Tiling

Benedict Ambrose and I are now the proud owners of a functional bath shower room. All that remains is for the project manager to receive a last bit of wallboard, for the joiner to put it in, and for the decorator to paint the plaster. The tile floor glows like an angel. 

I am rather in love with the tile floor. It is almost funny now that I treated the designer's catalogues like horrendous math textbooks--or worse, a tax guide--and left it up to B.A. to choose the myriad of expensive stuff that goes in a bathroom. Now I pore over the pages of tiles, dreaming about tiling the tiny foyer--and eventually the kitchen floor--and maybe even the porch. 

Having unlocked the savings account to pay for the works, I am in a spendy mood and tempted to tile my own self. During our luxurious Stockbridge weekend, eating top quality bread and cheese, I bought and read two books on Parisian style I found in charity shops: Alois Guinut's Dress Like a Parisian and Ines de la Fressange's Parisian Chic. Guinut subsequently wrote a book called Why Frenchwomen Wear Vintage, so she would probably approve of me buying her work in Cancer Research UK. Also, her ideas are not necessarily ruinous to the pocketbook. I particularly liked her nonchalant attitude to make-up and hair. 

Horizontally stripped shirts about in both these volumes, and I was pleased to find a nice pale-blue and white one by Boden for £4 or so in Mary's Living and Giving Shop. I have been less pleased to notice navy-and-white striped shirts on several members of the 70-something set wherever I go. Obviously the 70-something set may wear whatever they like, but I have joined the ranks of those who have reason to fear looking even older than we are. (Although why do we? Would grandmotherly softness not attract more social cache than the harsh battleaxe lines of middle life?)

Normally I dress out of the House of Bruar catalogue when I am not simply slobbing around in my gym clothes, so the idea of Parisian dressing (especially on the cheap) is rather beguiling.

More importantly, B.A. managed to get himself into the massive walk-in shower, pulling himself along by hanging onto the grab rails. He then sat firmly on the fold-down seat under the rain nozzle. We think we might need one more grab rail, and I think we need to affix a hook for his bathrobe on the far end. Putting on his bathrobe by himself was his scariest task. The short-term goal is for B.A. to be fully independent while washing. 

The long-term goal, of course, is for him to leap about like a mountain goat. When that day comes, he will have to dance with me: he promised! 

In fact, I might sign him up for swing-dancing class. One day, years ago, he appeared in the hall when I was taking a Saturday swing-dance workshop. I dropped my partner like a hot potato and hurried over to my cherished spouse. Alas, B.A. had only taken it into his head to say hello, and he went off to read the Spectator or the Times Review of Books in silly old Starbucks.

Guest Post: In Praise of Pottering

As you may imagine, having recently had the sensation and mobility in my feet and legs melt away precipitately over the course of a few months – I hazard by about 70% since Michaelmas, when I could still haltingly walk my way through a Dashing White Sergeant – has been a bit of a bore. Standing without support, let alone walking, is practically impossible. I lost my balance at a local bus stop a couple of weeks ago after absent-mindedly letting go of my walking frame and landing heavily on my left hip – cracking a small bone in my pelvis – which has hardly helped things along much. There are many things which I took entirely for granted before but which I can no longer do, at least at the moment: chemotherapy and prayer (Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster and Cardinal Mindszenty, since you kindly ask) may, DV, restore some of them in due course. But there is one mundane activity in particular in which I can no longer indulge, the deprivation of which has been surprisingly difficult: pottering. 

It is now poignantly and somewhat absurdly evident to me that a large proportion of my time at home was taken up with casually random but not entirely inconsequential activities: getting up from my chair to adjust an object’s place on a table or straighten a squint picture; popping into the kitchen to wash a glass or fetch a biscuit or lackadaisically cook a meal whilst listening to the radio and glugging a glass of wine; picking up a fallen flower head on the other side of the room; or wandering out into the hallway to open the front door and look out over the garden (whilst glugging a glass of wine). I did them almost mindlessly, unconsciously, and constantly. And, I now realise, I quietly enjoyed doing them (especially whilst glugging). They made up the background fabric of my domestic existence and as such were a constant thread in the unremarkable tapestry of my life. I can still do some of them, with the aid of a little wheelchair lent to us by a kind young friend, but they take much longer and a great deal more effort – and risk. Consequently, they involve a substantial amount of mental energy even to scope out, and I’m pricked with anxiety that I’m going to come a cropper – drop a plate or scald myself or fall over. As a result, they largely remain undone, even if technically doable. And, it turns out, I miss doing them terribly. 

 

The burden of this loss has of course not been mine alone. Mrs McLean’s devotion, considerable extra physical efforts and patience have been quietly heroic, but I can tell that it all takes a heavy toll upon her [Ed. --I quite enjoy the meal-planning and cooking, though.] If in my perished potential to potter I have lost the quiet pleasure of being cheerfully and moderately active and the feeling that I’m being useful, she has lost a cheerful and moderately useful husband. She is left instead with a husband whose requests for her assistance with a million tiny things he used to do for himself without even thinking – however politely and appreciatively they are meant to come across – are inevitably grating and wearisome. This is on top of her having to assume almost all the other domestic chores we used to share between us. We are both penalised by the passing of my pottering.

 

I pray (do thou likewise) much of this will improve when my fracture heals, the twinges stop buckling my leg, I can build back more strength and lose some of the dull terror that I’m going to injure myself again. It’ll get better to some degree even if things don’t change or improve immediately or drastically with my general mobility – at worst, I’ll just get better at coping with it, so long as I’m spared any further deterioration. But if I were asked what activity I would most like to be restored to me it wouldn’t be popping down on a whim to the pub with pals, or taking long country walks in the spring, or picking my way through crumbling castle ruins: it’d be the simple freedom of peacefully pottering.

Benedict Ambrose

Fifteen

Benedict Ambrose and I have now been married for 15 years. To celebrate, we will call a cab and go to Edinburgh's Prestonfield House for lunch today. We will be travelling further than we imagined, for we are not at home but in an AirBnB in the Stockbridge Colonies. 

Life is full of surprises, and we had a big one on Monday morning when a three-man building crew arrived at 8 AM to gut the bathroom. We had had a vague understanding that the contractors were coming this week, but we were not prepared when they actually did. So there was me in a DFB (Deutscher Fussball-Bund) shirt (only three stars, a collector's item) and pyjama bottoms hurriedly scooping the contents of the bathroom cupboards into blue plastic IKEA bags, and there was B.A. pulling on clothes and dragging himself into a wheelchair. 

B.A.'s need for a wheelchair was also one of life's surprises, of course. However, like the building crew, it was not totally unheralded. First there was the dreadful diagnosis last May. Then there was B.A.'s coming home with a walking stick. Then there was his all-too-brief love affair with a rollator. And now there is his borrowed wheelchair, which came not a minute too soon: the day after he broke a bone in his pelvis. 

As I inwardly chant to myself whenever someone now asks me for a favour or is even the tiniest bit critical, I have a husband with cancer and a full-time job. Like St. Martha I am beset with many cares. This means that my poor brain cannot currently hold all the information it needs or make all the necessary plans. For obvious example, I didn't work out what we were going to do for a bathroom when our own was a construction site. 

I had a vague hope that this was one of companies that promised us a portable toilet, but I didn't ask outright. And B.A. had a vague hope the National Health Service would lend him a commode, but the NHS said no. And although I can just run to Tesco for the loo and to my gym for a shower, B.A. cannot. And so, after a miserable afternoon, B.A. secured an AirBnB and a taxicab, and here we are. 

We love Stockbridge, so this is a good thing. The taxicabs, with their kindly drivers who push B.A. up and down the foldaway ramps, are also a good thing.  The new bathroom will also be a good thing--as will be our anniversary lunch this afternoon. 

This morning I woke up at 5, and I thought about my dream 25th wedding anniversary party, which looks rather like a dream wedding, only festooned with silver. B.A. has promised to dance with me when he can walk again, so obviously I we must have a proper ball with a ceilidh band and a jazz quintet that plays late into the night. 

While writing this blog I began to think about Anniversaries Past. The obvious one to look up was Eight, which fell after B.A.'s first big operation, and Nine, since for a very scary period it seemed that there might not be a Nine. Interestingly enough, when my erstwhile Polish teacher asked us for the secrets of a long marriage, we did not say, "Don't die." 

However, this is now first on our Tips for a Long Marriage list.