A day with the elders

I took a box truck to town because I had so many parcels of cards to post and deliver. Once I'd got the mail sent, I took the bus to Cainscross on the edge of Stroud, to a gated community for older people. They have their own flats, but they are grouped around a central courtyard/garden, which is well maintained and has picnic benches etc for happier times, and a communal lounge. I showed my cards to the customer under a gazebo because it was raining. He said he'd been living there for around a year, and had hardly got to know anyone, because of the 'Rona and lockdowns. People weren't going out of their front doors much, he said. So sad, it seemed a comfortable place, and welll located near a church and a park, away from the main road.

My next lady in Stonehouse had a rant about the cost of plumbers (hear! hear!) and Tesco, and Amazon. Her carer wasn't there, but she needed to get a pain relief patch from the pharmacy. I offered to go, and she said she'd like some soft loo roll as well, "because this stuff is scratchy". She showed me the scratchy stuff, via a spare piece on her walker, and it turned out to be kitchen roll. Nonetheless, I set off (she'd already told me not to tell the pharmacist that she was on morphine patches too) and when I got back with the items, she was on the phone to the pharmacist, who had told her she had a prescription to collect! She said that one was not urgent, so I left, promising to return early next year. I think it will be sooner, though, as I've grown fond of her. Lockdown is  so hard. She is  on the ball,  she is 91, has all her marbles and uses email and YouTube with confidence, but her body is ageing.

Then I walked to the other end of Stonehouse, under the railway bridge, and delivered some cards to a house with a grey cat inside. The owner, who lost her elderly mother earlier this year, was not in, so I decided to visit J, a stalwart of the WEA, who was widowed earlier this year, during the first wave of CoVid-19.  He too had spent a long time on hospital following an accident. I hadn't been to his house for ages, but there seemed to be evidence of painting: one window frame was bright blue, the door was bright green, something else was yellow ... quite different from the previous Magnolia Years. He didn't answer, so I went to the chippy and sat down on a bench to eat some delicious chips, which were very hot. Just as I was tucking into them, I saw J's car turning into the lane! I hadn't left a note, though, and the chips were so good, that I decided to carry on eating them and leave J to his own devices. At least he's driving again, which is good, considering he couldn't walk a few months ago.

My final call was to an 89 year old. This time I had got into a muddle, and forgotten one of her packs of cards. She said she'd been planning to drop me off at home anyway, and would collect them then. I helped her order a book from Amazon for her son's birthday, which was the following day. She had forgotten how to use Amazon, and lost her password, and her card details were out of date, so this took a little while, but I approved of her choice, which was Barack Obama's new book. When we'd folded up my box truck and her walker, and she had 'spent a penny' we got into her car. She turned the key in the ignition, and....nothing. We checked all the doors and windows and seat belts repeatedly, but it would not start.  She swore it was not the battery. I was not so sure, but it's a modern car and has different sounds to our diesel. I helped her and her walker back into her house. Just then a loud alarm started going off, apparently activated by a button on her wrist that she must have accidentally pressed. She said that the same thing had happened at 2am recently, and the cavalry had arrived, and woken her up. This time she managed to call off the 'rescuers,' and asked to speak to someone called Steve, whereupon the guy in the call centre said, "Steve who?" I can't help thinking the alarm system, and advanced  technology in general, is not helping her.

We looked for the garage's number on her phone, and found it under 'garage', and she left two messages, one with her name and address, and the second at my prompting with her phone number. Then, as she was safe indoors, I left  to catch the bus. I had been with her for well over an hour.

Back at the high street, there wasn't a bus to be had for twenty minutes, so I walked up to the Stroud end, where I knew there was a brick bus shelter. What I did not know was that it had been turned into a rather splendid 'poetry bus shelter' with framed poems by  HW Longfellow and Wendy Cope, and a call for submissions. I wish I'd taken a photo of it! I think I may suggest this one, which always comforted me when I used to see it on the London Underground: https://www.oatridge.co.uk/poems/s/sheenagh-pugh-sometimes.php

The bus came, I went back to Stroud, and walked home via the Christmassy streets where all the independent stores were closed for lockdown. The shop window in my shot belongs to Moonflower.

I don't know what to say in summary, except that lockdown is terribly hard on the elderly and vulnerable, who seem to have lost their lifelines, and had them replaced by hyperactive gadgets. I'm glad I wore my Christmas jumper, it cheered up at least one person. There is no substitute for human companionship. I am inspired by the tale of a local(ish) postman, who has been given an award, https://www.itv.com/news/2020-11-18/lockdown-legend-the-postman-who-delivers-more-than-just-letters
and by the dancing and  singing bin men of Wolverhampton, who have cheered people up during lockdown and are now hoping for a Christmas number one with their single 'boogie round your bins this Christmas'.  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-55020730  We need more people like that.