Rodmell and Southease

OPEN GARDENS: We have Open Gardens in the village on June 3, 2pm to 5pm. Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is always a popular event.

LOOSE DOG: I heard that a black staffie dog was running up the C7 recently and a young lady nearly hit it near Piddinghoe. There appears to have been several dogs running loose on the C7 in the past few months and with all the lambs about at the moment, it’s not a good idea to have loose dogs.

SPEEDING: The carers that come to Mike of an evening, also reported to me that two cars were racing each other up and down the village street one evening as they parked by the pub. One was silver and one was, I believe they said, blue. One was driven by a young man and one by an older man. The carers were not impressed by the behaviour. It’s so dangerous, because children play in the street, people walk dogs and ride horses and we have quite an elderly group of people in the village who like to walk around. If they do it again, I’m told they will be noted and reported for dangerous driving.

PROBLEMS: Whoever on high is causing me problems at the moment, I wish they wouldn’t, give me a break please. Mike was taken into the Princess Royal at Haywards Heath on May 3, half an hour before I was to go into the Sussex Eye Hospital. As I was going to see him on Saturday May 5, driving towards Lewes, a white camper type van was waiting to come out of Wellgreen Lane, Kingston. What did they do? Waited until I was close to them and pulled out straight in front of me resulting in me having to make an emergency stop, resulting in the bag on my passenger seat landing on the floor and spilling its contents, which included food prepared for Mike by me, as he is such a fussy eater. I was not well pleased. On getting to the hospital, I found the car park I use had now gone over to a new system which bewildered me (easy to do these days). Fortunately, a young man helped me and was very kind. On reaching the hospital cafe, I purchased a drink, as I was feeling dehydrated, only to find my purse was missing. The kind lady who ran the café looked after the enormous bag of things I had taken for Mike, whilst I walked all the way back to the car to look for my purse, which thankfully I found under the seat, due to the emergency stop. Next, how to find Mike. Going to the ward he was supposed to be in, nobody knew who he was or where he was. To get to the point, after going up and down in lifts, walking along endless corridors etc, a young nurse took pity on me and carried my bag and found he was in Plumpton Ward, Hurstwood Park. I would like to dedicate the following to her, which was written about my mother’s cousin on D Day, June 6, 1944. It seems a nurses’ lot has not really changed much.

A Nurse’s Psalm of Life. Tell me not in accents tender, that a nurse’s life is fine, that it’s joy beyond recalling, listening to a patient’s whine. That a great reward awaits us, and we’ll be forever ‘blessed’: That the grave, but, there, Pray leave us, for only there will we find rest. And the patients oft remind us, as we work from day to day, that the saying is a true one, the more you do, the more you may. Let us then be up and doing, grumbling only makes things worse, let us hope that in the next world, nobody will want a nurse. Written by Mrs E A Fowler, for her nurse Margaret Rogers, on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

Mrs Fowler also wrote ‘Personally, I believe that nurses are doing a grand job and that a special reward will be theirs’. I think that could also go for carers too.

PARISH PUMP: In all probability, I will not be writing PP for a few weeks, as I’m going ‘under the knife’ again at RSEH on Thursday May 10. I may be able to write a forward for the next PP before I go in, but I can’t promise.