I drafted this one yesterday morning.

Pam: Hello dear! It's Pam! Pam Goldie! Your mum's friend!

Macy: Oh hi! Pam! (I'm on beta blockers now.  I should listen to see if my heart makes a different noise when it sinks....) How you doing?

Pam: Oh mustn't grumble at my age dear! Macy pet, I'm phoning about your mum! I think mum's getting a bit confused!

Macy: Oh Pam, I know, I know..(hell Pam, I was the one who phoned you a couple of months back for this very reason). What's been happening?

Pam Well she's had a fall, dear. I can't understand what's happened.  Apparently the gardener found her and brought her into the house. And now she's in bed. But she says it's only a sore arm.

Pam: I mean I got her on the phone this evening, but she doesn't want any visitors. But she was saying you've been to see her dear?

Macy: Not this week Pam.  I haven't been over since I dropped you both off for your coach tour.  That was a fortnight ago.

Pam: I thought that dear! But she says she's seen you and you're getting her shopping for her! And you know she's not been to the doctor about this! And the nurse who was looking after the dressing on her leg seems to have been on holiday. I don't know what's happening but her leg's not getting any better either.

Macy Pam, she hasn't even picked up the phone messages I left. I was starting to worry...

Pam And she is confused dear! I mean she was getting up at four in the morning on holiday you know because she didn't want to be late for breakfast!

Macy Pam, I'll be over tomorrow.

Pam Oh that's good Macy.  Don't tell mum I phoned will you? She'll be so cross again.

My mother lives only an half an hour north of Glasgow.  Cheesetown is, however, an hour away from Glasgow.  Looking on the bright side, though, I'll have a good hour and a half in the car to think up a reason for my "just dropping in"....

You know I blame Dr Jacobs for my depression.  Thinking on it, I was all ready to write this post after my angiogram - except I never got round to it.
Depression, see? Dr Jacobs, all five feet four of him was the trigger.

I must be getting better because I'm writing it now...

So there I was, lying on my hospital trolley waiting to get wheeled into the theatre for my angiogram. I was chatting to Dr Jacobs,  my cardiologist.  It was Dr Jacobs who had been my consultant in hospital.

Dr Jacobs it was who first argued that yes actually I had had a heart attack, and since he was the doctor I was staying in hospital.
Dr Jacobs it was who had insisted that I stay in bed only to later catch  me coming back from the outpatients  shop.
Dr Jacobs it was, who had negotiated a deal that I am allowed out of bed but was to stay on the third floor; only to meet me at the front door inhaling next to the smokers...I wasn't Dr Jacobs easiest patient - and that's saying something seeing's how most of his other ladies were elderly and demented.
But we were still on speaking terms. Think of him as a wee man who likes a challenge.

Whilst incarcerated in St James' I'd argued strongly that I had get out asap - because there is only me for the Cherub. When I lost that battle, I then fought a further battle not to be transferred to the Royal because as his father's last hospital, this does not have good associations for the Cherub.  Dr Jacobs then knew some of the past history.

So there we were stuck in the ante room to the theatre, since the procedure scheduled before me was running late. I was musing on how it was typical that he Doctor with a grudge was the one scheduled to put a large knitting needle into my right arm. He was giving me inside gossip on the other medical staff and Nicola Sturgeon's last visit to St James'. When he said

"So Macy, how long's it been? Have you really never been out with someone else since W died?"

Eh? Try running that one past me when it's not completely out of left field....

Did I look girlishly out from under my long dewy eye lashes, before completing my Jenifer Aniston impersonation by sighing and asking sweetly if he was offering?
Nope

Did I sit straight up and as him if he thought such a question was entirely in keeping with the General Medical Council's Ethical Guidelines?
Sadly not.

Or did I collapse into an incoherent lachrymose heap? "OhnoohgodnoI'notgoingthroughallthatagain {SOB} Ohgodohnoohjustthethoughtofevenevenbotheringofeventrying tofindsmalltalkofeven ..shit... Idnon'tknow..whatyougoingtodo? Icouldn't....{SOB}Ohgodsorry{SNIFF} OgodIdon'tknowwhereallthisiscomingfrom{NOSEBLOW}

Yeah.  That'll be Dr Jacobs dealing a knockout blow in the final round then....

It's like a fog, slowly forming overhead, and steadily getting thicker until it blocks out the sun.
Until everything becomes  duller than you remember, or just harder to do.
The one constant is the voice saying "What's the point?"

And I know this isn't the most brilliantly original description of depression - but bear with me here. I'm typing on regardless of the voice telling me this is a load of crap.

It's not unexpected.  Apparently lots of bereaved people get depression (who'd have thunk it?), and the good old Heart Manual even devotes a chapter to the depression you can expect following a heart attack.

It'll pass - it'll pass because it has to.  In the meantime bear with me.  I have been visiting your blogs you know - think of me as the one sitting huddled in the corner for now.

It's Father's Day! As if you could miss the reminders to buy a present, send a card, take him out ... For those kept safely indoors, anyone in possession of a radio is going to have heard the dedications to dads on their special day.

Except the Cherub doesn't have a dad.

Actually he did have a dad - a pretty good one.  One who played X Box for hours, always went in goal,and  taught him to swim. He had a laid back dad who was good for camping trips, and crazy golf tournaments and days at the beach.
So it's wrong to say he doesn't have a dad.

He doesn't have a living dad.

But it's a Big Difference - and the card companies and supermarkets are missing a trick here.  There is a surprising lack of Dead Dad cards. This might possibly be because you cant send dead people presents.
Or cards....

But we still need to commemorate his dad somehow.
Tonight, therefore, we will be continuing our recent tradition of Making Something Up as We Go Along.  In this year's ad hoc ceremony, we will be be lighting a Chinese lantern and hoping the rain stays off long enough that it rises over Cheesetown.
Wish us luck.

Listen up now, I've been called "strong" and "outspoken" in my time. Not,I'll admit, as often as I've been called "late", "weird" or just plain "wrong", but there are people who believe that I am quite capable of speaking my mind.

These people are, in fact, sadly mistaken. Let it be known that they are wrong.
Let it be known that I am a wimp; I am wet, I am in fact a veritable mollusk on the seabed of life.
As evidence of this startling fact, I give you the following:

The scene - an investment manager's office. Kayleigh, our young fresh faced Client Liaison Officer, is taking some details - including my date of birth.

Macy - 1961. Yes.
Macy - No. That means I am fifty. It's June already.

Deep breath

Reader, did I answer "Look, dollface the attitude's unprofessional, and you can quit with the personal remarks right now"?

Pfft. I wish.

Did I adopt my look of Serious Bemusement before firing back "Well what the merry blintering hell do you think fifty looks like? Raddled and bed ridden? Toothless?? FFS DO NOT DARE TO PATRONISE ME.










Nope.
I did not.
You know what the wimp said don't you....

"Oh...gosh.. thanks... ha ha.. must be good genes..."
Thanks?  FFS...