The best laid Plan Bs

With apologies to Robert Burns.

It seemed like a simple-enough plan: drive to a South Yorkshire Premier Inn on Wednesday afternoon, drive Sis early Thursday morning to hospital for a major procedure and week-long stay, drive back to her flat, do some cleaning, tidying and pack some things for her eight-week convalescence with us, post a letter through all her neighbours’ doors saying someone had better take over the management company or Project Fear would kick in. Yes I realise that the majority of Northerners didn’t fall for the Remoaner Project Fear claptrap, but I know what buttons to press in the North. While waiting for my phone to jump out of my back pocket with multiple volunteers (ever the optimist), I’d find all the relevant paperwork in Sis’s flat in readiness for the handover.

What could possibly go wrong?

The first hiccup occurred Wednesday evening when I couldn’t work out how to set the alarm on my mobile phone. I texted my friend, H, whose phone it used to be before she bought a new model and gave me her old one when my retro Nokia gave up the ghost and she couldn’t stand the thought of me replacing it like-for-like. Do this and that, she said. Actually, there’d been several software upgrades since she’d last used it and I had to do this, that, the other and then some. Eventually I set the alarm, or had I? I had a fitful night, worried that the alarm wouldn’t go off. I must have nodded off at 4am. The alarm did work. At 5am.

Up I got. Showered. Dressed. Made myself a coffee. Too early for hotel breakfast. I thought I’d get to Sis early because my OCD tendencies mean I can’t be late anywhere or I freak out. Took the lift down to the carpark. Sat in the car. Key in the ignition. Turned it. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Diddly squat. After nine years of unblemished service, my car wouldn’t start. Panic. Fled up the stairs to hotel reception, phoning Sis while I ran to tell her to get a taxi. Leaned on the ‘call’ button until a tetchy little man materialised. Asked for the number of a local taxi firm, in response to which he pointed to a huge notice above reception saying ‘Local Taxi Firm telephone number’.

Five minutes later, I clambered into a taxi. Hospital please, I panted. My phone rang. It was Sis. She couldn’t get through to the taxi firm. Probably fat-finger syndrome. Thankfully it was only a small detour to pick her up.

We got to the hospital far too early and no one was around. We sat outside the Pre-theatre Assessment ward making silly conversation to try and stem our respective nerves. Sis kept patting her pockets and rummaging through her bag, a nervous habit that this morning was getting on my wick. If you’ve forgotten something I’ll get it for you, I said, trying not to sound as if my wick was got on. I think I’ve locked my keys in the flat, she whispered. 

Never mind. I’ll sort it. I said. I could have cried.

Eventually the hospital stuttered into life. Nurses and doctors came and went with questions and forms and tests and requests. I’d forgotten how broad the local accent was: Nah thin Darlin, yor rye? Syne ear fur mi, Luv.  The warmth and kindness were genuine. How the F can these same people go on strike exacting actual, not theoretical or imagined, harm on patients to whom they normally exude such love? There really must be something called Jekyll and Hyde syndrome. 

Another thing Sis had forgotten were her slippers and had to walk down to theatre wearing a hospital gown, her favourite muti-coloured/patterned/hallucinogenic dressing gown, and her Doc Martens. Are you her sister, asked the nurse? No, I answered. Ignoring me, she said Sis would be in theatre until about 4pm and the consultant would phone me shortly afterwards. 

I yomped back to the hotel, phoning the RAC as I went. Are you in a safe place, he asked. Yes I said. We’ll be several hours, he said. No, well actually I have to get to the hospital to see my sister who’s undergoing a major operation. Ok, he said. 45 minutes. Tee Hee.

Forty-six minutes later, my knight in his orange charger turned up, diagnosed a dead battery (yeah, I’d got that far) and a bad cell in the battery that couldn’t be reliably recharged, so he fitted a new one. Thank goodness for Hubby’s credit card.

Then I phoned a locksmith. I explained that Sis had locked herself out of her flat and I desperately needed access, but Sis couldn’t give him permission because she was currently under the scalpel. I expected a fight but, this being South Yorkshire not the jobsworth South, he said he’d be there in 90-minutes after he’d finished his current job. He was fifteen-minutes late because of traffic. He tried the door, pushed the door, shouldered the door, ran a piece of plastic between the door and the door frame and voilà we were in. He must have been a burglar in a former life.

Nah thin, he said, weerst keys? She said she left them on the little table by the door in or next to her purse, I said. He picked up a set from a nearby hook. Are these them? Heavens no, they’re the keys to my London flat. Then I lifted some papers and voilà the purse, inside which voilà the keys. When I was paying him (Hubby’s credit card again) I asked why he’d let me in, given that I wasn’t the occupier. Coz yer sownd’d nice, he said. He obviously hasn’t heard me let rip at socialists, middle-lane hoggers, spammers, Remoaners, the woke and Fearful Sharkface.

The rest of the day was spent finding paperwork, filed where it had no business to be filed, emptying the fridge that Sis had forgotten to empty, and taking back control (well I was in Red Wall country) of the tea towels and Tupperware that she’d previously ‘borrowed’. 

The phone leapt out of my back pocket. It was a chap called Jimmy, who owned and rented out one of the flats. He started off being passive aggressive about my letter, not that a Yorkshireman would know about being passive aggressive – more like calling a shovel a shovel – but some Southerners do read my blog (or at least they used to before this one) and will understand what I’m getting at. I responded politely and noncommittally, saying it is what it is, and he said oh alright then (actually, aw rye thin) and he’d tek things ovver.

A few days later when I ’anded files ovver, ’e was as nice as pie, concerned about Sis, not a pass-agg bone in his body and called me Luv so often I wondered whether he might get the wrong idea if I gave him a lift back to his place. Course not. This was The North where everyone’s genuinely friendly, kind and chivalrous.

Back to Operation Day, and 4pm came and went. I had returned to the Premier Inn by then, trying to blog, catch up on email, read my PhD books, but I couldn’t settle. I kept thinking about Sis and hoping she was out of surgery, couldn’t wait to hear from the consultant. 5pm. 6pm. 6.30pm. Not knowing if I was feeling nauseous because of anxiety or hunger, I went down to the hotel bar for a large drink, and decided some comfort food was needed as well. Scampi and Chips it was. Want owt elss, Luv, asked the waiter. He’d been really sweet all along, I think he thought I’d beamed down from Venus because all the other ladies in the bar had purple hair, tattoos and huge cleavages. I was wearing smart jeans, a modest blouse and understated jewellery. I ordered another glass and took it back to my room, drank half of it and fell asleep.

My phone rang. 8.45pm. The hospital number. The consultant. Surgery went well. Longer than anticipated (I had noticed). He said I should have a glass of wine and relax. What a nice man. What a very nice man. But he didn’t call me Luv. Probably because his last name and accent were of Asian extraction and he thought that form of address was disrespectful. What a nice man. What a very nice man.

Hubby drove up on Friday afternoon to keep me company for the weekend, provide moral support, and help me where he could. That was Plan A. First evening we went to a Brazilian restaurant in the town centre, and the Whippet and Pickle (of all things) in Holmfirth on Saturday, going for a wander beforehand to identify all the sites from Last of the Summer Wine. Many say that LotSW is a parody of Yorkshire. Having been back there for a few days, I actually think Yorkshire life is a parody of mischievous Compo, cynical Clegg, bossy Foggy and caring battle-axe Nora Batty. Mischievous? Cynical? Bossy? Caring battle-axe? LotSW is actually a parody of me!

Then Hubby overstayed his welcome. He went cycling on Sunday up to Holme Moss. On his way back he got a puncture and his pump wouldn’t work. So I got the phone call every cyclists’ wife goes out of their way to avoid if they can. There was no escape for me this time. Having worked out where he was, I drove over to the pub carpark where he was waiting. Guess what. Couldn’t get the boot open. The handle wasn’t ‘engaging’. Whether this had anything to do with the buggered battery or not we didn’t know. Another Plan B: Hubby drove my car back to the hotel to collect his, leaving me bad-temperedly baby-sitting his expensive bike with a credit card in the pub carpark … you do the maths.

Sis was supposed to come home with me couple of days ago. As it happens, I drove back alone and hope to go up and down in a day tomorrow, or the next to collect her. Plan B is early next week. Nothing untoward going on, just one of those things. I think Sis is happy for me not to be there for a few days because I kept embarrassing her: firstly I checked with the ICU nurse that she was getting enough oxygen; then I asked the support nurse if anyone was monitoring her strict diet; finally I questioned the consultant about the need for a haemoglobin infusion. 

You’d check whether God had shut the Pearly Gates properly, you would, laughed Sis. There’s always a locksmith, I sighed.