Where’s Nurse Ratched?

Well, here I am back in the UK, and bloody loving it. Note the sarcasm…

I arrived on Thursday, only to find the sort of downpour that you might expect in Bangladesh during the monsoon season. I’d asked my friends about the weather and been told:

‘It’s freezing! Bring warm clothes!’

But not one of them mentioned the rain.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, since I’m usually met by my dad, but obviously things have changed now. So, to get home, the train it was then, requiring two changes, each of which meant standing on a wind and rain swept platform for the best part of half-an-hour. By the time I reached normally sunny Tunbridge Wells, I was well-soaked and rather miffed.

Once here I had a choice: catch a taxi from the station to an empty, foodless house, thus avoiding the worst of the rain, or head to Sainsburys. My stomach told me that the latter option was a must and so I reached into my bag for my umbrella (yes, I’m not that stupid, I knew that I was travelling to the UK in December after all) and was on my way.

Within one hundred yards, with the rain hitting me at a virtually horizontal slant, I was soaked. I persevered with the umbrella (though God knows why, since it seemed to be doing little good) and eventually arrived at my destination some twenty minutes later.

I went in and did my shopping, with only one small hiccup: I wanted to buy a number of £5 scratchcards as Christmas presents, but was told that there’s a limit on the number I was allowed to buy. I obviously looked like an ardent gambler who needed protecting from his own wicked ways. Bollocks… As a result, I bought as many as I was allowed and resigned myself to having to make two further trips to scratch card outlets to purchase the number I actually required. Life should be easier than this.

At that point, I wandered outside, managed to find some cover and contacted Uber on my phone:

‘We will have an Uber driver with you by 16:55,’ I was told, or something along those lines.

That was a bit of a bummer, since it was only 16:30, but I accepted the wait since it was still pouring and I presumed that Uber drivers were particularly busy, as a result. I would normally have walked the two and a half miles home, but needs must…

At 16:55, I was informed that I could pay an additional £2.50 to get a priority booking. Eh? It was already costing me €14 (a price that I deemed extortionate) and so I refused the kind offer. Fifteen minutes later, I was offered a driver. He could be with me in twenty minutes… bloody hell. I accepted begrudgingly. What else was I meant to do? I then watched the car I’d been allocated heading out of town, watched him pass the end of my road and head off into the countryside. Couldn’t he have dropped me off on the way?!

Anyway, I watched as he drove, slowly, slowly. I knew the roads he was taking. He would never be with me in twenty minutes. And then my phone did something really strange, and the car that I had been watching disappeared, and a new one appeared, and he wasn’t far away at all – woohoo!

I watched him with anticipation, watched him heading towards me, watched him… when suddenly he took a turning that he really didn’t need to, and as a result started heading off in the wrong bloody direction. Would you believe it?

I think I swore at this point. Then the guy who was collecting shopping trolleys that had been dumped around the car park came and stood next to me. He was dripping wet:

‘Everything OK? It can’t be as bad as my day. These jackets they give us aren’t waterproof…’

Blimey, that put my problems into perspective. He was doing an eight-hour shift in the pouring rain with clothing that wasn’t suitable. These companies really need to take a look at themselves.

I sympathised with him, and then went back to my phone. The car was now back on track, and five minutes later, believe it or not, I was sat in the back of a nice, warm and dry Toyota Prius.

An hour and fifteen minutes after I’d called Uber, I found myself walking through the front door of our house. The driver had explained that Uber had only been running in this area for three months and that there were very few drivers. That would explain it then…

As I opened the front door, my day got worse: I was sure that my younger brother had told me that the alarm hadn’t been set, but maybe I imagined that. Anyway, suffice to say, it went off and I didn’t have the code to stop it. Bloody hell, it was loud! Would the neighbours come running? The security team? The police?! I desperately called my brother, but he couldn’t hear a thing, due to the incessant, ear-splitting alarm. We gave up trying to speak and I messaged him. Fair play, he sent me the code quickly enough. I approached the keypad. Then came the next problem: I couldn’t see the numbers and letters on the buttons. Why? Because I didn’t have my glasses on and the keypad is in a rather dim corner of the hallway. I picked up my bag and rummaged. Where were they? Where were they?! Not in the pocket that I usually keep them in, but eventually I found them and managed to stop the alarm. Blimey, that was a relief, and nobody turned up on the doorstep, which I suppose was a bonus.

Anyway, the rest of the evening went OK. I managed to eat, I managed to find spare batteries for the TV controls which seemed to have succumbed to the long period of inactivity. I found that my bed was made up, and I found that I was rather tired and so, made the most of that bed.

The next day, I was up at a reasonable time. I opened the curtains and found a clear, blue sky – thank God for that! I had a long walk ahead of me, and really didn’t fancy doing that in the rain.

Why the long walk? Because today I wanted to visit my dad (he’s now in a home), and there was no one available to give me a lift. In addition, I refuse to pay the extortionate prices required by the taxi firms. My brother had suggested the bus, but I really didn’t fancy that either. And why spend the money when I could take a brisk walk and enjoy some fresh air? There again, it would probably mean a ten-to-twelve-mile round walk. Am I mad? Probably. But that’s what I did, eventually arriving around 11:00am after a couple of wrong turns. These were taken mainly because I didn’t actually know where I was going.

But yes, I did eventually make it and managed to find my way through the care home’s security system – keypad-locked gates, keypad-locked doors, keypad-locked lifts. I was helped every step of the way by very helpful and attentive staff. What I found strange however, was the fact that not one of them asked me who I was in relation to my dad. I just told them who I wanted to see and went in, no questions asked. Weird.

Anyway, when I arrived on his floor, I was told that he was in the toilet and that I should take a seat at the end of the corridor, so this is what I did.

Sitting there watching the comings and goings of a care home was quite an eye opener. They call them ‘heaven’s waiting room’. To me it looked more like the zombie apocalypse. Old people, sat in chairs, just stared at me as I passed them. Others were loitering by the keypad-locked doors as though wanting to escape. Others shuffled along the corridors, muttering to themselves. There seemed to be little engagement between, well, what shall we call them, the inmates. To be honest, it was quite disconcerting. The fixtures and fittings were lovely, and the staff seemed very pleasant (although Dad later told me that they seemed more interested in their phones than their patients/customers), but the atmosphere wasn’t particularly happy, and with the background music, it reminded me somewhat of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. Will Dad be Randle McMurphy and upset the apple cart? Or maybe Chief Bromden and make good his escape? And, of course, where was Nurse Ratched?!

But I digress:

I asked Dad if he’d made any friends: the answer was no. Apparently everyone seems to prefer sleeping to engaging socially. I asked him if he’d been outside at all. The answer was no. I asked him if the home organised any communal activities. It seems that a visit from Santa Claus was the best they could do. I think Dad’s a bit old for that at ninety-one.

God, if this is what we all have to look forward to once we’re incapable of looking after ourselves, then God help us. There again, with the suggested euthanasia bill being put forward in the UK, maybe care homes won’t be needed in the future…

Happy thoughts!