Clean clothes and other important chores

New Street does not offer a laundry service to respite residents; this means I have to rely on one of the Support Team to escort me to a nearby laundrette where I can load the clothes into a machine, have the person in charge of the laundrette put the washed clothes through a dryer, fold them and have them waiting for me later in the day.  

La Madeleine came over to New Street to chauffeur me around yesterday and do the heavy haulage; carry the heavy items like the bag of laundry.  We left the laundry tossing around in the wash cycle, crossed the road to Andy’s and had a coffee. Something was seriously wrong with the coffee; it was definitely not up to the standard I am accustomed to drinking at Andy’s.  I did not complain as I have a suspicion the fault lay, not with the coffee, but with me.

Coffee drinking disappointment behind me, we drove to the nearest big shopping centre where I searched for suitable Thank You cards.  I want to deliver these to the hospital before I leave the city for my country convalescence; if I don’t do it now it will never happen.

It was a time consuming exercise; I only needed two cards. I looked at what seems to be every damned card in the shop which might serve as a Thank You card and quite a few that would not serve as Thank You cards but which were wonderfully illustrated and had quirky and amusing captions.

 Eventually I made a decision and away we went, back to the laundry where I made the irritating discovery that the clothes drying had been completely overlooked. 

I was not a happy little Vegemite.  I had to remind myself that worse things have happened at sea and in the larger scheme of things in My New Life, damp clothes are a mere bagatelle.  However it meant going back to collect them today and I was lucky Neighbour Heather came to the rescue.

She was happy to collect the laundry but not enthusiastic when I requested trip to the card shop.  I had considered the cards again last night and changed my mind about one.  It did not reflect accurately enough what I wanted to say.  I stuck to my guns and along the way to the shopping centre discovered NH had played tennis this morning and hadn’t had time for lunch.

We found a café still serving lunch and she ate up and brightened up.

Being on my Support Team can be very demanding.

Daily Life at New Street

Life at New Street follows a predictable pattern each day.

Before daylight each morning, from within the cocoon of my room and snug in my bed, I follow this pattern; a pattern of sounds which combine with activity.

Around six o’clock the morning bell-pressing gets under way.  If the staff, who might be in the kitchen preparing breakfast, are not smart about responding, the bell will be pressed repeatedly with an ever diminishing time gap between presses until the caller gets a response. There are mornings when the air is thick with the buzz of call bells.

The next part of the morning soundscape is the door-knock, as breakfast is delivered to the rooms. The first knock is the signal for me to clear the portable table and turn on the television. Within a space of less than 48 hours I have become a morning TV-watching addict; especially the programs which bring me the latest news and drama from all over the world in small grabs.  Plus whole lot of other rubbish.

After breakfast is dealt with I have my morning rest.  Everyone else who is not room-bound will be dressing for the day; when I hear people arriving in the dining room for morning tea I have to seriously consider dressing for the day.

As you can see, the day passes in a parade of mealtimes separated by the mundane.

Lunchtime is the big social event in my day; I sit down and the three ladies with whom I share a table start the guessing game of ‘What will be on the menu for lunch today?’ I am new to this game with no experience of past meals and my guesses are wild ones. I’m never right but the long-time residents with good memories – read Anna-Maria there – are often spot on.   

After lunch, if the weather is OK I go out for a short walk; back inside I might sit in the ‘reading room’ and glance through the papers.  The grumpy man will be in his permanent position in the corridor and Sharon, together with the owner of the small well-behaved dog and the dog, will be sitting on the couch near the door.  People are creatures of habit.

Before afternoon tea time I will be back in the snugness of my room, either resting or reading; my reading concentration, which was zilch in the hospital, is now gradually improving. I am re-reading Helene Hanff’s Underfoot in Show Business which is a highly entertaining read; it chronicles Helene’s time in New York City as a young woman, working a variety of jobs to supplement her income while she works on writing The Big Play which will be the hit of the century.  Her best friend Maxine, her sights set on a brilliant acting future, provides endless humour with her wit and creativity, especially with regard to getting into theatre performances for next to nothing. Helene Hanff is best known for her book 84, Charing Cross Road.  

As the day winds down, everybody who is able gathers in the dining room promptly at 5 pm for the final meal of the day. A small group of people move afterwards to the lounge at the front of the house to watch the evening news on the giant TV, the only place with reception for the national broadcaster. 

My evening meal is often a strange collection of what looks to be a cross between the left-overs and  a plate put together from a quick search though the cupboards; there is always a glass of fruit juice and if I’m lucky a bowl of soup. All this arrives around seven pm and little by little quiet falls as everyone settles down for the night.

I tear myself away from the television and turn off the light around nine pm; another uneventful day has passed on the road to recovery.

Breakfast

Breakfast arrives on a tray sometime around 7 am; the items on the tray match those chosen from the breakfast menu listing.

In keeping with the New Street credo, it is simple.  Eggs Benedict, porridge with coconut and quinoa and that darling of hipster cafes, smashed avocado on toast, will never appear on the New Street breakfast menu.

The chosen items appearing on my daily breakfast tray are fruit juice, cereal, toast and tea. 

The fruit juice is usually a hybrid: little bit of this and not too much of that with the main contenders apple and orange.  This fruit juice, of whatever combination, is served at very meal and appears to be a replacement for fresh fruit; a tentative request for an orange was met with a response suggesting a search party would be sent out to procure one and the degree of difficulty involved would be at the upper end of the difficulty scale.

Ticking the box for the cereal section of the menu was a considered decision between porridge, it is after all the middle of winter, and a standard selection of summer fare. I opt for cornflakes over porridge; the thought of badly cooked porridge is a risk I am not prepared to take.  The cornflakes are of a generic variety and there is very little that can be done to ruin them. Or that was my hope for the following week….

Toast is two slices of bread, faintly coloured and warm, buttered and accompanied by a sachet or two of jam.  The faint colouring of the toast immediately brings to mind the response of my paternal grandfather, a man of short-temper and very definite ideas about the rules of toast-making.  Bread, which was not of the required degree of colour, was flung back across the table together a snort of disgust and the retort ‘Boarding house toast!’

There will be no throwing of toast on my part; in less than a week the toast colour decision will be in my control.  I can wait.

And the tea.  What can I say about the tea?  Nothing positive.

However, having all of the above delivered to my room each morning allows me the luxury of  watching the morning television breakfast programs, eating breakfast and going back to bed for more healing sleep.

The good life.

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?

ZZZzzz

Rest and sleep are the main aim of the next few days.

I intend to rest up, as advised, in the morning after breakfast and again in the afternoon after lunch.  I’m taking this rest and recuperation program very seriously.

This morning I make the mistake of being in the dining room just after 7 am, only to discover that breakfast will come to me in the room. I will not make this mistake twice.

More ZZZzzz time each morning.