Oh mother dear, please listen

Some people are just so arrogant I could scream. I was walking back through the village with the dogs and saw two young women – fairly recent residents in the village - with a few young children approaching. I (and the dogs) ignored the little girl in front with the scooter who screamed “Aargh! Dogs! I don’t like them!” and fled back to her mother and we kept walking. Our paths converged at a place where the pavement narrows, and out of politeness I stood, with the dogs, in the road just in front of parked cars, expecting a smile of acknowledgement from the women as they sped their children along to clear the pavement so we could all continue on our way. Was I right? No, the women decided that was a good place to stop and discuss the name of someone else’s child. One of them briefly glanced at me, but other than that I was invisible. Until I loudly said “Excuse me, we’re waiting!” whereupon they looked down their noses at me and stalked off. Honestly, they give us incomers (we’ve only lived in the village 16 years so are still ‘new’) a bad name.

And another thing. Why won’t my mother do as I tell her? Last week her ankle started swelling and looking red, so she went to the doctor who muttered something about ‘cellulitis’ and gave her some antibiotics. She phones me up to ask me to look up medical details on the net, then won’t take the advice I report. Despite the ABs making her feel queasy she’s taken the full course, but this morning she tells me the redness is now above her knee and the skin’s starting to peel off like a snake’s. I told her to call the doctor immediately, and she said no, she’s got a hospital appointment tomorrow so she’ll mention it then. When I suggest that it might be better to get it seen to sooner, rather than risk them admit her for IV antibiotics she assured me they wouldn’t do that, they’d give her an injection like they did when she had pneumonia in 1959.

I think I ought to pack a bag for when I have to dash down south after the hospital calls me tomorrow to tell me they’ve got her chained to a bed somewhere.