All things taken into consideration

All things taken into consideration this week at New Street should work out quite well.

The room is warm, the bed is comfortable; my bed is made each morning and help is at hand for the putting on and removal of the TED stockings.

At lunchtime I have a seat at a table with four of the residents: Susan who has no boundaries when it comes to personal questions; Jo, a small, trim lady in her eighties, quite deaf, a little impatient with Susan but joins the conversation when it suits her; Anna Maria, deaf, German-born, with definite views on how things should be done and quite prepared to make conversation.

Daily papers can be found in a small alcove room near the front door; breakfast, morning and afternoon tea and the evening supper come to the room. Lunch is in the dining room and although I considered the noise from the dining room might be a bother, it isn’t.  It is in fact entertaining – snippets of conversation drift through the wall; people having heated debates at their table, the man who is an authority on absolutely everything can be heard expounding, at length, on his latest theory and Sharon can be heard above the din recounting, for the umpteenth time, the latest drama in her life.

Anna, who sits at the dining room table nearest my door, is European and delivers a continuing and repetitive stream of unintelligible, murmured conversation.  She responds to a greeting with a wave of her hand and I begin to suspect that the conversation is in a foreign language and somehow she understands it perfectly.

There is a resident cat who spends its day crouched under a dresser and a small dog who has perfect manners, is friendly and never barks.

What’s not to like about New Street?