Farmers’ market

There's nothing wrong with Nature being dumb and ugly because it is simultaneously--paradoxically--brilliant and superb.

Mum is now in a ward named Acute Assessment. She’s tired, having spent much of the night in A&E being prodded, sampled, transfused, and infused. She’s also thirsty because they’ve got her as Nil By Mouth until after the endoscopy, which will happen “sometime today.” Despite all that, she’s chipper - a recognisable version of usual self.

She’s in a pod of four patients. There’s an undercurrent of purposeful bustle and a soundtrack of beeps, as machines ring out a litany of pulse and pressure. The woman opposite has some form of dementia, cooing and muttering to staff, then shrieking when they give her oxygen.

I leave and, on the way back to the flat, remember that there’s a farmers’ market at a car park off Marylebone High Street. I have a craving for fresh veg, so I enter the bustle and, ignoring breads, meats, cheeses, make a beeline for a small organic stall. I emerge with a selection of staples as well as rainbow chard, beetroot, and chillis.

So, it’s cauli and chard Thai curry for lunch. Judging by the size it’ll probably do several meals. Yum.

I’m about to take a stroll in Regents Park when an engineer from BT arrives unexpectedly. The phone line was reported as “inoperative” days ago, so it’s great that someone has been dispatched to sort it out. It seems that one of his colleagues disconnected our line while connecting someone else’s. So, he spends a couple of hours tracing cables and finding a spare connection to the cabinet. I learn about contract telephone engineers, a connection box on the roof, and compulsory overtime - and simultaneously regain phone and internet.

I take a cold walk through the park. It’s surprisingly busy: the tennis courts are all in use, benches are full. Mum rings : they’re about to take her for the endoscopy. Jol rings: he’ll meet me at the flat shortly.

We get back to the hospital around 7 with fruit and a tiny pot of ice cream. Mum’s sitting up content in bed. The procedure was done under sedation, discovering ulcers as the likely source of the bleed, possibly brought on by inappropriate use of aspirin and ibuprofen.

They still haven’t given her the all-clear to eat, so the ice cream melts. The dementia patient has been replaced by an elderly woman with influenza, who is being discharged anyway. Eventually mum is given a cup of tea with biscuits, which she takes a signal that eating is now allowed.

When we leave, there’s still no sign of the review team, who will tell us what the next steps are. We’ll find out tomorrow if it’s as positive as it seems.

I watch Louis Theroux talking to anorexics while eating the next instalment of curry.