If you want to make God laugh

Find my books here

'If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans' is a well known adage from the Bible, and we have all experienced the truth behind it at different times in our lives. Monday was one of mine!

I was donating a Cindy doll house full of furniture and accessories to a family with three small girls aged 8, 6 and 4. My grandchildren had long grown out of it and as it was well used it was only worth the pleasure it could bring to another generation of children. I had found the children's mother via a neighbourhood App and we agreed a time for her to collect it. When she arrived I liked her immediately. She was thrilled with the doll house and said she would send me pictures of her children playing with it once it was set up. She also made a great fuss of my small dog, saying she loved dogs and had two of her own.

We carried the doll house and the boxes containing the furniture out to her car, which was parked a short distance down the road despite my driveway being clear. It was slightly odd but I thought no more about it after she said it wasn't necessary to move the car, and I walked down the road carrying two bags. Her husband was standing beside it with a large dog on a rope lead, again slightly odd as it wasn't a big car and there were a lot of boxes. I assumed, however, that they were going to take it for a walk before they went home as we live opposite a big field popular with dog owners.

I've owned and been around dogs of all breeds, shapes and sizes all my life so, as any responsible dog owner would, I asked her if I could say hello to him and, when she said yes, held my hand out, fingers safely curled under, for him to sniff. Unfortunately he wasn't interested in sniffing. Instead, with absolutely no warning, no flattened ears, bared teeth or any sign that he was angry or scared, he reared up on his hind legs and lunged at me. His master couldn't hold him back and before I knew what was happening he had taken a chunk out of my upper lip and gouged my nose. There was a lot of blood!!

Now stitched up, I am recovering entirely thanks to the English National Health Service (NHS) which is really what this post is about. Free at the point of delivery since 1948 it has, for many years, been extolled across the world...until recently. Now, every newspaper seems to find a daily criticism and the new UK government is telling everyone it is broken. It is NOT!

I was treated with nothing but kindness from the moment I entered the Accident & Emergency Department of our local hospital. I was given a tetanus jab  and a very strong dose of intravenous antibiotic as an immediate precaution as dog bites are known to cause infection. This was followed up with a 7 day course of equally strong antibiotics and, after cleansing and dressing the wounds, an appointment was made for me to attend the Plastic Surgery Unit of another hospital at 9.30 the following morning. I was also given packs of gauze, dressings and a wrapped pair of sterilised scissors in case I needed to use them during the night. 

By 1.30 the following afternoon I had been stitched up by a very clever and kind Plastic Surgeon who has assured me all will heal with little if any scarring. Before stitching he doused my lips in so much antiseptic  wash I was grateful to be covered in plastic sheeting. He then applied more antiseptic cream before even starting to stitch. What was particularly clever was the way he used a marker to draw my lip curve before he gave me a local anaesthetic. This, he explained, was to ensure he stitched it back into the correct shape. Before I left he double checked all my meds and gave me additional antiseptic cream to use for 7 days.

And it is not only me who has received such prompt treatment. My husband had a very successful hip replacement last year within 2 months of first seeing a doctor and within 6 days of an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon. So not the long waiting list for him that is so often referred to in the news. And neighbours, and friends in different parts of the country, have all received similar efficient treatment from nurses and doctors who have been unfailingly caring and professional. Some for broken bones, one for osteoporosis, one for oil burns, several for suspected heart problems only one of which proved to be an issue, but all of whom received electrocardiograms anyway to check the symptoms. I could go on. As well,  we receive regular texts from our local surgery asking us to make appointments for flu and COVID vaccines plus now another one for a respiratory virus called RSV. All free. No waiting. Yes, I know we pay our taxes and I know it is becoming increasingly expensive for the country, something that needs to be dealt with, but when we are at our most vulnerable we don't need to stop and think. We know we will be seen and treated. 

Now I am not naive enough to think that all hospitals and clinics are the same. I know that some will be inefficient and that there will be less caring nurses and doctors,  because that is the same in all walks of life. Waiters, shop assistants, police personnel, administrators, chief executive officers (CEOs), anyone in any role can either be excellent, good, moderately okay, poor or dreadful. What is not fair, however, is that the excellent are conflated with the bad so that the whole system is considered to be failing. It is not fair to the huge numbers of medical staff who are doing a good job and it frightens the population as a whole.

Oh and the woman who came to collect the doll house, and who I liked immediately...she has disappeared! She's no longer on the Neighbourhood App and, as I had no reason to ask for her address and phone number until the accident, at which time I was too busy thinking of other things, I cannot contact her. All I hope is that she protects her three little girls from what is very obviously an out-of-control dog that is far too big and strong for its owner. The thought of what it might do to one of them doesn't bear thinking about. 

At the insistence of the medics I reported it to the police but with only a name to go on it is unlikely they will be able to do anything. So my message is, however much you like dogs, think twice before you make physical contact, and don't believe everything you hear about the NHS! It might no longer be the best in the world but it still does what it says on the tin. It's an ever constant, free at the point of entry, caring national health service.

Christmases Past (and Presents)...by Sheila Claydon

 

Find my books here

I haven't written any books with Christmas in them but Loving Ellen (Book 2 of Mapleby Memories) has exactly the right cover. I can imagine little Ellen's excitement when she wakes up on Christmas morning and sees a bulging stocking at the end of her bed. And that imagining has made me remember some of the favourite gifts I received as a child.

The first one I can clearly recall is a pair of rabbit fur mittens. I was about 5 years old. The fur was on top, the palm was leather, and there was a gathering of elastic at the wrist so they wouldn't fall off. They were so soft and warm and  I wore them for most of the Christmas holiday, indoors and out, often rubbing the furry side against my face. I adored them. In those days it was real fur too. Nowadays it would be faux. We also used to eat rabbit in those long ago days not long after the war, so it seemed entirely natural to use their fur for hats and gloves, whereas now rabbit pie has all but disappeared from the British culinary tradition and rabbits are mostly children's pets.

Another present I remember was a doll house. It was really special although I didn't know how special until years later when I realised my parents had made it for me. It was only a few years after WW2 so toys were in short supply and money was too. But by using wooden boxes, scraps of wallpaper and carpet, and by contriving beds, chairs and sofas out of matchboxes plumped up with cotton wool and covered in old dress material, they conjured up the most marvellous gift. It had four fully furnished rooms and a family of tiny rubber dolls. The baby's cradle was half a walnut shell. I loved it beyond words.

I remember, too, the artist's palette, 3 canvases and box of oil paints I received from a much older cousin when I was about 14 and fancying myself as a painter. My poor grandmother and my father patiently sat  for hours while I painted them. Although I am no artist I did capture their likeness and my mother hung them in the hall until I left home. She then removed them somewhat rapidly and I am quite sure with a sigh of relief.

I remember the baby doll too. I insisted it was a boy and called him Michael. Maybe prescient as that's my husband's name! He was almost new born baby size and my mother, who had kept my old carry cot ready for another child who sadly never arrived, let me use it for Michael along with the covers and shawls I had been wrapped in as a baby. I had a doll pram too but I don't remember how or when that arrived or whether it was new or second hand. I do know it was maroon though.

Then, when I was about nine years old, I had the book Christmas! I don't remember what my parents gave me, but everyone else gave me a book. I had a great many aunts and uncles and cousins, so that was quite a lot of books. At least ten, and not a single one replicated. Nor had I read any of them before. There was What Katy Did, What Katy Did Next, Little Women, one of Enid Blyton's Famous Five books, Swallows and Amazons, Children of the New Forest and Heidi to name a few. I don't remember them all but I know my parents had a very peaceful time because I spent Christmas with my nose in one book after another. And although I already loved reading, I think that was the year I started writing too. I can remember turning a cupboard in my bedroom into a desk with pencil, rubber and notepad laid out neatly on the shelf and a small stool tucked underneath. None of my early scribblings survived but I do remember writing about a girl called Dorothy although what her story was about is lost in the mists of time.

Christmas for children is wonderful if they are lucky enough to be part of a caring family. Nowadays, so many years later, I enjoy my Christmases vicariously through the eyes and excitement of my grandchildren, and, although I hardly dare admit it, my grand dogs, cat and horses!! According to my granddaughters they are so much part of the family that they can't be left out. However I don't think dog biscuits, catnip and hay nets will have the same lasting memories for them that my early Christmases have for me. 

As I get older I relish the memories and know how lucky I was, and still am. I hope you have your own wonderful memories too.

Merry Christmas!

Christmases Past...by Sheila Claydon

Find my books here

One of the first of my books published by Books We Love is Cabin Fever. It is the story of Ellie and Drew who both chose to work at Christmas rather than spending time with their loved ones. Instead they joined the ship The Osprey as Cruise Director and lead dancer on its journey from Aukland to Sydney and back. Thinking back to how the story came to be written set me thinking about Christmases past. Then I read fellow writer Nancy M Bell's post of 18 December where she reminisced about the changes we have all experienced in the last 50-100 years, and even more memories returned.

I was born when rationing and shortages were still very much part of life in the UK, so Christmases then were very different from now. Parents, unless they were wealthy, had to be inventive when it came to presents, and mine certainly were. I remember the doll house they made me. It was no more than a box divided into 4 rooms. The outside had stick on paper bricks and the roof had stick on paper tiles.  Somehow they had found scraps of carpet and wallpaper to cover the floors and walls, and there were handmade curtains on the painted on windows. The couch and matching chairs were made from matchboxes covered in a blue floral fabric and the painted chest of drawers was made from matchboxes too. The wooden bed had a knitted blanket and tiny pillows stuffed with cotton wool. There were other things, including a family of tiny dolls, and I absolutely loved it. I didn't worry that there were no stairs or internal doors. Nor that when the front was closed I couldn't see inside. I cherished that doll house for years and it was only when I was much older that I realised how much love had gone into the making of it. 

I remember, too, the blue pinafore dress that arrived one Christmas. It was  dark blue with bright pink daisies embroidered around the bodice and I loved it. It was much later that I discovered it had been made from my mother's airforce uniform and that she had sawn it together and embroidered the daisies. My father, who had worked in the northern mills before the war as a cutter, had made the pattern and cut it out for her.

When I see what my grandchildren receive now at Christmas, I don't begrudge any of it, but I do wonder if they enjoy their Christmas stockings quite as much as children did when there was so much less to be had. Then, the tangerine in the toe together with a small bar of chocolate, a packet of wax crayons, a colouring book and maybe some plasticine and a few other things were the highlight of the year. I remember a mouth organ, a set of dibs or jacks (does anyone play that now?) a skipping rope, a drawing pad, a small box of watercolour paints, and of course books. Books were read again and again and if they began to fall apart they were mended and covered with brown paper. I still have a very battered book that was my mother's when she was a child and which she read to me, one chapter every Sunday, until we finished it. Then, when I was older, I read and re-read it for myself. It is one of the original copies of Anne of Green Gables, and it is still one of my favourite stories.

Nancy is right. Times have certainly changed but they have left behind some lovely memories.

Happy Christmas everyone. May you all be blessed and may 2023 be good to us all.