Author Archives: Tim Lenton

The clocks are about to go back to where they came from, the nights are drawing well in, and several other similar cliches will be employed over the next few days to convey that summer has well and truly disappeared, and winter is out there, just waiting to pounce, like the coyotes I saw from a kitchen window in Ontario earlier this month.

It is at times like this that public transport, unlike coyotes, should be brought under the microscope. What do we in the UK need from it, and does it work for everyone?

Take buses. This is what we are urged to do, and in the summer months it is often quite pleasant to hang around bus stops in the sun, with nothing much to do, waiting for a bus to turn up. Not so much fun when the temperature drops, and we shiver in the scant protection afford by a pole and (if you’re lucky) a bit of a roof. That’s if your local council hasn’t mislaid the roof.

We usually walk into the city, but sometimes a bus becomes necessary. The other day my wife had a routine appointment at the hospital and, in view of the difficulty of parking a horse and buggy there, decided to take a bus from the station, just  round the corner from where we live.

She waited for a long time – well beyond what was advertised – and in the end, concerned about missing the appointment, went over and took a black cab. This was, as you might imagine, hugely more expensive. 

Someone once said that a bus is something that takes you from where you aren’t to where you don’t want to be. In other words you have to walk at each end, and the attraction of that decreases when there is ice on the pavement and rain is sleeting down.

So in those circumstance, as in most others, it’s good if the bus is on time – and if you have an appointment (and who doesn’t?) it’s important that it makes good time too. Last weekend I and two others caught a bus at the university to travel to the centre of Norwich. I wish I’d timed how long it took.

It waited for an eternity at the university while most of the student enrolment climbed on board – many of them not in sight when the bus pulled up. The bus was then extremely late, which meant that at every stop a large congregation of assorted people wanted to get on. It was clearly a kind of Tardis, because everyone did get on, but it took an inordinate time for them to do so. I don’t know, some of them may have been unfamiliar with the payment system…

Many moons later we reached the centre of Norwich. Fortunately, it was a lovely day; so we got off. Immediately behind us, another bus on the same route pulled in.

It reminded me a bit of the last time I got a bus from the university, on a slightly different route. It seemed to find every speed bump and pothole in existence – most of them kindly provided by a deluded council – and I ended up feeling so battered and bruised that I got off at Orford Place instead of going on to the rail station as I had intended. If it had been winter…

I am in my mid-to-late 70s but in reasonably good condition through no fault of my own. I would imagine most people of my age or older (and many much younger) would have been in considerable pain from such an experience. Not much encouragement to travel by bus. And then there’s the coyotes. 

To be fair,  I have been on bus journeys that were fast, comfortable and more or less on time. Computer models predict that this can happen. But do you want to take the chance?

I have a new home. By “home” I don’t mean a house I own or rent, but an area where  I feel at home, I know where I am and am familiar enough with the immediate area to be comfortable.

One of these “homes” of course is my actual home in Norwich, UK, that fine city which traps anyone who studies at the University of East Anglia and doesn’t let them leave. At least, not for long.

That wasn’t how it got me. I was fortunate enough to be born there, in the eminent setting of Earlham Hall. I am not remotely upper class: it was serving as a post-war maternity home at the time. Now it’s part of the aforementioned UEA – the School of Law, in fact. Odd, Holmes.

Norwich is fine. It has a ludicrous council, but what city hasn’t? It survives being dug up and put back together again in a hamfisted way that makes living more difficult. But that’s life. 

My second home was Coventry. I spent five or six years of my childhood there until my father died and we returned to Norwich. My brother Andrew still lives in Coventry; so I visit quite often. My third home was London, bits of which I got to know well: Stamford Hill and Winchmore HIll, for example, and Acton (no hill), where I worked for a while.

My next home was Yelverton, a village just outside Norwich, where I spent 12 years, and where my son grew up. Then it was Norwich again.

These were all “real” homes. But there were also places that I visited often and knew intimately. One was North Walsham, where my wife grew up, and another Blakeney, a favourite holiday haunt. Both are in Norfolk. I know most of Norfolk pretty well, because I worked on the local newspaper, and had to.

Outside Norfolk  there is Buxton in Derbyshire, where we stay once a year, and Corwen in North Wales, where my wife’s cousins live. Many happy times were had in both those beautiful places. 

Ballater, in Aberdeenshire, next to Balmoral and in the middle of some stunning scenery, is irresistible – so irresistible in fact that we have stayed there almost every year for the last 30 years (pandemic permitting). A real home, that one.

Which bring us almost to the point of my opening paragraph. Which is quite soon, for me.

One other place that has become home for me is in Ontario, Canada, a few miles north of Toronto, where we have spent time over the years with old friends. Well, we’re all old now. Canada for me is all space, relaxation and walking. A lot of walking. 

And now… and now… we’re in Canada again, at the home of our son and his wife – who also happens to be the daughter of our old friends. In the space of a few days we have explored the neighbourhood, visited key points – the mall, an excellent restaurant, a fromagerie, farmers’ and antiques markets and Canadian Tire. Just for the smell.

Yes, it’s home. We’ve done the walks. We know where we are. This may be bad news for them if they wanted a quiet life, but it’s good news for us.

Like many people, I stopped watching the news on television. Not because I was getting it off TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, but initially because if I saw one more scientist standing at a podium next to the Prime Minister, I was likely to scream and race from the room. And later, because I came to realise that TV news wasn’t news anyway. It was prediction, with a bit of walking about.

This became very evident with the advent of a new Prime Minister. Up to the moment when the results were in, there was a great deal of discussion on the “news” about how many votes she might win by (if she won at all), and what she might then do; there was conjecture about who would be in her Cabinet, what  their jobs might be and what people might think.

What people might think is a big issue, apparently. Every now and then, a TV news reporter will wander off to somewhere remote, like Salford, and find someone who thinks that chaos is looming, either from Tory policies, energy bills, climate change or inflation. They never seem to find anyone who has a life remotely like mine, but I guess that’s my fault.

And it’s not news! We have a largish, overpopulated country. Surely something is happening somewhere that would be of interest. Trends and statistics are not news, because they can be easily twisted. What actually happens is news. 

Eventually Liz Truss reveals who is in her Cabinet: we want to know who they are, and a bit about them. But what we get is acres of meaningless conjecture about how they might work together and what policies they might pursue. Never mind that in a few hours we will be told all that. 

“And now let’s go back to our top story.” Which will be a newsreader standing outside Buckingham Palace, or Downing Street, or somewhere else where they don’t need to be, offering conjecture about what might happen in a few minutes time.

And then there’s the weather forecast. That’s often wrong too.

** It’s ironic that as I finished writing this, the Queen’s death was announced, and real news took over. If I said that it was tremendously sad, and her faith and service would be sorely missed, I would simply be saying what everyone else has said. Nevertheless, I say it. She took the throne when I was seven, and so I remember no other monarch. She was a truly amazing woman. The next few days are going to seem extremely odd.

I was conceived during the second world war. I don’t remember it happening, though I  guess I must have been there – if not at the time, then very shortly afterwards. At roughly the same time the German battleship Tirpitz was sunk. It seems a long time ago.

I don’t think I had a view at the time on the progress of the war, but if anyone had asked me, I’m sure I would have been quietly confident that we would win. 

I understand that things were quite tough just after the war – rationing, bomb sites, national debts and so on. Everything seemed fine to me. 

Some time later there was a bit of a crisis about Cuba, with alarmist prophecies about the end of the world and nuclear holocausts – not necessarily in that order. I was quietly confident. 

The Cold War dragged on, the Berlin Wall went up, and in the 1970s scientists got very worried about a new ice age. I didn’t think it was likely. The Berlin Wall came down. I wasn’t surprised. There were disasters all over the world. People got shot. I wasn’t worried. Sympathetic, but not worried.

Now the heat is on. I’m still not worried, but I’m not having as much fun. I think technology is the problem. Partly computer modelling, which I wouldn’t trust to see me across the street. Partly all those cameras. And partly pressure groups with degrees in social media. 

We used to just have elections, and then the people we elected governed us. Now we have unelected, trigger-happy groups constantly bombarding us and the Government with their own views. And the Government and local councils listening to them. Why? Pressure groups did not elect them – the people did. It’s just a form of bullying.

Did I mention cameras? We now have the police encouraging people with cameras – which is just about everyone – to send in videos of other people doing things they don’t like – especially drivers. This is another form of bullying. Cameras never get the whole picture. Laughable.

Meanwhile newsreaders are doing their best to frighten me. If it’s not a climate crisis, it’s inflation, energy bills and droughts. You’ve got to smile. 

Some time between tomorrow and a quarter of a century in the future, I shall almost certainly die. I am optimistic about it. As St Paul told those guys from Corinth, I can’t conceive how amazing it will be.

Before the operation, it was straightforward. They were just going to make a little hole, pop a camera and a scalpel in while I was otherwise engaged, then revive me and send me home. I asked several people, and they smiled and reassured me. But no-one mentioned that there were in fact four keyholes, and in fact it’s major surgery.

So I sort of expected I might be OK to go to a celebration meal (nothing to do with the operation) three days later. I was booked to lead a retreat the following weekend. I thought that might be all right too. No-one seemed to recall – or at least mention – that recovery time for this kind of operation is at least 5-6 weeks.

I did not make the meal. My temperature was up and down, and I felt lousy. I had no appetite. It’s hard to explain how bad you can feel without actually having much pain. Four days in, my wife rang the surgery – a desperate measure. I spoke to a receptionist, who spoke to a doctor. The doctor didn’t speak to me. Instead he decided I should go to A&E immediately. Obviously I was not keen to do this: I’ve heard about A&E. Indeed, I’ve been there. It is not a fun day out.

But then a miracle happened. My wife dropped me at A&E, where I was greeted by a standard notice saying they were busy, and could I go somewhere else, please. I persisted and encountered a very pleasant triage nurse who booked me in quickly and arranged for me to see a doctor who was within shouting distance. He examined me and said he didn’t think the wounds were infected. On the other hand, they might be. He prescribed me some antibiotics. My wife hadn’t finished her coffee.

She drove me to the chemists’s, where they at first refused to believe that the hospital could have prescribed anything electronically. “Never been known,” they said. However, I pointed out that I had watched the doctor do it, and so they looked. He had. I had my pills. We went home.

You probably think I’m in need of care and attention by now. But what happened next went beyond that. I had my antibiotics; so all must be well, I thought. Despite still feeling lousy, I went to the Retreat. I even managed to lead a couple of sessions, eat some stuff and walk down to the river. I was totally exhausted. All the time. And I couldn’t sleep.

Meanwhile, the temperature was rising. Not mine – Norfolk’s. Normally I quite like being warm, but this was hell. Warmed up. It was an actual personalised climate crisis. A real one. I felt very ill. What was wrong with my appetite? Why wasn’t I getting better? Why wasn’t the air moving?

Ok, you’re off the hook. Not much else happened. I carried on feeling ill, had no appetite and was very, very tired. I got diarrhoea. Time seemed to get slower and slower. Perhaps it was normal.

Reader, it is. It’s normal to be told that your operation is straightforward, and they just have to make a little hole. It’s normal to be sent home with no warning about how you might feel, or how long it might go on. It’s normal not to have a follow-up appointment. It’s normal for no-one medical to look at your body afterwards.

I have just entered my third week of convalescence. Today I saw a nurse accidentally (annual blood check), and she explained how major the surgery was, and everything else. It was a pleasure to hear her describe exactly what was going on. She even looked at my scars. One to one. In person.

That’s it really. Hopefully I shall gradually feel better and less tired. I just thought it might be worth putting down what actually happens after an operation. It may be that no-one else will tell you.

I am due to have an operation shortly. It’s my fourth attempt, for reasons which need not detain us. As a result I keep coming across stories about routine operations – and mine is very routine – that have gone horribly wrong.

I did query the necessity for my operation with a consultant (and several other people). After an ultrasound and an ultradiscussion we agreed that the minimal risks of the operation outweighed the slightly less minimal risks involved in not having it.

Like the rest of life, there is no way of being sure. It’s a bit of a gamble – a gamble weighted heavily in my favour, but still not a sure thing. By which I mean, it’s not the only horse running.

A friend told me she had a foolproof method of knowing whether I should go ahead or not. More than one method, actually. The first involved making interlocking circles with my fingers, and the second involved standing still. The third involved a pendulum. I have not tried any of these. When you start depending on fingers and pendulums (or is it pendula?) things are getting serious in all the wrong ways.

I also tried prayer, which is getting serious in the right way, but I have not yet received a definitive answer. I am going ahead until God tells me not to. I don’t know how He might do that, but clearly He could.

Anyway, I have just received a phone call from the hospital. At first I assumed they were postponing again, but it turned out they were just checking things that had already been checked. I don’t mind this. The more checks the better in this sort of situation.

They did want me to take a lateral flow test, though. Once I’d remembered what it was, I said I already had one. I got it from Morrisons. But it seems I have to get a proper Government one. I made a call, answered some questions online, and I believe it’s on its way: I hope it gets here in time.

If you read another of these articles, it means it did, and the operation went ahead, and I survived. If not, it was nice knowing you. I love you all.