A View From The Greenhouse; Hooptedoodle And Other Matters

I return from a bit of a hiatus where, due to several factors, not the least of them a little bit of self pity, I allowed what passes for my creative flow to dry up. Christmas came and went and I did manage to enjoy it somewhat, although movement was still a little restricted. I curbed my normal enthusiasm for overindulgence and found myself none the worse for it. I’ve already covered (I think) the operation and the short hospital stay, but I’ve ended up learning, once again, that our “envy of the world” NHS is truly the curates egg of curates eggs. I visited the GP surgery early in November, as I felt I may have a post operative urine infection. This set in motion a series of tests and scans which took over six weeks to resolve and which were based on one doctors (wrongly held) assumption that my age, rather than my mild symptoms of discomfort, may well be an indicator of a problem with my prostate. The reason my bloods couldn’t be taken for a period of six weeks from my original appointment remains a mystery to this day. The GP surgery couldn’t enlighten me, so it was the 23rd of December, following a bladder ultrasound and a PSA blood test, that I was given the all clear. Better safe than sorry, you might say, but surely we could have got there a little bit sooner and dispelled a bit of the worry.

Into January and, following a bad cold which lasted for a couple of weeks I ended up with a constant niggling headache and mildly blurred vision in my right eye. I was reluctant, but Mrs. C was insistent that I see the GP (again). Lo and behold, it was the same fellow who’d seen my run up to Christmas spoiled for want of a blood test. I explained my symptoms (a laborious exercise) at this point he diagnosed me with a condition called Giant Cell (or temporal) Arteritis.  He then picked up the telephone and spoke to a colleague (who knows where) about running some blood tests. His last words to the fellow on the other end of the line were “I don’t want to be responsible for my patient going blind overnight”, which was news to me. I ended up delivering my own blood sample to the laboratory in Carlisle, such was the urgency, having turned down the “offer” of a large dose of steroids! I’d just arrive home when my phone rang. It was the GP surgery (another doctor) informing me that my test results were back and there was an “anomaly” which necessitated me driving back into town to collect the steroids which this second doctor had told me it was essential (much to my scepticism) that I take. I then received an urgent appointment to see a Rheumatologist, back at Carlisle, the next day. As you may well imagine I was starting to get a little worried by this time and sleep didn’t come easily that night.

My daughter drove me to the hospital, I didn’t fancy going blind while negotiating the M6. I was seen more or less straight away by an Egyptian fellow who turned out to be everything one would hope for in a medical professional. He asked me about my symptoms and how I’d been leading up to them, then he asked me what I thought was wrong. I replied that if the headache had been more centralised (it was presenting on the right side of my head) and my vision wasn’t a bit off, then I’d have guessed at a nasty bout of sinusitis. He smiled at this and agreed with me before going ahead with the scan of my temporal arteries, just as a precaution. He showed me the results of the scan in real time and said I had (at least in my head) the arteries of a younger man (this turned out to be a bit ironic). What about the “anomaly” which kicked all this off, I asked. He replied that the number referenced would have been over the alarm limit if I’d have been a forty year old man. He didn’t say it outright, but he intimated to me that the GP hadn’t really understood the outcome of the tests and I had nothing to worry about, apart from buying a packet of Sudafed on my way home.

I popped round to the greenhouse on Saturday morning (17th of January) and did a little bit of tidying up for a couple of hours then returned home. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but on the Sunday morning my right ankle didn’t feel right and putting my right foot to the floor was uncomfortable. I assumed that I might have given it a knock, or jarred it slightly and didn’t worry too much about it that day. By Monday lunchtime I could hardly walk, my ankle was swollen and inflamed and the pain was getting increasingly worse. Mrs. C told me that I’d better ring the doctor but, given the last two experiences I was reluctant to do so, given I may well end up seeing the same doctor again and end up going all around the houses again, for nowt. By teatime the pain was getting worse and you could have warmed your hands with the heat coming off my foot. Seeing it as the lesser of two evils, I got a lift into the walk in centre at Penrith hospital and waited only about 30 minutes to be triaged before waiting another 30 to see a doctor, another very professional and personable practitioner. I had cellulitis in my right foot. I’d caught it in time and a course of strong anti-biotics saw it off. My wariness of the medical profession continues, and one thing’s certain, I truly hope that I won’t be requiring its services for a goodly while. Do I draw any conclusion? The NHS is a microcosm of life itself, in that there’s good, bad and indifferent care to be had, beyond that I count myself lucky to have been the recipient of slightly more of the good than the bad on these particular occasions.

Any road up, enough about me! The photo isn’t great, but a friend took me for my first walk that wasn’t around the village, up to one of the becks that feeds Thirlmere. I needed a walking pole and we didn’t do more than a mile in total, but it was great to get out and the frozen falls we quite spectacular, in a British kind of way. You can’t drive around the mere now, but the walk along the closed back road, if you’re ever up this way, which allows access at several points to the waters’ side is well worth the time if you’re ever up this way.

The buildings and maintenance department has been busy. We did lose some glass during the high winds in mid December, but I wasn’t able to offer my usual words of encouragement as they were replaced. In between times the potting table has been “shelved  out” and the timbers prepared for another two bays to be shored up where the angle iron base support has rusted away. It’s all go!

I did manage to eventually get round the corner and, although I haven’t washed the pots, I have sided most of them into trays and got them on the new shelves. It’s a conundrum. You know you’ll never use them all but, at the same time, you’re loathe to part with any, just in case! At least it shouldn’t get as messy under there as it has in the past and the old tin racks are no longer a danger to an unwary shin.

Having now fully recalled the route around to the greenhouse and reacquainted myself with neighbours (“now then Col, haven’t seen you for a bit, how’s tha’ doin’ old lad”) on the route I find myself spending the odd hour in the shed, musing mostly about whether or not I need to replace some seed or even try to grow something different. The remains of the Yorkshireman in me think I should use up what I’ve got, but Caldbeck potato sale’s just around the corner and I’m a sucker for an interesting seed packed in a small brown envelope. The brouhaha surrounding Peter Mandleson, a fellow long admired by Postaliers for both his tenacity and his “come back” ability, and his “relationship” with the Epstein chap has reached new heights (here I’m only pondering) and one has to wonder if, whilst ever Peter managed to get away with his various intrigues and peccadilloes without severely tainting the likes of Blair, Campbell and Brown (and latterly Starmer) they were happy to allow him to keep going because they either saw some benefit from it or shared in his “tastes” to some extent. Whatever the case may be, and I could be totally wrong, but it seems virtually impossible to me that the people who worked alongside him for so many years (and the man who gave him the plum Washington job) didn’t know exactly how he operated and exactly what he was like. Maybe we’ll find out the whole truth one day, but I won’t be holding my breath. Meanwhile, the axe is honed, the tines on the pitchfork are oiled, the scythes are sharpened and the staffs are tested for heft, balance and impact resistance. We don’t currently farm, but it’s always wise, in my opinion, to be ready for any happenstance.
 

© Colin Cross 2025