Treasure Chest...

...for Knots in the String...

Treasure Chest…

As my wise friend said when she went to hospital last week, life throws curve balls.

For her it was bowling-ball size; thankfully however, she’s doing well. (Privately, I think she’s an absolute Amazon!)

I was rather surprised then when a curve ball hit me late last week (albeit ping-pong size, maybe even marble-sized) and I ended up in the same hospital on the same floor and two rooms away from her.

Then again, this is Tasmania – a small island with small towns and a limited number of hospitals!

(A and E cubicle where I thought I’d be going home after a bag or two of antibiotics)

The days and nights in hospital rolled into a soundscape that can only be described as techno-symphony but with less of the symphony and more of the techno. At night, my room was a kaleidoscope of flashing lights, akin to the main drag of any big city. The I/V pump not only flashed, it emitted a sigh that sounded like Tea-Tea-Far. At any time, I expected Maria to come dancing into the room dressed in cut-down curtains and finishing the song with Doh on those wonderful soaring soprano notes.

Against the wall, the disinfectant pump flashed green.

Above me, the time on the TV also flashed green.

I wished my brain could have accepted all the green flashes to mean ‘GO to sleep!’

At 2 AM on the first night, my lovely night nurse came to string up a new bag of antibiotics and kindly wrapped the I/V pump in a towel and then shutting the door against the nightlights in the passage. I slept till 6.15 AM when the next lot of obs were done. Whoopee!

But I gave up on sleep thereafter, read the news on my phone and then grazed across Instagram (hospital has free Wifi).

Brekkie, shower, sitting in chair, walking round room as the energy that had been missing from food-lack began to circulate and the infection and pain began to dissipate.

Hospitals are funny places. Noisy, filled with stimuli – not at all designed for rest and recuperation, even if one is in a private room.

I tried as often as I could to vanish to my coast – where a dark sapphire sea lay on the horizon, and the aquamarine wash closer in merged with water as clear as Venetian crystal, lapping the shore, and where beneath, the sand was like white jade. A treasure trove worthy of Cap’n Jack!

Sifting through the thesaurus in my head, looking for coloured words to describe what I see became an exercise in displacement therapy.

If I worked even harder, I could hear the shush of infantile waves curling along the beach, brushing the sand lightly like a mother’s fingers smoothing a child’s hair. The shrill shriek of black and white Pacific gulls skimming along the shallows looking for mullet. The clamour of an adolescent sea eagle from a tree overhanging the cliff edge, warning the gulls (and me) that this is his territory.

And the seabreeze, redolent of seas far-off – moist, filled with the fragrance of seawrack and shellfish.

Such an escape was sustenance as cars rushed back and forth on Augusta Road and nurses rushed back and forth in syncopation along the passage.

I wasn’t in pain by this time, so for me, imagination was the best medicinal escape of all. Writing it all down an added fillip.

Thus I decided to keep filling my little treasure chest with jewels and pieces of eight until discharge. My grandson taught me that treasure-hunting is a wonderful distraction…

My time:

Ha! Until I got sick, it was filled with writing, gardening, embroidery, walking, cooking, a super post-performance ballet lunch. However, just lately my time has only been filled with a tiny bit of stitching and mostly reading.

I caught up on

with stories of Atticus M. Finch (his beautiful little rescue schnauzer about whom he wrote a touching book called Following Atticus) and Samwise Atticus Passaconway and Emily Binx Hawthorne (also rescues) about whom he writes every week. It’s no secret that Tom is my Number One newsletter and that his dogs are my heroes.

And I love the dogs’ names. When the Terrible Terrier entered our house eleven years ago, he too was given a triple official name. These days it’s mostly nicknames! Of all sorts!

Back in the land of Substack, I caught up with Victoria from

who has the most well-thought-out newsletter filled with culture, politics and food from Sweden. I love that whilst I enter summer here in my home, with its vague promise of warmth, seas, swimming, and boats, my friends in Sweden are moving into the cold Long Nights. Reading the newsletter I thought I might try to embroider a little Swedish Tomte onto a heart.

Google says: “Tomte (Swedish) or Tonttu (Finnish, also called Nisse in Norway) are solitary, mischievous domestic spirits, responsible for the protection and welfare of a farmstead and its buildings…” and reading some of the Tomte legends while in hospital filled in some magic hours. Stitching the Tomte was a joy to do and I’ve got a little collection now, ready for the childrens’ ward at the public hospital for Christmas.

I also read

about pushing on with writing one’s views online in a difficult political climate. There’s something fiery yet grounding and sensible in Ramona’s words. A good read.

On my Kindle, I read a good novel! I can’t remember how I found it but it was engaging enough to keep my attention well away from I/V’s and all that guff. Called The Skylark’s Secret by Fiona Valpy, it dipped between two timeframes – WWII and the seventies – as Alex’s and her mother’s stories twisted and twined. Valpy’s settings in northern Scotland were gloriously envisaged, for which I was grateful. When I find deft and beautiful description, I always feel I’ve come home.

On audio, I’m still listening to Gill Hornby’s Godmersham Park. Hornby encapsulates all that is good about Austenesque writing. I’m in for the long haul.

In both Hornby and Valpy, I think I’ve found two writers I will follow. It’s the bees’ knees when one finds a writer one likes and that they have a backlist! I hope Hornby writes more about the Austens as she does it with such polish and elegance.

So there we are. Not much of a week with me being in hospital.

Promise me you’ll seek out your own little pieces of treasure, maybe even let me know what they are if you’d like, because trust me, little fragments of this and that, no matter what, lift a pretty ordinary world into a perfect dimension.

Thank you for reading and do pass this free newsletter on if you want.

Cheers and talk next week.