February 26th, 2010
First sunny day for a week, but a high wind too, and drama on the beach: huge waves dumping thousands of tonnes of water on the shore, high tide, long swell, bad undertow, and there between the waves two swimmers thrashing about – at first I thought they must be surfers but if they did have boards they’d both lost them in the breakers.
Watching them being swept further and further out, with little chance of being able to swim their way through the hundred feet of dragging white water between them and the beach, it began to look as if we were going to have to watch them drown; people were already running along the beach and watching from the streets above; reaching into my pocket I realised I hadn’t even got my mobile, but then a police car raced up to the top of the breakwater and policemen in high-visibility vests were running down to the huddle of people on the beach.
Long minutes while nothing seemed to happen, and only one swimmer’s head could still be seen, going under then coming up again and sometimes waving an arm; and then finally here came the cavalry, as the coastguard helicopter reared up from behind the beach, swung round overhead while everyone below gestured out into the waves where the swimmer was, then in a matter of a minute it was hovering overhead, winching down the paramedic, who seemed to take only a few seconds to pluck the bedraggled swimmer out of the churning sea.
And off they went, leaving the beach clustered with onlookers and, amazingly, the second swimmer, who had somehow battled his way back through the surf and the exploding waves, to huddle together with his chastened, helpless friends.
February 22nd, 2010
Big day today: my father arrives home from the hospice. My parents’ house has been filling with equipment since the middle of last week (electric bed, lightweight wheelchair, ventilators and tanks of liquid oxygen…) but now the day has finally arrived. Everyone’s quite nervous about it, not least my father himself, which is hardly surprising, especially given how cosseted he’s been at the Joseph Weld Hospice in Dorchester – with nurses on call 24 hours a day, excellent food, wine with his lunch, afternoon cakes and (best of all) custard and ice-cream with every meal. Talk about keeping a man happy…
February 22nd, 2010
Caring for someone you love who is dying is, oddly, a bit like being in love. There’s the same desire to spend as much time as possible together, but more than that, it gives you the same strange moments of heightened reality, when just looking up in the sky and seeing white clouds or a bird flying overhead can bring you to the edge of tears.
It’s funny that death isn’t more integrated into our lives today, since it’s just as integral to life as, say, giving birth – except of course one is intensely sad and the other, on the whole, is something to celebrate. Yet we celebrate death, too, in a way, by remembering the life of the person we’ve lost.
February 18th, 2010
Apologies to anyone who’s been checking my website over the last few weeks for the lack of posts: my father was rushed to hospital in the New Year and has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, so life’s been turned upside down for all the family while we try and look after him as best we can. ‘Normal’ service will be resumed as soon as possible, but in the meantime I hope you’ll bear with me – sorry.
