Ted The Shed, Chapter 27 - Purple Pills

Dad is readmitted to the hospital, and we are all charmed by a rather well-dressed and extremely theatrical consultant, whose advice appears to infuriate the entire team of nurses. Back at the plot, I decide to make my own fertilizer. The resulting brew might be vile, but it is certainly effective.

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Transcript

Hello there.

Welcome back to Ted the Shed,

My memoir about my dad's allotment.

We've reached mid-May 2018 and tonight's chapter is called Purple Pills.

But before I go ahead,

Please make yourself really comfortable settling down into your chair or your bed.

Relaxing your hands,

Softening your shoulders,

And releasing your jaw.

That's wonderful.

So if you're ready,

Then I'll begin.

Purple Pills.

When Dad said the allotment was the least of his worries,

He was right.

Later in the month,

He's pulled into hospital again,

Then again in early June.

By the autumn,

He will have notched up six hospitalisations of varying lengths as medics battle to get on top of the leg.

But back to his third evening admission,

When a rather striking consultant with long grey hair and a goatee beard visits his bed.

He is wearing a bright embroidered waistcoat and a red bow tie.

I wonder if he has been summoned from a posh dinner.

He examines Dad and announces,

I see before me a fit 94-year-old man.

He waves his arms around.

A small problem with the leg,

Yes.

Unsurprising,

As it has been kept bandaged.

Is this a dagger I see before me?

He goes on.

Well,

Not really.

But he projects all his words with force,

As though wanting to make sure they reach even the cheapskates sitting up in the gods.

What this leg needs is air and the regular application of good old-fashioned iodine.

The two ward nurses behind him exchange glances.

Where on earth are we going to get iodine?

They're probably thinking.

I'm dismayed on a different count.

But the district nurses have been bandaging his leg for months,

I say.

Then those nurses don't know what they're doing,

He pronounces,

And swans off to get ready for his next performance.

One of the nurses lets out an exasperated huff.

He shouldn't have said that about the DNs.

He really shouldn't.

And you can't expose an open wound to air.

It's just dangerous.

But us civvies have been charmed by the extravagantly waist-coated raconteur.

His advice represents a change.

As Dad says later,

It isn't as if the bandaging is working,

Is it?

And when he's visited the next morning by a bespectacled,

Balding and far less handsome consultant who throws his hands up in horror at the idea of exposing an already infected leg to hospital germs,

None of us are impressed.

I consult Dr Internet about wound exposure protocol and,

Imagining that we're now well informed,

Make an appointment to explain ours and Dad's concerns.

However much of a flipping nuisance the ward staff find us,

They're very professional and considered,

And the appointment goes well.

In the coming months,

Bandaging will win hands down,

By the sheer token that it's the protocol the district nurses follow,

And they're the ones Dad sees most.

But for now,

It's agreed to go back to the advice of the first consultant and expose the leg for a week,

Bathing it,

Not with iodine,

But with the more readily available potassium permanganate,

Or PotPur.

We're all pleased.

The days go on and the leg begins to show an improvement.

But the potassium permanganate comes in tablets which are dissolved in warm water and,

Towards the end of the week,

Dad somehow gets hold of some of these highly toxic items and tries to swallow them.

Luckily,

They taste bitter and he spits them out.

He then threatens to sue the hospital.

I am called and asked to pick him up immediately.

I cancel my day.

They tried to poison me,

He shouts,

As soon as I enter the bed bay.

When I ask what actually happened,

I am taken into the sister's office and fobbed off with a practised air.

I read between the lines.

A nurse was called away while doing his dressing,

I suspect,

And left the tablets unguarded on his bedside table.

The consultant's treatment proved dangerous,

Though not in the way anyone imagined.

In a different situation,

I would champion Dad.

But in this case,

It really doesn't seem worth it.

Feeling disloyal,

I reassure the sister that of course we won't pursue litigation.

I will be able to talk him out of it,

I say.

No harm done,

I say,

And ask for a wheelchair so that I can take him home.

As I push him finally off the ward,

He resists all staff efforts to say goodbye and instead shakes his fist.

He bellows,

You'll be hearing from my solicitor.

As a departure,

I must admit it has pizazz.

Perhaps during that first and ridiculously long stay in hospital,

This is what he should have done,

Threatened legal action.

It certainly guarantees a quick exit.

Dad is home for the time being,

But seems disorientated.

Mr.

M.

S.

And I realise that we will have to start popping in to see him every day,

At the very least.

Life becomes more pressured,

And the amount of attention some vegetables require begins to seem ludicrous.

Take my overwintering onions.

You'd think it would be enough to grow them all winter,

Then water,

Weed and sprinkle them with wood ash all spring.

But no,

They have specific harvesting requirements too.

Once their green tops keel over in summer,

You're meant to bend over any stragglers and leave them all in the soil for another fortnight.

You must make sure to lift them on a sunny day,

Leave them on top of the soil a few more days,

Then move them to a warm,

Airy place for a few weeks,

Covered with thin cotton as a protection.

Finally,

If you have any energy left,

You plait them into a bunch.

That's more care and interest than I have going spare at the moment,

So I wait until most of the onion tops are bent over,

Then decide to just dig them up one afternoon.

It isn't exactly sunny,

But it isn't raining either.

Sadly though,

Onion after onion comes out of the ground no bigger than a shallot.

I lean on my spade.

What was the point?

50 tiny ones went into the ground last November,

And six months later,

40 only slightly larger ones come out.

Big deal,

As Dad would say.

I move on to my radishes.

These are even worse.

They have no bulbs at all.

They look like dark pink question marks.

They are so hard and fibrous that even Dad's super sharp knife from the shed can't cut through them.

What a washout.

To cheer myself up,

I decide to revisit the old family custom of home brewing and make my own fertilizer.

Into a bucket goes some nettles.

I have plenty of those,

Followed by cold water.

Then I go home,

Satisfied that at least I've done something useful.

I don't know if you've ever soaked nettles in a bucket.

Floating around the plot in my floral gardening gloves and floppy hat the next day,

Humming as I fill a basket with fragrant sweet peas,

I have no idea of the disgusting stages of filth and putrefaction I am about to witness.

Over the next few weeks,

As the nettles decay and the water turns black,

It grows white blooms,

Which become a feeding ground,

Breeding ground,

And general seething ground for a thousand blue bottles.

I have never smelt anything so foul.

It's unfortunate that I've stood the bucket near the bench.

Even that filthmeister Mr.

MS is unable to drink his coffee in its vicinity,

But we are both scared to move it.

When the three weeks have passed and it's early July,

I plunge a Tupperware container into the vile brew,

Ready to dilute it ten parts to one in a watering can.

I hold my breath,

But I can't resist a little sniff to see if the smell is still that bad.

It is.

I nearly spew,

But press on and give the roots of everything on the plot a good dousing.

Afterwards I throw the decomposed gunk on the compost heap and give the bucket a thorough rinse.

I can't help noticing that the flies have reassembled around the plants I've just fed.

I give the plants a mercy drench with clean water and make a mental note not to use the Tupperware box for Mr.

MS's sandwiches,

Not unless he really annoys me.

At home I wave my fingers under Mr.

MS's nose,

And that's after five washes I say.

He blanches.

Is it admiration I see in his eyes,

Or just wind from eating homegrown cabbage?

Either way I decide I'll use shop-bought fertilizer in future.

I have to admit that allotmenteering is hard work,

Perhaps too much right now,

What with Dad.

I resolve to give it a break for a couple of weeks and think about whether it's time to give it up.

Not that I do think about that in my fortnight off.

I'm too busy thinking about Dad,

And about why Mr.

MS is able to eat three times as much as me without putting on an ounce.

Walking to the allotment after the break I steel myself for a bleak scene with weeds everywhere and wilting crops.

But the broccoli has shot up.

The courgettes have produced five impossible yellow flowers,

And the carrots have a strong feathery presence.

I also notice that my new comfrey patch is coming on.

How wonderful it is to have an allotment I think.

How satisfying,

How worth the effort.

And doesn't Bob Flowerdew say that comfrey makes even better fertilizer than nettles?

Apparently it smells even worse too.

But just as it's impossible now to remember wanting to give up the plot,

So it's impossible to remember bad smells.

Into the bucket go handfuls of ice green velveteen leaves and furred blue flowers,

Followed by cold water.

Then I get on with a few other jobs,

Humming as I fill my basket with fragrant sweet peas.

To be continued.

Reviews

I have listened to this several times and each time I hear or connect with something different. I smile looking at all the wise (in my opinion) reviews knowing the magic of it all. Thank you for being you.🪏🪴🫜🧑‍🌾

I finally had to listen to this in the afternoon, since i have listened to it at least 15 times and never heard the ending. You're just too good at your job of putting me to sleep Mandy! So glad to hear your ups and downs!

Mandy, my copy of your book arrived from my parents in UK to Aus just in time for my birthday this week. It’s amazing and I love the illustrations too. I can see we are in the final chapters of this story, and I don’t want it to end. I’m holding off reading ahead and have it saved on my “next reads” shelf. Thankyou. Xx

I am really enjoying listening. Always entertaining , humorous and warm as well as honest and real. Thank you.

Your fertilizer sounds really stinky!! Good thing they haven’t invented smell-a-vision! Thanks Mandy for sharing your story!!!

Keep writing, Mandy! So rich… “big deal!” Oh my… thank you!🙏🏼❤️