Category: Pain

Will You? aka Dying by Numbers

Form PA1

Form IHT217

Form IHT205

Form R27

These are just some of the delightfully named pieces of paper I’ve had to fill out since Dad died. Although they’re available online you can’t complete any of them electronically. All must be downloaded, understood (and let me tell you these forms were designed with machines in mind, not humans), completed and sent off somewhere. Then you wait for your court interview which will lead to the issuing of a grant. This grant is a legal document to allow me to administer Dad’s estate.

Time passes slowly so you call to ask what’s going on and are told ‘no you can’t have the interview at the court building you asked for, we haven’t opened that building in over nine months’. Turns out HM Courts and Tribunal Service ‘offers’ these interviews at seven locations in and around London, and only one of them is regularly open. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to rethink that choice thing huh?

In due course a letter arrives and so yesterday I attended court for an interview. It was dry, necessary, neither polite nor impolite and mercifully brief. I had a few questions but the interviewer seemed to know nothing beyond the specific process of conducting the interview. Maybe I expect too much but this human interaction felt as dehumanising as the paperwork that had gone before.

I stood on the steps outside court after the interview so I could check in on Foursquare – (what a nerd!) and this post about making a will and stuff from Laurie Ruettimann popped onto my screen. Carole and I made our wills when we got married nigh on twenty years ago, and we keep our affairs in order so that when one or both of us dies….well you get the picture I hope.

My Dad was a super guy and he didn’t make a will. He did not expect to die on January 22nd 2012 and I didn’t expect him to either. Though yesterday was an important procedural milestone, here I am this Saturday morning staring at a screen and another huge pile of papers that stand between me and my grief. I totally know Dad wouldn’t have wanted this, and I don’t want it for you – that is for sure.

Do you know people you love and care about? Do you own stuff? Do you have a will?

 

 

Friday Fury – Kitty Killers

Do you like riding a bicycle? I do, it’s good exercise, a good way to meet people and it’s great fun. I’ve been privileged to undertake some fabulous bicycle trips, including a 306 mile journey from my home through the English countryside, all the way to Prenton Park. A wonderful uplifting journey of discovery.

I’ve done a lot of cycle commuting in my time, most of it in Central London where I often use Boris Bikes. Cycling in London is a great way to get about, and for some it’s a great way to get yourself killed too. I’m not talking about the many tragedies that make the news, though these stories are of course very sad.

No, I’m thinking about all the idiots who jump red lights on their bicycles. In my experience gathered from several years of cycle commuting I’ve come to an uncomfortable conclusion. London cyclists are the most inconsiderate, lawless road user group out there. When I started to commute I figured it would be taxi drivers, or HGV drivers, or maybe white van man. But nope, it’s my fellow cyclists, and their stupidity infuriates me. Why do so many cyclists feel it’s OK to jump the lights and then feel so angry when we are cut up on our roads? Would as many cyclists do this if we had to display some kind of registration, thus making it easier for the police to dish out £1,000 fines when we choose to endanger ourselves and others?

Don’t get me wrong, I think much more needs to be done to educate motorists and other road users to share the highway more respectfully, and to punish them when they don’t. But most cyclists I know are soft and squishy, and have a tendency to bend and break when hit by another vehicle. Jumping the lights feels like asking for trouble to me.

If you are a cyclist, don’t make yourself a target. And if you don’t care about yourself or your fellow road users, think of the kitty.

Photo credit

Bolney Pram Race 2011

I’m 45, not very fit, and quite stupid. I must be otherwise why would I have volunteered to take part in the annual Bolney Pram Race? Again. This is attempt number three and having been a pirate (yarrr) and a vampire, this year I’m joining the medical profession. My mate Curly is my partner in crime. He is the patient and chief engineer. Previous evenings have been spent welding stuff onto the pram chassis to make it look vaguely like a hospital gurney. A dash of paint on the Monday morning and we’re raring to go.

How does it work?

The race starts at the Eight Bells pub. In previous years there’s been a mass start preceded by a compulsory beer. This year there are so many entries that we take part in a random draw for a grid placing. We draw 23rd place out of 34. Not great, not terrible either. This year there are red and green start lights just like at a Formula One race. There the similarity ends.

There are a series of stops on the 2.5km course around the village where pusher and passenger swap places, have a compulsory beer and grab a ticket as proof of your stop.

The atmosphere on the grid is tense, everyone is sizing each other up, checking out the competition. All the other racers look a lot younger, a lot fitter than we are. We’ve done this before we know it’s gonna hurt.

The start

All the lights are set to red, then with a blast on the horn, they turn to green and we’re off. It’s carnage at the start as a couple of prams collapse almost immediately. The Pope in a boat is causing chaos with some extra wide stabilisers and it turns out the first pit stop has been placed too near to the start. I keep a cool doctor’s head and navigate the mess as carefully as I can and we’re out on the open road.

The race

A couple of the quick prams speed past and I knuckle down for the long haul up to pit stop two. By the time we arrive we’ve picked off a couple of competitors and my lungs are hanging out. This is hard work. We glug a beer, grab our card and swap places for the short spring to pitstop three. The next few stages pass in a blur of alcohol and pain. No one overtakes us and we rocket past a couple more prams including a bath on wheels and some kind of weird lifeguard pram, both of which clearly went off too fast.

Final stages

The last two stages are downhill and the challenge shifts from exerting and pushing uphill to retaining control on the fast slopes. Curly manages the penultimate stage very well and we pick up another place. Our last pit stop is perfectly executed. We take our final beer (number seven) and we’re off to the finish. We’re in no man’s land. There’s no way I’m going to let anyone else pass us now, and the road ahead is clear. Folks are cheering us on to the finish and we’re hamming it up shouting “medical emergency coming through” and “someone get me a doctor” for all we’re worth. The finish line is ahead and I can see loads of prams already finished. Then it’s over. We’ve finished, and we’re finished – absolutely knackered. We’re pretty chuffed with our 11th place, not bad for a couple of geezers eh?