratroopers...the same paratroopers I had spoken too the day before.

Now...either he was waiting to kill me....not an unreasonable assumption...or...someone was waiting to kill both of us,and when I didn't arrive they killed him.
I was later told by a member of the CCB that we were both targets.

So you'll excuse me when I get irritated that TV footage of people like Jeff is now used to provide entertainment .

"You are the weakest link...goodbye!"

The patient was a 35-year old woman with a head injury.She was accompanied by her mother.

"So...do you know the name of the Prime Minister?"

Of England?

"Jah...the United Kingdom even...Great Britain perhaps...but I'll settle for England"

Ummh....Thatcher? ....Something Thatcher? ...Thatcher Something?

"Ooooooooooohkay...do you know the name of the Monarch?"

Whats a 'Monarch'?

"Do you know the name of a person who might wear a crown and live in Buckingham Palace?"

Ummhh...No.

Go on, says her mother...ask her what she does for a living!

"Okay...what do you do for a living then?"

I'm a high-school teacher...

Go on, says her mother...ask her what subject she teaches!

"Okay...what subject do you teach?"

Modern History...

*sigh*

She also thought 'hopscotch' was about the devolution of Scotland!