Blog 59. Take Two Paracetamol, Dear…

There were no flashing blue lights or sirens: just the slamming of a solid metal door and the footfall of heavy boots pounding up the stairs.  The cavalry, or rather the paramedics, had arrived.  I had been woken at 0300 by my wife switching on the bedside lights and declaring,
“My heart has been beating fast and irregularly since half past one and I feel very ill”.

Jane had suffered this problem two or three times before and she had sorted it out by the simple expedient of taking two paracetamol, which calmed her down.  However, on the penultimate occasion the condition had gone on for well over an hour and so she had been driven to consult our GP two weeks ago.  The upshot of that was that a consultation with a cardiologist was to be arranged, and Jane was told that, if it happened again and lasted more than 20 minutes, she was to dial 999 immediately lest it lead to a heart attack.  Hence, the 999 call and the girls in green arriving tout de suite.  You may reasonably ask why my wife waited over an hour before asking for help.  The reason was that “she did not want to be taken to A&E in hospital”.  There is a certain logic somewhere there.  I suppose she just kept on hoping that The Bad Thing would go away.  Of course, by the time the paramedics arrived, The Bad Thing had, indeed, gone away and the problem solved itself, but they still gave her a very thorough once-over and reprimanded her for not calling sooner.  All through this episode our house guests, Sam and Laura, in the bedroom next door, lay rigid in their beds wondering if either the Stasi had arrived or if an Ocado delivery driver was getting ahead of himself with the grocery order.  I had not disturbed them in case they were still asleep.  Sadly, and for obvious reasons, they had to cut short their visit and return home after breakfast.  I think it may have been the thought of me cooking their meals that tipped the balance.

Following this little adventure, Jane has been put on blood thinner and beta blocker tablets, but she is not entirely happy with that because she hates being dependent on medication.  On receipt of the pills, she immediately looked up the drugs on the internet and found all manner of conflicts and side effects, the growth of another head, no coffee or tea, no alcohol and itching being the most memorable.  She then scrutinised the five-page scroll provided with each drug packet and added a few more side effects to her portfolio.  Concerned, she arranged another telephone consultation with our GP.  I could hear some of the conversation from where I sat, and the best bit went as follows:
Jane: “I have these drugs that you prescribed…
GP: “Oh yes…”
Jane: “… and I’ve been reading the leaflets that go with them”
GP:  [audible sigh], “Oh dear…”
Jane: “Now, in paragraph 97 of the leaflet on bisoprolol fumerate it says…”
This went on for some time and the doctor patiently calmed her fears on every point.  Finally, she was satisfied and she is now popping the pills.  Strangely, there have been no side effects other than her feeling sleepy (no change there then).  She was quite right to check these things, of course.
My wife: a complete enigma at times but, thankfully, still alive and I love her dearly.

Not much to report on the CV19 front this time.  Deaths in the UK are still following their asymptotic path and are in single figures daily (zero on two occasions); the number of cases reported has also dropped despite an increase in testing, though it is too early to say that this optimistic trend will continue.  The gloom-mongers are still predicting a “second surge” and the hospitals and NHS are under-employed and poised accordingly, with the Health Secretary threatening a resumption of lockdowns.  Schools are supposed to go back next week, but policy on the wearing of face coverings has largely been left to individual headteachers, so there is much grumbling and a wide range of solutions being proposed.  A report today stated that there has not been a single case of child CV19 death in the UK except where there were previous existing life-limiting medical conditions.  We really do need to get the children back to school for a whole number of reasons, not least the entirely selfish one of making my life more stress-free and quiet.

Well, that dinghy I ordered (Blog 58) arrived and I am delighted with it.  I immediately laid it out in the kitchen and inflated it, a process that took just five minutes.  Jane was invited to participate in the “show and tell” process, to receive instruction in the use of the foot pump (declined), and to pose for a photograph (taken by Sam and Laura), sitting in the bows while I wielded the oars.  The operational plan was for her to sit in the stern, from which position she could crack her whip and demand more revs from stroke oar (me).  I had ordered a rounded-stern inflatable dinghy (rather than one with a square transom) to facilitate this very seating arrangement, but I had not realised that there would be two lugs protruding on the stern to accommodate an outboard motor bracket.  The lugs stuck into her cute little derrière and so she refused to sit there, hence her position in the bows, a bespectacled short-sighted figurehead with red hair.  Of course, that seating arrangement will not work in practice (we would be trimmed too much down by the head) and so we are now discussing a suitable cushion for her bottom.  The things you have to do.  The dinghy folds up for stowage in a very large rucksack and weighs just 9.2 kg (20 lb), which is very good as these things go.  It is still a bit of a back-breaker though.

The quid pro quo for the dinghy – the new mattress – arrived on Thursday in the form of a vacuum-packed roll.  After we had humped it upstairs and laid it on the bed there was some discussion as to how to unpack it.  This was solved by me slitting open the polythene packing carefully with a penknife, whereupon the whole thing came alive, opened out, and re-formed itself with a loud hiss, like a scene from Alien.  Most impressive.  We looked at it.
“It’s a bit thin”, said Jane.
Indeed, it was quite thin as mattresses go, being only about three inches thick, but it had been recommended by the Consumer Association’s magazine Which? and was described as a hybrid sprung mattress.  Jane lay on it.
“It’s quite firm”, she said.
I lay on it.  “Firm” was an understatement.  It felt to me like lying down on a bunk in a prison cell, but I refrained from comment.  We have it on approval for 100 nights and, if not entirely satisfied with it after all this time, we can return it to Eve, the manufacturer.  So far we have completed two nights on it and we have slept very well so, clearly, the thing grows on you.

The last time we bought a mattress was when we replaced the one in the master cabin of the boat aka “the bordello” (Blog 53).  Jane hated the mattress that we inherited because it was thin, sagged in the middle, and “had been slept on before, by others” (like a hotel bed, in fact).  We initially could not think of an easy way of replacing it (the bed and mattress are roughly oval shaped) until we visited the Southampton Boat Show and found a firm that specialised in bedding for boats.  They had a straightforward (if expensive) procedure that involved removing the existing mattress for collection by the firm, and manufacturing a new one (plus fitted sheets and covers) using the old mattress as a template.  Removal of the thin, probably 30-year old, mattress was quite easy and the  return of the new mattress was anticipated with excitement; however, we were wary of manhandling this new, thicker and heavier, item onboard. 
“Don’t worry”, said the firm, “the delivery driver will probably help you if you bung him a fiver”. 
The day came, the delivery van arrived, the driver lifted off the mattress as if it were filled with helium, and prepared to leave.
“Could you give us a hand?”, we asked, Jane hitching up her skirt and showing a leg with a five pound note tucked into her stocking top (I made that last bit up).
“Sorry mate, I’m a bit behind.  It’s very light, you’ll be all right”.  He drove off.
It was not very light.  It was not even light.  It was heavy.  And enormous.  And unwieldy.  I looked at Jane.
“Best you get a trolley and put a pair of trousers on”, I said.
So we balanced this huge mattress on a cart about the same size as a supermarket trolley and trundled the whole thing – with considerable difficulty and several alarms – through the marina, onto one pontoon, then another, finally reaching the boat.  Then came the next challenge: how to get it onboard.  The quarterdeck, with access to the main cabin, stands at about shoulder height when standing on a jetty and is surrounded by a guard rail, making the hurdle higher still.  We had to get the mattress out of the trolley and over the guardrail to put it on deck.  We propped it against the boat and tried lifting it.  Not much happened except the boat swung away from the pontoon and the mattress nearly fell down the intervening gap into the water.  I tightened the mooring lines and we tried again.  The same thing happened.
“We need to give it a bit of biff”, I said. 
Another try.  The mattress lifted a bit then fell back again. 
“I can’t do this”, said Jane, giving a fair impression of ‘maiden in point of despair, with hand across brow’.  “I haven’t got the strength.  We’ll have to leave it here.  I’m going to lie down”.
“Nonsense.  Put your back into it woman!  I’m not having any of that defeatist talk!  One more heave and we’ll do it.  Remember what President Obama says: ‘Yes We Can’ ”
“Right.  Together.  Two-six, HEAVE!”
Boosted by a monumental surge of power, the mattress shot up onto the deck and nearly disappeared over the other side.  Jane lay down on the pontoon, giving a fair impression of ‘maiden lies prone in exhaustion’.
“Come on, you can’t lie there.  Phase Two coming up.  Nearly done.  I’ll make you a nice cup of tea when we’re finished”, I said.
Scrambling up onto the deck, I opened the small door to the main cabin.  Now how to get this big mattress through that tiny hole?  We pushed, we heaved, we sat on it.  Still no joy.  I could see Jane losing the will to live and threats of lying down – on the mattress perhaps – on the deck were imminent.  
“Remember, We Can Do It!”, I urged.  “I’ll buy you an ice cream when we’re done”
In the end, Jane went into the cabin and pulled, while I stayed on deck and pushed and sat on the mattress.  Suddenly, with a mighty “FLUBBERDUBBER” the whole thing fell through the hatch and landed on top of Jane in the saloon.  I knew we could do it and she managed to get that lie down after all.  After that, the process of getting the thing from the saloon, through the cabin door and into the master cabin was simply child’s play.
“I told you we could do it”, I said, handing her her cup of tea. 
She just looked at me.  She loves me really, but she seems to have taken against Barack Obama for some reason.

It was a quiet Sunday evening and I was on weekend leave, shortly to depart back to my ship.  Jane was battling her way through a pile of ironing (this was in the pre Dhoby Wallah and Shirt Presser Boy era) and we were both listening to a talk programme on BBC Radio 4. Such situations always generate mixed emotions: contentment of a placid domestic scene; professional thoughts of what needs to be done when back onboard; melancholy at the prospect of yet another farewell.  The radio programme was discussing childbirth (heaven knows why we were listening to it) and I ventured the opinion that I could not understand what all the fuss was about this perfectly natural human function.  Expanding on my view, I pointed out that, out in the bundu, your African woman just went off into the bush, dropped the sprog, cut the cord with a bit of flint, then was back in the village next day making the Sunday lunch. 
Well, let me tell you, it was only the electrical lead on the iron that saved me.  Jane was apoplectic and waving the iron in a most threatening way.
“What! WHAT!”, she practically spat at me. “Have you any idea what childbirth is like?”
I was a bit taken aback.
“Well I suppose it does sting a bit…”
“Sting a bit?  STING A BIT?  It’s worse than going to the lavatory and passing a football.  For eight hours”
“I was given to understand that it was a joyous and heart-moving experience…”
“Well it’s not.  That’s just a story put out by weird new-world women and trendy midwives.  It is bloody agony and I’m glad I never have to do it again”
Blimey, I thought.  Not often the old girl swears.  Perhaps the procedure isn’t as straight forward as I thought, though Stage 1 is pretty good.  Best I venture no more opinions on matters natal and keep out of range of that steam iron.  I seem to recall that, shortly after this little educational and gynaecological exchange, I slunk away to rejoin my ship with my tail between my legs.

I was pondering on this salutary experience when I was reading an improving book, Gut by Dr Gillian Enders the other day.  I am not normally one for reading non-fiction for pleasure (unless you count Engineering Thermodynamics, Work, and Heat Transfer by Rogers and Mayhew or, on High Days, Gas Turbines by Cohen, Rogers and Saravanamutto), but Gut is a “must read” for all valetudinarians and self-help gastroenterologists such as I.  There was a fascinating section in the book about acquiring immunity from disease (topical in this world of scrupulously clean vegetables and Covid 19) and the author was describing how new-born babies start to acquire immunity from disease from their mother.  In the womb we are in an entirely sterile area, but we pick up our mother’s “good” bacteria from her vagina as we are born.  Mother’s milk passes on more of her own immunity and we acquire a further batch of “good” microbes from her skin and the very cuddles our mother gives us.  I thought that was all pretty amazing.  Babies born by caesarian section, or not fed on breast milk, do not acquire this early immunity and it takes them longer to establish their own.  There is also a suggestion that they are more prone to allergies and asthma.  So there you go: mother’s milk is good for you, like Guinness.

It would appear that autumn is coming.  After Jane emerged from the shower this morning covered in goose pimples she gave a mighty shiver and declared that the central heating must be restored to its operational state.  I sighed, but had to agree with her.  The temperature outside dropped to 10C (50F) last night and soon the short skirts, sun tops and strappy sandals will have to be put away for winter and I will be back in trousers, long-sleeved shirts, shoes and tights for the duration.  There has even been talk of restoring the electric blanket on the bed.  Cooler times have not yet come, but they are close.  It is a pity as we were hoping for an Indian summer and are due to return to the boat next week in anticipation.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, but stand by for later reports of hypothermia and frostbite.

Friends are so important.  We do not have many (Jane makes friends; I seem to lose them somehow), but those we do have we value and love dearly.  We have just had the pleasure of short overnight visits by two sets of friends in two successive weeks and it was such a joy to engage in face-to-face conversation after that long period of lockdown.  We had experimented with FaceTime of course, and it wasn’t bad, but you cannot beat a proper visit and a bottle or three of wine together.   Curiously, this philosophy has just been supported by a psychologist in the news the other day, and he went on to express concern for the mental health of those unable physically to meet their friends again.  We have one or two friends who, for health or other reasons, remain locked down even now: waiting for a vaccine or a total end to the virus.  I hope one or the other comes soon and I seriously wonder if we will ever see them again.  The government has just finished a month-long programme during which it supplemented individual meals taken out in a restaurant to the tune of 50% of the food cost up to £10 per person.  The aim was to get people out into the High Street again, to encourage confidence in a public conventional setting, and to give a kick-start to the restaurant industry.  It has worked very well and some restaurants intend to extend the discount with their own schemes now that the government programme has ended.  We have been out for three meals since lockdown now: one in Taylors in Dartmouth in July, one in The Ivy last week, and one in Côte this week.  All were excellent and were a welcome step back to normality.

If you are a man reading this (or perhaps, in the current climate, I should say “if you are currently a man reading this”), have you ever had the experience of being unable to find the butter in the fridge only for your wife or girlfriend to come along and find it straight away, like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat?  Apparently it is quite common and is a consequence of women having better sideways vision than men.  I was thinking of this when, just before this epidemic, we were holidaying in Spain, guests of some very good old friends who were doing their Christian duty by helping the poor and afflicted.  We were walking along the boardwalk on the beach and I was staring at a bulk carrier on the horizon, trying to determine what she might be carrying.  Suddenly, a voice next to me said,
“Eyes in the boat, dear”.
It made me start.  I was impressed,  not only by the nautical language that she seemed to have acquired (it is an order given to boats’ crew to avert their licentious eyes when a lady is ascending an accommodation ladder to board a warship), but also that, somehow, she knew what I had been looking at.  True, within my sight line there had also been a slim woman with auburn hair and freckles lying topless, but face down, on the beach, but I had not noticed her.  I explained my innocence at some length, but I could tell by the knowing look in her eye that I was not believed.  Now, how did she do that?

And I reckon that bulk carrier was carrying liquified natural gas.  So there.

29 August 2020