Luck be a Ladye

I felt I deserved a treat after dropping my entire life with no notice at all and spending a week stewing over my disabled son's PIP review form, so after the Northerner had listened to the League One Play-Off Final - don't ask - we headed to Ladye Bay, just north of Clevedon, for an hour. 

Cliff path

Ladye Bay from the cliff path

Clevedon Pier

Peering through the haze towards Newport ...

... and over to Cardiff

fossil

The bay looking south

Setting sun

Comfrey on the cliff path

Ladye Bay is one of those places where you can feel the stress draining out of you and into the ground, and it's only a few miles down the road. What a piece of luck. 

A new trauma is as good as a rest

Three weeks ago, I was racked with worry and frustration after a horrible and abusive PIP assessment for my son. I thought it was as well we'd visited Beachy Head the day before it rather than the day after. I was consumed with hatred of the DWP for putting him through torment. 

Then an accident forced a total switch of focus. I learnt that picking blackcurrants can be a surprisingly dangerous pastime, especially if you are very elderly and sitting on a stool on a downhill slope. I learnt that you can still wait four hours for an ambulance even when you are 91 and live a two-minute drive from the hospital. I learnt that eating Marmite doesn't guarantee immunity to mosquito bites after all.  Also, that the chip of ice Graham Greene refers to is still lodged there in my writer's heart.

Above all, I've been reminded, over and over, that the NHS is the most precious thing we own collectively, and that we should take to the streets, if necessary, to ensure its survival. 

My mother has been transferred up north and so my watch is ended ... for now, at least. I've started the long and convoluted process of being made my son's appointee, and we await the PIP decision, ready to fight it if necessary. Meanwhile, there are proofs to check, poems to write, jaunts to be jaunted.