Proud to be an Ally.

I’m proud to be an ally.

Maybe you totally get that, or maybe you wonder why it’s something to be particularly proud of.  Or maybe you wonder why I don’t just shut up and go away - but that’s why I’ve put this in a blog that you have to click on to read it.  I’m assuming a basic level of interest in the general area, or at least a will to read on.

It’s the anniversary of Stonewall, today.  If you don’t know what Stonewall is, or why it is called ‘Stonewall’, here’s a bit of further reading:  https://thestonewallinnnyc.com/the-stonewall-inn-story/2017/4/4/ntmsg5ni7iixxdjimmg16hz6dvsi4v. There’s an excellent film, currently free to view on Amazon Prime:  “Stonewall”.  Some of it may shock you.  I certainly hope it does, if it wasn’t stuff you already knew.

I was born in 1969.  I was four months old when Stonewall happened. 

Up until 2 years earlier, homosexuality was illegal in England and Wales.  I grew up in Belgium, though, where homosexuality had been legal (as part of France) since 1795.  Nope, not 1975 - not a typo.  1795.  All in all, I’ve never lived in a country where it was illegal to be gay, in my lifetime.

So I didn’t really know homosexuality *could* be illegal, growing up, although I knew it was frowned on. 

It has never mattered to me whether someone is gay or not.  I say that hand on heart.  That isn’t a matter for pride - that’s just a fact.  Although I’m quite proud of my parents for not teaching me otherwise. 

With the obvious proviso of consenting adults, how is it possibly any of my business what gender of other human someone chooses to sleep with?  It’s an honest question, not a high horse.  How could it possibly be my business?  How can it possibly hurt anyone?  Why it has ever been illegal is genuinely beyond me.

I do remember being rocked back on my heels when homosexuality was legalised in Scotland, because it was 1981. 1981!  And 1982 in Northern Ireland.  Process that.  You could be jailed for loving someone the same gender as yourself until the early 80s.  I was rocked back on my heels because it was the first time I realised it was actually against the law in some places.

I spent most of my childhood around dancers and thespians, both amateur and professional, so there was a fairly high level of camp in my life - plus the 70s were as camp as tits, anyway, right?  We also had no English language television, so I largely grew up on things like Round the Horne, had  more than a passing knowledge of Polari, and got told off for writing “there I was, trolling along the waterfront” in a piece of creative writing at school.

Plus we had this strange advantage - I think it’s an advantage, anyway.  Being an immigrant or ex-pat or migrant or Eurobrat or whatever you’d like to call me, we lived in a strange limbo between the cultures of Belgium and England, not having to conform to the societal mores of either country, and with a resultant exultant freedom to choose what we believed to be right.

Being at a European school, too, where, by the time I left, there were 3,500 different kids all on the same site, in 8 different language sections (now more), we were all very obviously culturally various. 

I think it’s very much endemic to the human condition that people need to identify their tribe.  Part of this, sadly, is identifying who is not in their tribe.  Who is perceived as a threat, in that shitty little caveman part of the brain that we really have to try so hard to rise above. 

Well, when you are surrounded by so many differences, that’s very easy indeed.  You don’t have to look hard for the differences, they’re right there in your face.  You don’t have to pick on the kid who is a bit camp, or the one who is a bit more or less feminine than “the norm”, the artistic boy, the athletic girl. 

When you are surrounded by people who are mostly the same as you - the same nationality, sexuality, ethnicity - that shitty little caveman part is hunting for the different ones, trying to find people to cast out of the cave, and very fine distinctions will be magnified.  When you are surrounded by people who are very obviously different from you, it’s very easy to, for example, find the people who speak the same language as you.  Tribe: done.  And there are so many other clear tribes of people defined by speaking their own language that there’s no point in feeling threatened by them. 

As a result we kind of grew up knowing that our tribe was the Brits - I’ve always been a patriotic Brit, contrary to popular perception.  But we also knew right from the start that we were essentially all the same in our differences - and we all mixed freely from an early age.  So I’ve always been a proud and patriotic European, at the same time. 

Incidentally, this whole tribe thing also meant that we didn’t give a toss about skin colour.  There were POC across all the language sections - they were just English or Italian or Danish or French like all the other English or Italian or Danish or French.  Anyhow.  Back to the point.

I knew from quite early on that my younger brother was gay, and I knew he got a hard time for it, being called names even before he really knew what it was all about.  We went to different schools, so there wasn’t much I could do about it in the school years. Then I left home and moved to England when I was 18, and left him dealing with the worst years by himself.  I wish I’d been around more at the time.  Maybe that’s why I’m so passionate about it now.

Living in London in the late 80s was bliss for me.  I’d wanted to live there since I was four years old, so it was the realisation of a long held dream.  Heaven (the nightclub, not the sky-paradise thing) was in full sway, new romantics were everywhere, androgyny and fashion experimentation were very much the order of the day.  Again, most of my friends were actors and musicians, and nobody gave a flying toss who was gay and who was straight.  And who was bi, for that matter.  But I did notice that people in the UK used the word “gay” as a derogatory term.  “No, I don’t want to go to the Student Union Friday night disco - it’s totally gay”.  I had two reactions to this - first: “yay!  Better dancing and no risk of getting forcibly felt up!" - and second: “Oh, right. You just mean naff?  Why not just say naff?”. It puzzled me, and I didn’t like it, but I just raised an eyebrow and moved along.

Time moved on.  My brother moved to London and lived with me for a few years.  My friends continued to be actors and musicians with no hang ups about anyone’s sexuality.  I guess I grew up in a lovely bubble.

I met Simon, we got married and had kids (just about in that order) and moved to the countryside.  I wasn’t happy to leave London and when I arrived here my initial reaction was “where are the gays?  Where are the foreigners?  Where are the black people?” Because there are so few, it felt very oppressive to me.  I didn’t understand it.  But, you know, I don’t like someone MORE because they’re black or gay or foreign, and I don’t like them LESS because they’re white or straight or British.  If they’re nice, I like them.  If they’re an arsehole, I don’t.  So I learned to love living here, very quickly, because pretty much every single person I’ve actually met down here has been really nice.  I learned to relax, adapt and not have preconceived ideas, either way.

The kids have grown up down here, but have had a lot of time in London and Brussels.  The first wedding they went to was my brother’s wedding, to Bruce.  Their second was Jane & Wendy’s wedding.  Their third was a straight wedding.  Their fourth was their godfather, Stefan’s wedding to the lovely Marc.  So of four weddings, three had been same-sex and they didn’t think anything of this.  They didn’t really think anything of sexuality at all.  People fall in love, they get married if they want to.  Whether they’re marrying the same gender or not - so what? 

It never occurred to me that this complete lack of discrimination on their part could be dangerous until one of my girls was asked, aged 12 or so, whether she was a lesbian.  This was because she had put a little message on insta to her best friend, saying “love you!”.  There followed a storm of “two brides” emojis and laughing faces.  But when she was asked, to her face, “oi, are you a lesbian?”, her totally innocent response was “I’m not sure, I might be”.  She wasn’t interested in boys or girls, that way, and she really didn’t think the answer was a big deal.

The resulting bullying broke up her friendship with a really lovely friend, because my amazing daughter didn’t want to open her shy friend up to the same bullying she was facing.  She withdrew into herself and felt a lot of self-hatred for a long time.  To my shame, I didn’t notice what was happening.  I remembered banging a lot of doors as a teenager and wanting my own space, so the amount of time she was spending alone in her room didn’t ring the alarm bells that it should have done.  Once I was shaken awake to what was going on it was hard to push away the guilt of a) not noticing and b) bringing her up to be so open minded that this apparently innocent question seemed, to her, to deserve an honest answer.  I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the guilt for the first but the second, I’ve learned to celebrate, once again.

Because now my daughters are the strongest allies I know.  They are a safe haven for a bewildering variety of friends from all backgrounds, genders and persuasions.  They are fearless in their defence of their friends, and staunch in their defence of strangers who are “strange”.  I thought I was open minded and tolerant, but I continue to learn from them every day, as does Simon.

My brother and his friends, over the last decades, have travelled to as many Pride marches in as many cities all over the world as they can afford the time and money to get to.  Pride may look like a big old party (and boy!  Is it a great party!).  But don’t be fooled.  It is a serious issue.  They are all there for more than the party.

We all watched Stonewall again, last night.  It is shocking and harrowing and joyful and strong in equal measure.  As always, the stark reminder at the end of the film that being gay was still, at the time of the making of the film, illegal in 77 countries, pushed me over the brink and into tears.  Angry tears, sad tears, tears of incomprehension.

I’ve just checked, and four years later it’s still illegal to be gay in 70 countries or more.  And it carries the death penalty in 12 countries.  **** that ****. 

Keep forcing the change.  Don’t accept the bungeeing of human rights.  Call out inequality where you see it.  Be a safe space.  And teach your kids, if you wanted kids and were lucky enough to have them, to be kind.

My Dad's Obituary. Which he wrote. Himself.

I can't write, still, about what my Dad meant to me.  I couldn't possibly find the words, yet.  My brother, Jon, and I were faced with this very difficult problem when it came to his funeral.  What the fuck could we say about the man who loved us with all his being, and never let us doubt it for a moment?  The man we were so proud to call our father?

In this, as in so many other things, Dad solved the problem for us.

It transpires that several years earlier, as a writing exercise, he wrote his own obituary.  He had previously, on the request of his friend Mike Graham that he send their old school friend Wogger Brian something to cheer him up in hospital following WB having had a stroke, sent this to Mike.  Mike was good enough to contact me after Dad's death and ask me if I'd seen it.  I hadn't.  He sent it to me.  I laughed harder than I had for a long time.  I sent it to Jon.  He laughed his socks off.  Did we dare to read it at his funeral?

You bet your arse we did.

Michael Bott

b. 1942 – d. 2042

Or in other words:  He came – and he went – and in between … nothing

Mick Bott was born in a mining village in East Kent in 1942.  By all accounts, while still in his pram he was shot at by a German fighter pilot.  The pilot missed – to the subsequent regret of many.  He attended the village school where he learned reading, writing, fist-fighting and some arithmetic.  He was regularly beaten, usually for laughing at inappropriate moments (an unfortunate habit that was to resurface regularly in later life – particularly at funerals).  He went on to Grammar school, where he continued to suffer regular beatings (only with bigger sticks), continued fist-fighting (only with bigger boys), and narrowly escaped expulsion.  He learned very little, but took perverse pride in his towering success as a truant.  Here, he was aided by an innate ability to create plausible stories at the drop of a hat, and a God-given talent for bare-faced lying (skills which were to serve him well in later life, when working for the European Commission).   The brief periods he spent within the school buildings were devoted largely to improving his skill at cards, thus enabling him to fund a youthful penchant for Fremlins Double Elephant brown ale and Capstan full-strength cigarettes.  Nevertheless, by dint of several hours of study at the Valsania café (a local bordello) he was able to leave school with some sort of qualifications, to start work in the local library on the day before his eighteenth birthday.

Here, despite a tendency to return drunk in the afternoons and swear at the borrowers, he passed a happy six months and became engaged to be married (an error he put down to a youthful inability to distinguish between true love and unbridled lust).  At the age of twenty-five, however, he met and married Beverly, who confounded the predictions of friends and family alike by remaining at his side for four decades, and providing him with two splendid children.  “She stayed with me,” he would boast, “for nigh on forty years – I couldn’t live with me for a fortnight.”

By this time, attracted by visions of untold wealth, he had joined Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise service, where he spent thirteen years in what he claimed was “the best kid’s job in the world” on account of the wide range of businesses - from oil and cigarette companies to diamond dealers and furriers – that he was employed to rob.  Nevertheless, he spent most of this time – not entirely coincidentally – gauging casks of imported wines and spirits and working in breweries, distilleries and the evocatively named “wet” warehouses.

In the end they made him settle down to control the Kent coast between Dover and Ramsgate, (where he failed utterly to prevent the arrival of some 3,000 illegal immigrants per year), the Hoverport at Dover (which subsequently went bust), the UK’s regional seat of Government under Dover Castle (which they closed down) and a small oils warehouse (which was later uprooted by the Dover Harbour Board).  In any event, by the time the UK joined the common market he owed its government almost exactly one million pounds (long story) and was nevertheless bored; so he got a job in Brussels at the Commission, took up the law, and spent the next thirteen years taking Member States to court for telling lies.  This task he compared to shooting very large fish in very small barrels – with a very big gun.

There was, however, a limit to the fun to be had from it, and – in the mistaken belief that it would prove more exciting – he turned to writing EU law and negotiating its enactment.  Finding himself in this capacity unable either to thump opponents or run away from them (the only two weapons in his armoury), he compromised by suffering two heart attacks – and surviving them unharmed (again, to the regret of many).

Another thirteen years having passed, he moved to Canada for two years, ostensibly to advise the federal government (which confounded its many critics by consistently ignoring his advice).  Returning to Brussels, he found what he was pleased to call his life’s work in tatters, took a view, and retired.  It was at this juncture that his wife walked out – cause or coincidence, who can tell?

Only now did he discover his true métier.  By dint of shamelessly stealing the work of fellow members of his local writing club and selling it to unsuspecting publishers, he was able to accumulate a considerable fortune which he devoted to an old age of unmitigated debauchery.  “It was”, he said, “either that or golf.”

He was to die on his hundredth birthday, drunk, penniless and smiling, in a Shanghai brothel.

It’s the way he would have wanted to go.

Cheers, Dad.  If you're raising a glass this weekend, raise an extra one to my dear dad.

Jack of all trades, Master of some.

I’m a polyglot, a polyvore and a polymath.  I used to be an omnivore (apart from sprouts), but as I can’t eat wheat any more, I don’t think I can really call myself an omnivore any more.  Although, ironically, I do now eat sprouts.

I and my other polymaths have, somewhat disparagingly throughout history, been referred to as “Jacks of all trade, masters of none”. 

I prefer to think of myself as a Jack of all trades, master of some.  There are some things that I am really very good at. 

Part of me wishes there was just one thing that I was really excellent at – really extraordinarily good at – so that I could just concentrate on that and bloody well do that better than enough other people to make an extraordinarily good living at it.

I think it’s easier to be that way.  To just have one thing to concentrate on and hone – one thing that you love. 

It’s certainly more popular to be good at one thing. 

“Oh, Paul is an excellent violinist – a prodigy.  Elena is an amazing tennis player – plays for county.”

But what about Jeremy?  He is a sensational violinist, county level tennis player, has a pretty fine singing voice, is a great artist, good at maths and gets “A”s in all his creative writing at school.  Somehow, nobody really knows what to do with that.  Somehow, Paul is amazing, Elena is phenomenal and Jeremy – he’s just a bit of a smart-arse, and a bit annoying, really.  He might be as good as the others at the violin and tennis, but he will be damned as a Jack of all trades.

First time I heard that, I thought “Yeah, Jack of all trades, that’s me!  Turn my hand to anything!  Useful Engine!”.  It was some time later that someone sneakily whispered “master of none” into my ten year old ear, and a small part of me – well, it didn’t die.  Worse things have happened to me than that.  But it curled up in a corner for a long time.  Decades. 

I tried to choose between a legal career and a career in dance.  Back then, it wasn’t terribly serious to even consider being a dancer, but I really wanted to, and I was good.  But there was always the “what if you’re not good enough” question, hovering on peoples’ lips and just behind their eyebrows.  I think they felt it was irresponsible to encourage someone to go into such a precarious career – particularly someone who after all COULD do something else.  As it turns out, the decision was taken out of my hands when at 16 I was run over, and had to have electric shock therapy to be able to walk again without a limp.  I tried to return to ballet, but within five or ten minutes, my foot would cramp up and the mangled ligaments in my arch would cramp, making my foot curl into a claw, and I would limp to the sink where I would run warm water over it and try not to cry. 

I tell myself that this was lucky – I never had to find out whether I was good enough, so I can always tell myself that maybe I was.  But it wasn’t really good, was it? 

So to the law with me.  Get thee to the Inns of Court! 

I managed somehow, despite the attempted sabotage of a teacher who developed an inexplicable (in my opinion!) dislike to me, to earn a place at King’s College, London, to study law.  I graduated a year early from school, and being just 17 years and four months old, I decided to take a year out before going to college.  During this year, I worked, as my parents were averse to the idea of paying for me to spend a year finding myself in Phuket.  I have no idea why – frightfully unreasonable, don’tcherknow. 

During the year out, I was offered an interview for a place at Cambridge, but they wanted me to give up my firm offer from King’s before they’d interview me.  I rang them to discuss this, and said I felt it was unreasonable to be expected to give up a firm place on the basis of a possibility.  I was told that I actually had a place, but they wouldn’t give it to me unless I came for interview and I couldn’t do that unless I turned down my firm place at King’s.  I told them to shove it. 

The Eyes Have It.

I've gone in to detail on what has happened to my eyes in the past, so here's a nutshell.  Or as much of a nutshell as I've ever been able to produce.

October 2015 - spotted a weird distortion right in the centre of my vision in my right eye, so a straight line looks like it has a little perfectly circular blob half way along.  Diagnosed as vitreo-macular traction - should sort itself out.  This was 29th October 2015 - two years and two days ago.

January 2016 - while teaching Zumba, saw my retina tear and a flourish of black pigment appear in front of my vision in my right eye - probably associated with vitreo-macular traction, but a very rare side-effect.  Leaped straight on train to Moorfields, still in sweaty Zumba gear, was seen at midnight and retinal tear repaired at 9am the very next morning.

31st March 2016 - vision looked odd.  Kept thinking there was someone creeping up behind me.  Shadows everywhere and blue flashes.  Went to bed at midnight, turned off light, turned on back-lit Kindle and realised that the bottom 5% of my vision was not there.

1st April 2016, being luckily enough in London from the night before, got to Moorfields at 7am, all the while watching the obscured portion at the bottom of my vision rising.  Like standing in a sinking ship and seeing the water rise.  Saw a consultant at around 9am (having been triaged and seen a series of nurses to do various checks, dilate eyes etc - really can't be done much quicker than that).  Consultant confirmed that my retina had begun to detach and was detaching quite fast.  He walked me upstairs to the appropriate waiting room, where I was put on the list for immediate operation.

4pm that same day, shortly after the fire alarm went off with hilarious consequences of a hospital full of partially sighted people milling around with arms outstretched, arses hanging out of the back of hospital gowns, looking for fire exits and generally panicking mildly (although more about missing our operations than burning to death), I was operated upon.

I had asked the surgeon for some funky pre-meds and had all sorts of cocaines and diazepams and lord knows what-all else besides, pumped into my veins and eyes, with the result that I was highly relaxed when the 12 year old surgeon clamped my eye open, remarking that I had very long eyelashes.  So relaxed, indeed, was I, that I drawled "why young man - are you flirting with me?" causing the senior surgeon and all the theatre nurses to get an attack of the giggles.

Anyway.  That all went as well as can be expected but I was told that due to the fact that my retina had fully detached by the time they operated (which was far faster than they would have expected it to do so), there was a strong chance that I wouldn't regain my vision in my right eye, and that if I did, it would be at best partial.

Was instructed to sit still and stare at a wall for seven days and seven nights (yes, sleeping upright), and thank god for Terry Pratchett audio books because sitting and sleeping upright, for the woman with the double scoliosis, corkscrew spine with Scheuermann's-afflicted vertebrae is - well, let's just say that was seven very long days and seven very long nights.  But on day 8, I saw some light - some movement of colour - and slowly, slowly, over the next ten days or so, my vision came back.  It was twisted and distorted, and looking at my children with my right eye scared the shit out of me because they didn't look like them and I was terrified that something would happen to my left eye and I would forget what they looked like.

Three months of minimal exercise followed.  Long, slow walks, with a nice long neck like a giraffe lady and a still head.  No gardening, even, because the head movement was deemed dangerous.  No Zumba - sob sob.

But it passed - of course it did.  These things do.  And all had gone a million times better than expected.

July 2016 I was told that the retinal reattachment, where they blast a laser through your lens (I absolutely won't tell you what else they did - you genuinely don't want to know), had caused damage to the lens, leading to a cataract.  Oh so sexy!  Cataracts, in a 48 year old.  But it was to be expected - it's a common side-effect.  I had to wait until it got bad enough to be operated on by the NHS, which is fair enough.  There are plenty of people who needed it more than I did at the time.  It was hard to watch the vision deteriorate again, and in a different way, but I knew what was happening, so it was okay.

This wait took about a year, during which things were fairly uneventful, except for the slow deterioration of the cataract.  Colours faded, detail and texture disappeared, and sunshine or electric light hitting the lens blasted bright dispersed light all around the eye, blinding me temporarily.

Eventually, the cataract was bad enough to operate on!  Hurrah!  I was offered the choice of having the op at Moorfields or Basingstoke.  Opted for Basingstoke, in order to leave Moorfields operating theatre clear for people with detached retinas etc.  I think I have mentioned this elsewhere so forgive me if you've heard it before.  I'm never sure if I've written for myself, sent someone an email or published a blog.

After a couple of administrative hiccups (like getting me in for my pre-op five days before the operation, and telling me at that point that I had to not wear my contact lenses for 14 days before the op... erm, oh-kayyyy ... so having to have the operation rescheduled blah blah), the lens replacement was done - July 2017.

I was told that as my eyesight is so bad, once they had dealt with the right eye, I could come back and have the left one done, on the NHS, as there would be a massive discrepancy.  The right one (the "bad" one) was on a dioptre of -13 plus 1.5 astigmatism by the time they operated, and dropping almost a full dioptre per fortnight by that time, and the left one (the "good" one) is now -7, which basically means I am blind as a bat without either lenses or glasses.  The lens replacement in the right eye would sort out the short-sightedness (all being well) and so I'd have one eye that wasn't short-sighted at all and one (the good one - hah!) that, without correction, is pretty bloody useless beyond a 5cm distance.

I know a few people who have had lens replacements and swear by them, so if you're thinking of it to improve your eyesight, bully for you and go for it.  I will not be having the other eye done.  I'll leave it at that.

Don't let me put you off.  Mine was bloody tricky, as during the retinal reattachment, they had to remove the vitreous jelly (I know, I said I wouldn't tell you, but it's relevant!) from inside my eye, and the body naturally replaces this jelly with fluid - I don't know what fluid.  Saline or something - just fluid.  When they do the lens replacement, they cut a small incision in the sac housing your natural lens, mince the lens in situ, and suck it out, leaving the sac temporarily empty, ready for filling with a nice new plastic perfect lens.  The sac itself is a millifraction of a hair's breadth thin.  In a normal eye, this gossamer-thin sac is resting on a nice bouncy but stable cushion of vitreous jelly.  In someone who's had a vitrectomy, this delicate sac is floating on water and moving about all over the place, making it extremely tricky.  As the surgeon explained to her junior, WHILE she was actually performing the procedure.  Cheers, bird.

Anyway.  That all seemed to go fine.  Happened on a Friday.  I started to be able to see (peering illegally out from under my clear plastic eye cup which was sexily taped to my face with masking tape, with a big purple arrow drawn on my forehead pointing to the eye that had been operated on) in the waiting room afterwards, having my cup of tea and waiting for Simon to come and take me home, and when I woke up on Saturday morning, my vision was pretty good.  On Sunday and Monday it was perfect.

On Monday night, it went "poufffff" as if someone had dropped a drip of oil onto the surface of my vision, and once more I couldn't see.  The next morning it was the same, so I rang the hospital.  They said not to worry it was early days.  I rang again the next morning, and this time remembered to explain my history (you always assume people know, don't you?) and they went "christ, fuck, shit, fuck, bollocks, bugger, how quick can you get here?" or words to that effect.  By this time my vision had become very granular - like a really cool film noir, but in colour, and actually not that cool when it's your actual vision.

** EDIT **  I forgot to add that at this point my vision was also completely whiting out any time I stood up or moved quickly.  The likely diagnosis given for this was transient ischaemic attacks - as a precursor to having a massive stroke.  **

Anyway.

In I went and HURRAH!  Yet another new and interesting way to go blind - this one, a very, very rare side-effect of lens replacement after retinal detachment.  I had developed the macular oedema which I'm sure I've described elsewhere so I won't bore you again.  First call treatment for this is eye drops.  Easy, right?  Wrong.  Three different types of drops, one twice a day, one three times a day and one four times a day.  Leave a minimum of 15-30 minutes between each type.  Alarms going off on my phone nine times a day, or there's no way I'd have remembered, big chart to tick off once I'd actually done them (rather than just been reminded by the phone to do so) and carrying my beautiful little eyelash pouch with me everywhere - bed, bath, kitchen, dog walks, Zumba, 'planes, trains and automobiles for ten weeks.  Some of the little fuckers stung like a bastard, too.  However, the second resort, if the drops don't work, is injections into the back of the eye, so you can imagine that I was not complaining about the drops, and was making bloody sure I did them as and when necessary, absolutely without fail.

Surgeon wanted to see me 6-8 weeks after the diagnosis of the oedema, to see whether the drops were working or the oedema was growing, which would, quite quickly, blind me.  Appointment was set, via letter, for 10 weeks post-diagnosis, by the admin department.  I didn't question this (because you always assume people know, don't you? ... again.  Learn that lesson, Pennington, for fuck's sake!).

I'd been given enough drops for two months, but I figured I could use each set for five weeks probably without too much danger of them going off and disintegrating my eyeballs etc etc (Drama Queen, moi?!).  The drops, by the way, were steroids to kill the oedema, NSAIDs to take down the inflammation and pressure drops to stop the steroids from inflating my eyeball until it exploded - no, not really - but it causes glaucoma which I really don't need, thank you very much.  I have had pressure issues at every step of this process, so this was particularly important.

At this stage my vision had changed again.  It wasn't so granular, but it was very cloudy and I was extremely concerned, but knowing that I had an appointment coming up, I figured it could wait a few more days.

Five days before the appointment, which was set for 19th September, I received a letter pushing the appointment back to 31st October - i.e. a full 16 weeks after the diagnosis, and ten weeks after the surgeon had wanted to see me.  There is a blog somewhere, or a Facebook post about how I eventually sorted this out (it did involve me having to cry down the phone, eventually), and how I managed to get my GP to prescribe me some nice fresh drops that were not contaminated from being open for too long (that definitely involved a lot of crying down the phone, for fuck's sake), and they managed to see me just a day later than my original appointment, on 20th September - although not with my own surgeon, but a jolly nice different chap.

That appointment was amazing.  The macular oedema was all but resolved by the drops.  No injections into the back of the eye.  I was bowled over.  I was amazed.  I was delighted.  For the first time since this began, I had an appointment where there wasn't some kind of horrible new shitty way of going blind.  Oh yeah, I had a posterior capsule occlusion (PCO) - the back of the lens sac had gone thick and cloudy, which meant that I couldn't see so well, but nothing dangerous, and something that is easily operated on, so hurrah!  Reduce the drops, Mrs Pennington, and we'll see you in a few weeks to see if it's completely gone and make an appointment for the PCO operation.  Ooh, when can we do that.  Tell you what, let's see if they've already filled your appointment that was booked for the 31st October.  They haven't!  Book yourself in.  So I did.

In I went today.  I was a little frightened, maybe, deep down, but I've got in the habit of assuming against all the evidence to the absolute contrary that everything will be okay, and fronting it all out accordingly.  If it's not (when it's not), that's when I deal with it.  I can't be doing with what ifs.  There are too many actual issues to be dealt with Right Now to be fearing possible consequences which may never happen.  I mean, while all of this has been going on, my Dad got ill, and iller, and better, and ill again, and iller, and better, and very ill, and died.  So.  You know.

In I went.  I booked in at reception and the Green Waiting Area, where I waited.  I had an eye test for my right eye where I could read everything down to the bottom row (GET FUCKING INNNNN!) and for my left eye where I couldn't even see the board, because I hadn't put my contact lens in that eye this morning, as when I took it out last night it felt like I'd taken off half the surface of my cornea.  I know.  Don't.  It's fine, honestly.

In went the dilating drops - both eyes, this time, so at least I currently match, even if I do look like a superannuated Beanie Baby - and off to the Green Waiting Area for The Waiting.  Ooh, here we go - hi def scan of the retinas, watch the birdie - no, the blue dot and try not to follow the red line down the way, keep still, don't blink, and off you go back the the Green Waiting Area for more of The Waiting.

When my name was called it was my surgeon who was seeing me, which was nice, as I didn't need to explain everything (just what had happened at the last appointment as neither of us could read the nice man's loopy writing).  She had a look.  She hummed.  She put the yellow numbing drops in and took the pressure of both my eyes - normal.  First time the pressure's been normal, unmedicated, in nearly two years.  She checked the surface of the left eye for corneal damage - none.  She brought my scans up on the screen, and we both had a good look at the one from July (oedema), the one from September (virtually resolved oedema) and today's.

"Mrs Pennington, that scan is pristine.  Your vision in your right eye is showing as 20/20.  Everything looks wonderful and if it's okay with you, I am happy to discharge you from our care today."

Guess who cried?  Me?  You're right.  Her?  You're right, too. 

Me:  "Gosh, I'm sorry - what a prat!  Please ignore me!"

Her:  (teary eyed and wobbly of chin)  "You've had a bit of a journey, Mrs Pennington, and I'm not surprised it's all quite emotional.  I'm delighted for you."

I don't think I realised until that moment how much this has weighed down on me these last two years.  It's all very well not acknowledging or worrying about potential consequences, but they do catch up.  Maybe it helped that there have been so many other things to worry about.  There has been no time to dwell.

Anyway, I pulled myself together sufficiently to walk out of the consulting room without freaking out the other Waiters in the Green Waiting Area - because I looked like I'd had really bad news - and made it to the loos, where I locked myself in and cried some more.  Then I pulled myself together again and almost made it to my car before I collapsed in tears again.  Christ on a bike - where are all these tears coming from - it's happening again as I type this.

I'm so happy it's over - at least for now.  My right eye vision IS 20/20, but that doesn't mean it's perfect, oddly.  It's still distorted, straight lines are not straight and never will be again, but so fucking what?  I thought I was going blind, and the bloody fabulous NHS has saved my sight.  I can SEEEEE!

I don't regret any of this happening, and I don't wish it hadn't.  It has been fucking horrible, but it has taught me a lot.  It has taught me not to take my sight for granted for so much as a second.  You'd think that a dancer, a reader, an artist, a cook, a photographer, a crafter, a gardener, a person, in short,  who utterly delights in her vision would have realised this sooner, wouldn't you?  It's taught me a lot more, actually.  I'm still learning.

The one thing I wish about all of this, with all of my heart, is that my Dad was here so I could ring him up and tell him:  "I'm alright, Dad", and hear him reply, "Who loves ya, baby?".

Pip pip.

Resolution

The astute reader among you will have noticed that this blog at best hiccups and at worst does nothing, and that every time there's a new post after a long pause, it promises (see how she divorces herself from responsibility by referring to the blog as "it" rather than "I") to be more regular.

So we'll take that as read!

However - I have had an epiphany this time, I really, really have.  Here it is.

It's a life-changing idea.  One of the things I really enjoy in my day, as you may have noticed, is taking Sev for a walk.  It takes a chunk out of the day, as we generally meander for about an hour and a half, but I don't want to cut his walks down because a) he enjoys it and b) I get a lot of thinking done - I also get a lot of choreography done - but a lot of thinking.  One of the things I'm missing at the moment, and actually for years, now, is writing.  I never get the time to write.

So I have all these - I was about to say "amazing ideas".  Let's maybe make that just "ideas" and we'll see!  I have all these ideas that flit into my head when I'm walking.  Things to write about, to share, to discuss.  And I get home, and The Admin crashes in.  The house demands tidying, school uniforms and Zumba kit demand to be washed and (hahahaha I was going to say ironed, but that's a blatant lie - I don't do that) put away (seldom does that happen either, while we're being honest about what a fucking slattern we are), Facebook is shouting "read me", and while that MAY on occasion be a bloody good way of wasting time, it's also a bloody good way of communicating with my friends and family, who are largely flung far and wide.  So bog off! (defensive, much?!)  Customers need contacting to check that they're delighted with their jewels (which they almost invariably are, but on the rare occasion they're not, they're delighted by how easy it is to sort it out - commercial over).

The point is, by the time I finally sit down, if that ever happens, the (amazing haha) ideas are forgotten and the inspiration has gone.  So I've decided that I'm going to record myself rambling while I ramble, on my little voice memo application on the jolly old iPhone.  This gets no use whatsoever except for learning lines, and it's about time it earned its place on my phone, frankly.  Then I'm going to flipping well come straight home and type it all up.  Dazzlingly simple.  We'll see.

The main reason for this sudden determination to start writing again, in amongst all the other busy things happening, is that last week, while beginning to pack up my darling dad's house, I found a few files of his writings.  I'm hoping there's going to be a lot more on his computer, which is currently kaput and requiring TLC of the IT variety (yes, I have TIOATIOA).  Meanwhile, the sheer joy provided by being able to read his words and hear his voice in my head as I read - to have his words forever - is just the most precious thing that he could have left to my brother and I.

You know what?  If I'm THIS delighted by that gift, would I not think of doing the same for my children?  Maybe they won't want to read this stuff when I'm gone, but maybe they will.  Maybe when they're grown up and they have kids of their own, they'll want to be able to say "Read this - this was your grandmother." (Note to self, swear less.) (Second not to self, fuck it, - future grandchildren, this was your grandmother, warts and all).  But in any case, having received that amazing gift from my dad, I'm figuring I ought to at least attempt such a gift for my children, although I'm sure not with his level of skill.  But I's'll do me best.

Meanwhile, before he went in to hospital two years ago, Dad started a blog!  I'm attaching a link.  You may go and have a read if the mood takes you.  It's my gift to you.  I wish he had kept it for longer, but I'm glad it's there.  It's not a patch on his stories, mind, but nevertheless, his voice and attitude and general Mick-ness is in it.  Ladies and Gents, my Dad:  Dad's Blog

See, now I want to go back and tidy up the grammar, because this is a direct transcript of me talking to myself, but the kids just got home for school and I have promised myself I'll be a bit more present.
To quote my Dad - Pip pip!

Boat Trip - another bloody analogy.

Imagine this.

There are 65 of us, going on a boat trip in choppy waters.  The waters are choppy, no matter what happens, or which boat we choose, because that's how the sea is, these days.

We are stood on the beach, and we have the choice of two boats.

One of them is a boat which we've been sailing about in for forty years.  We have to pay for tickets, though, and some of us don't like that.  Some of us are not keen on the places it stops or the canteen on board, or the fact that we can't get a job behind the bar because one of those jobs is being done by a Polish person, and that's obviously the particular job we want.  The Polish person needs somewhere to sleep and our Mandy's renting a cabin out to them which is paying her Todd's school fees but if we were doing their job as well it would be better.  It's also a big boat and it's got loads of other people on it - we don't all know each other, but there are different languages and cultures, and we can all share stuff.

On the whole, although there are things we don't like about the boat, we're pretty sure it's sea-worthy.  It's been looked over by the coastguard and some shipbuilders, and various other experts, and they say it's the sounder of the two available boats.

There is a second boat.  Nobody's put it to sea for forty years, but that could make it quite exciting - we are all agreed on that.  There are a few considerations, though.

The coastguard, some shipbuilders and various other experts have looked it over and warn that they're pretty sure it's really not safe, although if we all bail out furiously for the first ten years or so, it may well improve.  There are no guarantees about this, but we're all pretty strong, probably, maybe, and financially robust enough across the board, obviously, to be able to afford the ten years worth of buckets we're going to need to bail with.  Actually, I bet someone would just give us some buckets.  We've been given buckets before on the old boat, after all.  Anyway!  There are some pretty exciting things about the new boat.

What are they, we cry?!  The company who own the new boat tell us some stuff.

One is that we are going to spend all the money we save on tickets for the old boat doing up the new boat - hurrah!  That sounds great!  Although, actually, we're not sure that we are paying as much for the old boat as we are being told we are.  But they wouldn't lie about that, surely?!

Another is that the old boat was run by a faceless and unelected crew, and we weren't able to have anything to do with where it went, whereas the new boat will be steered and owned by us, so we will have more control over the new boat - hurrah!

Hey, we forgot to tell you - this boat is going to be all for us!  Don't worry!  We'll still be able to buy stuff in the on board tax free shops, and everything!  Everyone wants to sell us stuff because we're really important and we buy loads of stuff.

Oh, and we really love this one - it's going to have a big shiny Union Jack painted on the side, and we won't let other people on because even one or two might sink the ship - so no Poles working in the bar!

Of the 65 of us, only 44 have a vote, because the rest are kids.

For one reason or another, only 33 of us 44 actually vote.  Some of the others were away unexpectedly, some were away but didn't get to vote for technical reasons - like their bit of paper which they asked for didn't arrive, some were away but had been told we would be staying on the old boat anyway so didn't get 'round to arranging for the crew to send them a bit of paper to vote on, some didn't realise we were really being asked if we wanted to leave the ship and that we were going to do so and some genuinely didn't know which ship was better, but trusted other people to make the right decision.  Anyway - who cares why?  They didn't vote, so they don't count.

Whatever happens, the 21 children have to go on the ship we vote for, and so do the other 11 who didn't vote.  No, we can't go on the boat we vote for, we've all got to go on the same boat.  No, if we don't vote, we can't just stay on the boat we were already on - we have to vote to stay on it.  Were you not listening?  I know we didn't say it very loud, and it wasn't printed on anything or, well, talked about at all, really.  Anyway!  Never mind!  It's happened, now!  Let's count the votes.

Of the 33 people who vote, 17 vote for the new ship and 16 vote for the old ship.

At this point - seconds after the votes are counted - one of the guys who told us about the new ship admits that we're not going to spend any money doing it up, because there wasn't really any to spend, let alone the large figure he told us about.  Oh dear!  There are some rumblings from the shore.

What's this?  It's emerging that we had plenty of say in where the old boat went after all.  Oh dear.  Apparently, it was our crew sailing it all along!  But what about the faceless guys?  Well, yes, they're there - that's who we've been buying our tickets off, after all!  But all along, any one of us had the right to tell the faceless crew where we wanted to go.

Okay, so because there were a lot more people on the boat, a lot more people would have had to have agreed to have gone there, but if everyone wanted to, we could have.  Now only a handful of people have the right to tell the crew where to go and remember!  It's the SAME crew!  They were always in charge!

But these faceless guys - they ARE faceless, right?  Nope!  They're printed up in the ship's log book, which you had access to all along, and guess what!  You could have voted for them all along, too!  Maybe you did?  Some people did, but a lot of those sadly thought it was funny to vote the guys who were planning to jump ship in to help crew the old ship.  There's a pretty good chance that in the last 17 years, he might have been doing his best to undermine the old boat, but not to worry!

The people who own the new boat (including that guy ^) just told us that the crew had no control over the big boat, for a bit of a laugh.  They actually did, and it turns out we had our own speedboat on the time for daytrips and things we wanted to do which the other people didn't want to do - we had that all the time!  And our own money to spend, too.

Oh yes, the shops.  Well, we can still buy stuff in them - yay!  Lots of the stuff might have to be made on board for a bit, or bought in from the big ship and other ships at a bit of a higher cost, because we haven't got contracts with any of the people who sell the stuff, at the moment.  I'm sure the people who do will really want to sell to our little boat, though, so they'll get around to working out the highest price they can get away with charging us that we are prepared to pay as quickly as they can.  And they are really going to want to buy our stuff, too - after all, it's handmade by local craftsmen.  It's not cheap, but we think it's totally worth it!

Actually, we're not sure if we can stop people getting on, after all.  The owners didn't really think we could, and they didn't really mean it when they said it.  Oopsie.  Sorry!

BUT!  You'll like this!  It's STILL GOT A UNION JACK ON THE SIDE!  YAY!

The guys who own the new ship suddenly start resigning from the board, but it's okay, because they've got lifeboats, life rafts and private islands, so don't worry about them!  They will be just fine.

The 16 people who didn't want to go on the new ship in the first place are royally fucked off.  Hang on, they say.  We never believed the new ship was going to have any money spent on it and we didn't want other people kept off it, anyway.  We like being able to buy good wine cheap in the tax free shop and we think the ticket price is fair.  We wanted our kids to be able to grow up with all the other people on the big boat, learn languages and feel they were part of the big boat.  We're really committed to this and we're pissed off our passports aren't going to let us or our kids stay on shore where the boat docks.  Now they're just going to be able to pop in for a quick run home then back on the new boat, without really getting a proper taste of the places.

We're REALLY pissed off about this.  We REALLY want to stay on the old boat.  We REALLY want to check whether you guys are still sure about the new boat - can we just check?  Just see?

The 17 people - well, they're not all quiiiiite as sure as they were, what with the lying about the seaworthiness of the new boat and the resigning of everyone who has anything to do with it, but quite a few of them keep shouting at the other 16 that they need to get over it now - we had a vote, people!  That's what the captain told us we should do and now we need to stand by it, no matter what!  That's how our system works!

A couple of the 17 mutter, erm, but, we're not sure.

The 16 people are still ROYALLY FUCKED OFF.

"No", they plead.  "We have never had a vote like this before - it is actually not how our system works!  Our system works in such a way that we pick the crew and the crew pick a captain, and we trust them to sail our ship.  As it happens, we also picked a bigger crew who make sure our crew don't all empty the bilges into the sea and do let the scullery maids have half an hour off to visit their mums once in a while, but our crew is still our crew, and we wan't to know why they're not steering the ship like we pay them to."

Oh great, now the captain's jumped overboard and the purser is just standing around looking awkward.

"Tough tits!" cry the 17 people.  "17 of us voted for the new boat, and we're all going on it because 17 of us said so!"

"Yes, but 16 of us said not, so we're all going - all 65 of us - because of ONE person!  Even the kids are going, and enough of them wanted to stay on the old boat to have made the vote go the other way."

"Yes but the kids can't vote."

"Well, don't you think they should be able to?  They are going to have to live on the boat for a lot longer than the rest of us."

"No but 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"Well, two have said that they don't, so that will make it 18/15 in favour of the old boat, and we think a fair few of the people who didn't vote last time will make fucking sure they get to the polling station this time, so we think that even more of us want the old boat."

"No but 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"But some of you have changed your minds."

"No but that doesn't matter - 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"But some of you made your decision based on some things which have now been absolutely shown to be lies."

"No but 17 of us said we wanted the new boat!"

"But some of you have said that you just did that as a protest, to make the crew listen to you - but now you've stuck yourself with just this crew and no recourse to a second crew."

"Tough TIIIIITS!  You've HAD your democratic vote - that's your lot!"

"Really?  But it really matters - it's forever."

"Just get on with it.  Don't you like village fetes and cream teas and pubs?  What's wrong with you?  Why are you so miserable - you're getting everyone down!"

"I love village fetes and cream teas and pubs, but I also love fiestas and bratwurst and drinking coffee on the pavement outside a café in Paris!  Yes, I am fucking miserable, because I can't do all of that any more because you don't want to, and I don't think that's fair."

"Life isn't fair.  Cheer up.  We won.  You lost.  There was one more of us than there was of you, and even though that person at least has changed their mind, it's tough, because on that day two weeks ago, that was what they thought, and you, or rather we - all 65 of us - are just going to have to live with that forever."

Democracy! For one night only!

I enjoyed that democracy.  Can I have some more, please, because I’m not used to it and I’m not sure I used it to its, or indeed my, best advantage?

More?  MORE?  No, you bloody can’t.  That’s enough democracy for you.

Very Dickensian.  Which is jolly British and ever so nice if you ignore Mr Dickens’s brilliant social commentary and biting wit.

I get why the people who are happy with their vote to leave the EU don’t want a second referendum.

What I don’t get is that they shout “Democracy!  The People have spoken!” as a reason not to have a second referendum.

Look, lads – you can’t have it both ways.

If a referendum is democratic, how is two referenda undemocratic? 

Does there come a point where too much democracy sends the whole thing into a handbrake turn and it turns in on itself?  What nonsense.

Democracy is a good thing.  Let’s have all the democracy.  No?

People who are happy with their vote to leave are not going to change their vote.

People who are happy with their vote to remain are not going to change their vote.

People who are not happy with their decision (either way) on 23^rd June, given the enormous amount of information which has since come to light surely have the right to be heard?

How is that not democratic?

I’m actually campaigning on behalf of Leave voters, here.

It transpires that the Leave campaign told some very large lies and based their campaign on policies which they had neither the power nor the ability to deliver.  They haven't got £350million to give to the NHS.  They have no money and if they did, they wouldn't give it to the NHS, as they have already stated that they want to privatise the NHS - yes, that means you pay for your healthcare.  They also are not going to stop or cap or limit immigration, because they can't - and they knew they couldn't but they still based their campaign heavily on this.  They had no plan in place for what to do next, because they didn't mean to win.

People now know this and they feel cheated.

It transpires that a lot of people voted to leave the EU just as a protest against the government, and actually wanted to stay.

People now wish they had used their right to protest in a different way and feel robbed.

We also hear that people weren’t sure whether the referendum was advisory or legally binding – it sure wasn’t stated on the tin. 

Well, it’s not legally binding but, hell’s bells, 1 million more people, on one day, with a flawed and false campaign pushing them, wanted it, so let’s all go to hell in a handcart, because sticking to your guns, in this country, even when you get new information that demonstrates that you were wrong, is seen as a virtue.  This lady’s not for turning, my arse.

The popular press are finally printing some truths about what leaving the EU will actually mean to the average man on the street, rather than printing a load of emotive rhetoric, over Union Jack backgrounds, about how leaving the EU will Make Britain Great Again.

The average man on the street, now understanding what it means to him, feels horrified and wants to be given a second chance.

28% of the population believed either that we were going to remain in the EU by an easy majority or that their vote wouldn’t count anyway.

They now realize that this didn’t happen and that every single vote counted.  Whether they would have voted to stay or go, they deserve to be heard.

Young people, aged 16-18, were not included in the vote.  They are demanding to be heard, and they are the ones whose world was just made a little smaller.  A little more insular.

I believe they should be heard.

How does allowing any of these people to speak again qualify as undemocratic? 

Democracy wasn’t just for the 15 hours that the polling booths were open.

Democracy is ongoing.

When we hear new facts, we CAN change our opinions.

What I’d really like to do is wind back the clock and let people remember everything they have learned this last week, and give them chance to vote again for the first time.  Sadly, even though I’ve concentrated so hard I strained myself and risked a recurrence of my umbilical hernia, I can’t manage that. 

But I’d really like everyone to get a second chance to speak and vote in the non-science-fiction world that we live in.  With no Leave Campaign and no Remain Campaign pushing everyone’s buttons and playing with peoples lives for their own entertainment and the furtherance of their own careers.  Just a Campaign of Information – calm, measured information that will help The People to make an informed decision.

The People Have Spoken.  So what?  Are The People never allowed to speak again?