Our favorite was Steph’s, in Dean Street, run by the very flamboyant Steph. I was also a member of the Groucho Club, a few doors down, and we would retire there for early evening drinks when we had exhausted all conversation with whomever we descended upon at Steph’s (we once enjoyed a very jolly five-hour lunch with Tony Blackburn).
Tag: death
This was not the body that lifted me up to Georgie in his budgerigar’s cage, saying “Night, night, Georgie;” nor the hands that held my clammy forehead over the toilet bowl when I was sick. Dad was slipping away to a place he had not yet been, and I was helpless to pull him back.
At the end of a very difficult year, this wasn’t quite how I imagined wishing everyone a happy 2021, but in these unpredictable times we really can’t gauge anything, least of all happiness. So, I’m going to change it slightly and wish you all a Loving New Year.
The States is far more graphic than the UK on BTW (Below The Waist) problems both for men and women. In the UK, women’s monthly cycles on TV are still represented by somebody pouring colored ink on an all too absorbable material, as opposed to showing the reality, which is an orifice capable of hosting a veritable Epson ocean of ink.
The smallness of the list was heartbreaking. Already, the record of my father’s last weeks had filled several small, black notebooks: his last Christmas, his final trip into ward 18 at Frenchay Hospital, the last time I saw him when, with an attempt at a normal smile, he told me that he loved me.
Mum always said that the best present Dad ever gave her was an Elizabeth Arden vanity case, packed with goodies. It was probably the only present he ever got right. The Christmas he bought her the amethyst necklace and earrings that would have been fine for someone of 90, not 40, stands out; but that was a veritable festive dream compared to the year he gave her a china bird.
As if grief had not already distorted time enough, along comes Coronavirus, the Tardis of infections that has thrown minutes, weeks and hours into a universe none of us could have imagined.
I quickly realised I was not a fan of oysters, but found that if I covered them with the onion red vinegar, black pepper, Tabasco sauce and lemon, I could just about get them down. In fact, I might as well have just cut out the middle man and had the drink in the shell. In my first month in Paris, I lost three quarters of a stone consuming mainly champagne and oysters; it’s still my favourite diet of all time.
I was always Gaggie Nennens to Dad, just as I would always be the little girl who was never old enough to cross the road by herself. Well into my twenties, when I went home and would venture out for, heaven forbid, a pint of milk, he would warn: “Be careful crossing the road.” When we went for a drink, after two minutes he would be wiping his eyes, as if he had never even recovered from the fact that I learned to speak.
Who would have thought her last words to me would be in Latin, a language she had never learned but, as with her limited French, one she resorted to when English was inadequate. Her greatest fear was losing her mind, which she never did. Being in control of her faculties was a blessing to her, but a frustration to others, not least the medical staff and carers who were powerless to make her eat, sleep, or do her physiotherapy if her favorite shows were on the TV.