Light at the end of the tunnel…

Well, that only applies to this personal tunnel. I don’t think it is an approaching train, touch wood. Philosopher is getting slowly and steadily better. His appetite has improved, his wound is healed, and he is getting stronger by the day. However, he still suffers from an upset stomach, and gets fed up with himself that he is still so physically weak. I dare say because he is better I feel better too… However, if one looks beyond our immediate concerns, the light at the end of the national and global tunnels would be raging firestorms… I almost feel strong enough for a little rant.

Not surprising Philosopher gets a bad stomach – the poor man has had to learn a whole new way of digesting his food, and his stomach must have shrunk.  He lost 1.5 stone during his illness. He has actually been to see a real-life GP, and I spoke to her on the phone. Needless to say, when I described my gut symptoms, given my age and my medical record, she had to refer me, and last week I was called by a consultant, who said that even though there was a very high likelihood that my problems were due to stress and anxiety, I would have to have a colonoscopy. Oh yuch. Have had one before years ago when I was going through a stressful time, they found nothing. I remember the procedure being interesting but the preparation and aftermath being vile… Sigh. But it would be stupid to refuse, even if I feel better.

So, what have we been up to?  The weather has been fabulous for days now, so we have been out and about as much as is reasonably possible. Trouble is, much isn’t possible. Given that it has been Easter holidays, and lovely weather, Hastings has been absolutely heaving with people. Philosopher still has to take a bit of care to keep clear of Covid – as do I, so I don’t infect him.  He still finds crowds a bit tiring and scary. We have to be able to park on the sea-front… so, all in all, the town centre has been out of bounds for the last few days. We have been to the Country Park a good few times, walking a little further on every visit, and to Bexhill once.

He has been shopping in Ore Village on his own, and driven the car plenty of times. We have been to coffee with neighbours… so, good going.  He can also do a few Jobs – like the ironing!  Yippee! But he can’t lift anything or do anything strenuous, and won’t be able to for ages. He has to get these support belts to stop him getting a hernia – I got him an interim one from Amazon because the NHS ones take about 6 weeks to come. It was a pull-on lycra thing. He struggled into it and said it was far too tight. I tried it on and to me, it was really loose. Battleaxe wonders how men would cope with the ‘body-shaping’ underwear that us women are routinely coerced into. I remember wearing those Spanx knickers when I was at work. Tight? Jeez…  It was dreadful how they forced all your fat upwards so you looked like a mushroom… Worse, I’m old enough to remember wearing ‘roll-ons’.  Tight? Crikey… I remember my mother wore this all-in-one corseletty thing that went all the way up from her pubes to her bust.

I have been doing bits on my own as well – walks with friend Jan, WI Book Club lunch at the Sea Angling Club, my Stanza poetry group including meal with chums at the White Rock Hotel, and an exhausting but quite fun afternoon on Saturday helping to run a tearoom for the Friends of the Conquest Hospital as part of the Winchelsea Open Gardens.

My dear friend Pete came all the way down from Birmingham to Hastings to meet me for lunch.  What a total hero.  We had an excellent meal at Webbes at Rockanore.

Oh Lordy me the country and the world is in such a shocking state. Ukraine? Nobody still seems to have the faintest idea how it will end, and it seems to get worse day by day.  It can’t have done the inner working of the Battleaxe and Philosopher minds any good at all to have a drastic shift in the existing world order coincide, almost to the day, with N’s dreadful illness.

Some fool Tory, I forget which one, said Johnson was a good ‘wartime’ Prime Minister. Eh? What could have he been thinking? Seems to me it has brought out the worst in Lard-bag Johnson – posturing his way on some daft walkabout round Kiev in his ill-fitting suit, when he’d likely get lynched if he tried to do the same in Huddersfield.  Then, it is insane to say we are ‘at war’ at all. Of course we aren’t, we’ve just sent them a few weapons. Those idiots who say x,y and z can’t happen because we are at war are just plain wrong, and using the suffering of those poor divvils in Ukraine to excuse all sorts of nasty behaviour – principally party fines, of course. Do I think Johnson should resign? Probably, but who could replace him, particularly as golden boy Rishi has turned out to be as corrupt and venal as the rest of them.  Talking Rishi for a moment, for me, probably the stupidest thing he has done is to give £100,000 to his old school, Winchester College. What? Could nobody have advised him that this would not be a good look? Could he not have donated the money to a few inner-city comprehensives to stop their buildings falling down?

Anyway, we’d be no better off with a different PM.  The whole cabinet is utterly lacking in brains and any shred of morality or decency. It is a total disgrace and an international embarrassment.  The Tory MPs – and the grassroots Tory supporters and voters who enable this ghastly fiasco have my complete, everlasting contempt. I have rarely felt such hatred…  The Conservative Party is now no different from the Republican Party in the US.  They will do anything, anything at all to hang on to power.

Just think of the horrors we’ve got going on, all at once.  Brexit? Obviously a disaster. I was just reading about tons of beetroot rotting in the fields because there is nobody to pick it, turning large areas of ground red. I said to Philosopher earlier that if I was a Christian I could imagine there was a hell, and then so-called Christians like Rees-Mogg could burn in it.  Brexit Opportunities Minister – oh purleeze.

We have massive shortages of labour in every sector of industry, and then people get into a frenzy about a few folks coming across in boats. We should be welcoming them with open arms.  Talking of which – Rwanda.  No, even Battleaxe can’t bear to talk about that. It is the worst thing ever. I can only pray that it is another much-trumpeted government initiative that falls quietly by the wayside once it has done its job of distracting the masses from isses that matter. That Patel woman is truly, truly evil. And of course, it is another international embarrassment that despite much fine talk, we can’t apparently provide safety for more than a pathetic handful of Ukranian refugees…

Cost of living – through the roof. Fuel prices – don’t get me started. Does the Government care that millions will suffer and starve. Not one jot.

Climate change?  Oh we haven’t got time to worry about that now. Don’t You Know There’s a War On?

NHS? On its knees. Covid? Romping away unchecked. Pay £2 for a lateral flow test? Great idea. A bit more money to go into the Tory coffers. Social equality? Was reading in the Guardian today that women in the poorest areas in England have life-expectancy lower than anywhere except Mexico. Here is the article.

Oh I give up.It is all too dreadful. There are some nice photos on this post, at least….