Ted The Shed, Chapter 26 - Sir Dad

Dad finally manages to get out of hospital, after being forced to jump through innumerable hoops. But it hasn't been entirely a bad experience. Back at the plot, my leeks bolt - but that too, while not being exactly what I planned, produces something unexpected.

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Transcript

Hello there,

It's Mandy here.

Welcome back to Ted the Shed,

My memoir about my dad and his allotment.

We've reached late April 2018.

The chapter I'm going to read to you tonight is called Sir Dad.

But before I begin,

Please go ahead and make yourself really comfortable.

Settle down into your chair or your bed,

Relax your hands,

Soften your shoulders and release any tension in your jaw.

That's great.

So if you're ready,

Then I shall begin.

Sir Dad.

Dad is kept in hospital for three weeks until the end of the month.

Turns out it's harder to get out than it was to get in.

They move him from ward to ward and finally to a rehab unit where he is encouraged to walk as much as possible and in a dummy kitchen assessed by an occupational therapist on his ability to make a cup of tea.

What a joke,

He says.

I've been making cups of tea since before she was born.

He is shepherded daily into a room to participate in armchair aerobics.

Waving your arms about,

He queries,

What good does that do anybody?

We visit him every day,

Of course.

Approaching his bed bay,

You often hear him before you see him.

What on earth do you think you're doing?

Is his battle cry.

The blue curtains around his bed tremble when the curtains are open and he can see the other patients in the bed bay.

He tends to voice loud opinions about them.

That poor devil over there has had his leg amputated.

He'll be lucky if he lasts the night.

The NHS is useless,

He shouts at a nurse when his painkillers are late arriving.

I can't disagree with that,

She says.

In his diary,

He's compiling a list of names under the heading,

Incompetent Staff Complaint.

Mr MS and I,

Sensitive types,

Are mortified and apologetic.

We imagine he's a nightmare patient.

So it's a surprise to arrive on another visit to find a young health care assistant clasping Dad's hand in hers and telling him that she loves him.

You remind me of my grandfather back in Hungary,

She says.

He too has a problem in the leg.

The feeling seems to be mutual.

My friend,

Dad tells her,

His eyes brimming.

My only ally in this terrible place.

Dad has also clicked with the young male health care assistant who is interested in astronomy and has been to NASA.

Dad asks us to bring in the old Carl Sagan book,

Cosmos,

That he's had for decades.

He presents it to the lad,

Who is very touched.

When we bump into him in the corridor later,

He says of Dad,

Some patients you know you'll never forget.

This puts me in mind of something one of the district nurses told me last month.

To be honest,

We prefer a character.

Your Dad tells it like it is.

Can't be doing with them as just sits there and won't say boo to a goose.

This isn't the only encouraging news.

Towards the end of Dad's stay,

Following an impressive performance on the Zimmer frame,

He gets christened Speedy Ted.

Someone makes him a special cardboard sign and attaches it to his frame.

The rehab unit allows us to visit with fish and chips and to bring dog MS in up the fire escape for a pat and a saucer of milky tea.

I bring in crumble made with allotment rhubarb and it's almost like Sunday night at ours,

Except that our session in front of the TV is replaced by wheeling Dad up and down eerie corridors,

Then taking him for a coffee at the in-house Costa.

He likes the thin wooden stirrers.

He breaks them in half to make them sharp,

Then hoards them in his bedside cabinet to use as toothpicks.

Nevertheless,

He is still desperate to get back home.

Before he can be discharged,

Though,

He has one more hoop to jump through.

A mental health assessment.

After it has been done,

A young man rings me.

Ted is mentally very sharp,

He says.

We chatted about his daily three mile walks and his digging down at the allotment.

I'm taken aback.

Three miles,

I say.

Maybe that was true five years ago,

But.

And he's keen to get back behind the wheel.

He told me how much he enjoys popping to his workshop in your garage to make his furniture.

The workshop?

Right,

Though again he,

The young man,

Interrupts.

Ted has a remarkable life for someone who's nearly 94.

Indeed he does,

I say,

With as much irony as I can inject into three words.

I don't know whether Dad is misremembering his capabilities or lying on purpose.

Either way,

He's discharged the next day,

Complete with a huge white paper bag full of medication.

Once we're in the car,

I check to make sure it's all present and correct.

It wouldn't be the first time he has been given the wrong tablets,

But everything is in order.

Then I notice the label on the outside of the bag.

It says Sir Ted.

In the coming days and weeks,

The appellation Sir will also appear on medication dispensed by the local pharmacy and in the district nurse's notes.

I'm not clear as to when exactly his knighthood was conferred,

But I must say it doesn't seem out of place.

Once Dad is home and back in the care of the district nurses,

I start thinking about the allotment again.

It is sunny most days and the plot is a lovely airy place to be after spending hours in stifling hospital bed bays trying not to breathe in.

I try to recruit Dad for a visit,

But he says that place is the least of my worries.

I start going there at 6.

30am to brew up my morning boil and to water.

One tap serves many plots and it's in high demand from 7am onwards.

It is wonderful being there early in the season and early in the morning,

A double whammy if ever there was one.

All the crops on the plot look dew fresh and neat.

The broad beans,

Shy black and white flowers offer a delicate scent and the potato tops look perfect like crinkled dark green paper.

Later on in the season there will be rust and blight,

But let's not get real just yet.

I feel useful too,

Something I don't feel trying to help Dad.

Potatoes need plenty of water and I can give it to them.

I can thereby fulfil my duty to safeguard the desperate Dan style piles of mash that Mr MS so enjoys making and eating.

But there's one crop that my watering fails to save.

For several springs now I have sown leek seeds in trays.

They germinate well,

But even when left for weeks never reach the pencil thick status that Monty Don recommends.

They get too spaghetti thick and stay there.

Harvesting them sometimes up to a year later they are still hardly bigger than spring onions.

I have kept trying though because both Dad and Mr MS enjoy a nice leek and I enjoy slicing them up,

So much more convenient shape wise than onions.

In March and April this year I went the extra mile applying wood ash saved from our winter fireplace to their roots and humming Cum Ronda to them.

Unfortunately even after all this in early May we get a few very hot days and the leeks bolt.

They're soft pale green layers,

So delicious when fried with bacon,

Are pushed outwards and finally replaced by a hard white central stalk.

I pick a few to see if there is anything to be salvaged but the pickings are slim indeed.

I'm so disappointed that I can't bring myself to talk to the leeks for a week,

Let alone sing to them.

I just pretend they aren't there and start talking to the potato plants instead.

But while my back is turned a miracle happens.

They all shoot up to five feet high and produce seed heads shaped like minarets.

So spectacular a sight they make,

Like a blue green Istanbul,

That I waste hours of watering time sitting on my bench gazing.

I find excuses to pass among them and allow their heavy smooth heads to knock lazily against my back and shoulders.

Another allotmenteer tells me that left to their own devices leeks will naturalise.

Leeklets will spring up around their bases and seed from their flower heads will fall and germinate in situ.

Now I'm sure all gardeners would love a green crop that looks after itself the way say rhubarb does,

Producing lovely food while we stand by barely lifting a finger.

But I can't see it actually happening.

I pretend to believe it though,

Partly because you should never say never and partly because it gives me an excuse not to deal with the leek bed now.

Of course there's another crop that excels at naturalisation.

Every year alongside yielding a few pounds of decent sized tubers,

Potato plants always produce a few that are too small to detect with the naked human eye.

At harvest time they slip through the tines of the garden fork back into the soil and live to sprout again.

In spring and early summer,

Making an effort to rotate your crops,

You plant out delicate beetroot and lettuce seedlings in your erstwhile potato bed.

But over the coming weeks the rufty tufty dark green rosettes break through again and again,

Shouldering aside the lettuce and beet until you give up pulling them out and settle for yet another potato bed.

This of course is their master plan.

These volunteers,

As they are apparently known,

Are sprouting like crazy in the compost heap this year too.

One early morning before the kettle boils,

I decide to dig a few up to see where they've come from.

I discover that they're sprouting not from last year's rejected spuds,

As I imagined,

But from a host of potato peelings Mr MS must have brought down here after preparing one of his huge pans of mash.

I had no idea potatoes were so enterprising.

I'm impressed,

I admit.

To be continued.

Reviews

I am enjoying Ted the Shed so much! Your writing style is so humorous at times and often what you write reminds me of my father, thank you! ❤️ 🥔 🌽 🥕

Oh Mandy! Your wit is beyond hilarious! This chapter had me rolling! Well done!

I am so enjoying all of the characters with their reactions and of course your comments. Such a beautiful story of the realities of life - from different points of view. Dealing with one’s own life while navigating around another. Your work and sharing of your story and thoughts are so heartwarming and helpful. Your parents did raise an amazing Mandy🌺❤️🪏. Thank you .

Such a treat to be with you and Sir Ted this morning! Especially as my mother in law, who I help care for just turned 95. It takes lots of patience. Thank you Mandy for sharing your story 🙏

So glad to see another chapter arrive! And this one made me laugh out loud at moments. Anyone who has spent time with a loved one in a rehab will appreciate Sir Ted’s feistiness. So happy some of the staff did as well. And I can certainly relate to finding veggies sprouting in the compost heap—for me it’s usually tomato plants. Thanks Mandy.

I do enjoy both your writing and your reading. I hope you have more of your own stories to share. Too bad you continue to be the only one to enjoy your dad’s allotment. Does make it a pleasant getaway though. Thanks again, Mandy.

Dad’s inherent sauciness is back in full force, and his team is loving it/him 🥰 The Allotment continues, whimsically and prolifically! This is all good! Thank you, Mandy 🙏 ❤️