CATS delivery site

This is part of the former Oldham Batteries site which has been derelict for more than 10 years.

According to the council website "Tameside Council has been successful in securing £1.67 million from the Greater Manchester Growth Deal Round 2, which will deliver a new relief road linking the A6017 Ashton Road at the M67 Junction 1 slip road to the A57 Hyde Road in Denton. The proposal seeks to relieve congestion to reduce traffic delays, improve air quality and road safety for the travelling public and the population of Denton. Alongside these improvements the road will also facilitate the comprehensive redevelopment of the former Oldham Batteries Site.

According to the sign on the side of Edward Street:
"This site has been selected for the delivery of the
Greater Manchester NHS Clinical
Assessment & Treatment Service
(CATS)
Our mobile units will visit this location
at regularly scheduled times."

Information on the service can be found on the Greater Manchester CATS website.

A contribution to
signs, signs;
Good Fences;
Skywatch Friday.

Shadow Shot Sunday: Gall stone

Following my admission to hospital in October I was due to go in to have my gall bladder removed on 1st December. However because of the public sector strike over pensions on November 30th the op was put back to the 15th. Having cut out biscuits and pies and cream and stuff from my diet, I was doing OK (pigged a little on toast).

So Wednesday I had a glass of milk at 11.10pm and in the morning got a taxi to Tameside hospital for 8 am on Thursday. I answered various questions and had blood taken but then lay on a trolley watching others who had not arrived until 10.30 am go down for surgery come back and go home until 5 pm when I was eventually taken down to theatre. I woke up back in the unit about 9pm and was shown a gall stone the size of a walnut.


See it here with a penny for comparison casting a shadow on the kitchen table.

At midnight I was given some tea and toast. There were only three of us staying overnight but I had a drain in me which was uncomfortable so I rested but didn't sleep. I had more tea and toast at 4.30 am and at 6.30 am the drain was taken out and at 7.15 am I was sent home in a taxi, getting home just before it started snowing.

I discovered that a carer had give my wife her breakfast at 9.15 am on Thursday but then nobody had been at lunch time. A carer had finally turned at 7.30 pm by which time Christine was hungry and shaking (possibly having a hypo). She was given four large sandwiches! Whether she took her correct medication I can't tell for sure. I'm glad to be home but am in quite some pain as yet - have been told to take it easy for the next three or four days by which time I should be feeling better.

Our freezer and fridge are nicely stocked and a neighbour is kindly getting us some more bread and cooked meat later so we should be OK till early next week.

For more shadows visit Shadow Shot Sunday

Another Week - Another Hospital

over Ridge Hill
the sun rises slowly
from my hospital bed

gerald england

I was getting back towards normal after my operation at Stepping Hill and on the Saturday we went down town with Craig as usual. Later I developed what I thought was indigestion but there was no relief so an ambulance was called which took me to Tameside Hospital. By about 3am the doctors had got the blood results which indicated everything OK with my kidneys and liver. The ECG showed nothing wrong with my heart. I was sent home with a bottle of Gaviscon to help with trapped wind.

I took it easy on Sunday but my appetite was poor and I still felt in pain. Around 2am Monday morning I took some paracodol and was immediately sick. The same paramedics who'd seen me the previous night arrived again and carted me back to hospital.

It was "nil-by-mouth" until Thursday and the discomfort was considerable. An ultrasound scan revealed the problem as an inflammed gall-bladder and some stones. At my lowest ebb on Friday morning I was feeling very lonely indeed having had little rest and no visitors from outside.

The patient in the next bed loaned me his mobile and I was able to finally get through to Christine. It was fortuitous that we had booked an appointment for Christine's Social Worker to call and discuss her recent respite care. She arrived to find Christine alone and wondering about my fate. She set up an immediate arrangement for people to come in and assist her three times a day.

Christine's hairdresser came to see her on Friday and she arranged for David, her husband, who is a taxi-driver to bring her up to see me on Friday afternoon. He had a scooter meet Christine on arrival at the hospital. He then came back later with a wheelchair to take her back down.

Just after she arrived the doctors came on their rounds and explained that I needed to stay a few more days in order for the gall bladder to start calming down. After that they would send me home and call me back in about six weeks when they would remove the gall bladder under keyhole surgery.

I'm home now thankfully. The support for Christine is continuing. I'll contine to blog spasmodically as and when I feel up to it.

I'll be away a little while

I shall be away for a little while. I'm going in to Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport for an operation on Wednesday so I won't be posting anything for a week or two.

My wife Christine is going away tomorrow morning for two weeks respite care at Charnley House by which time I hope to be back home and getting fit again.

ABC Wednesday:X is for X Ray 2 at Tameside Hospital

At Tameside Hospital, Ashton under Lyne, X Ray 2 is situated in the old part of the hospital off Darnton Road.

I decided to give this image the "pencil" treatment.

For more X shots visit ABC Wednesday.

ABC Wednesday - W is for White Winter Weather

Yesterday I had to go to Tameside General Hospital for a routine clinic appointment. All was well until I came out of the clinic where it was snowing heavily. The clinic I was visiting was at the back of the hospital and it was a ten minute walk from there to the hospital bus-stop.


It is normally an eight minute journey into Ashton under Lyne but it took 35 minutes in barely moving traffic. I got off by the inside market. This is the view from the Market Hall entrance looking over Bow Street towards the Parish Church.


I did my shopping, had a bite of lunch and exited to the market ground which was full of slush and compacted snow.


Even though it was only noon, many of the market traders were already beginning to pack up for the day.


This is the pedestrianised section of Warrington Street which leads from the market ground towards the bus station.


The bus station was almost deserted of buses though not of passengers. I joined the queue for the 330 which goes via Hyde to Stockport, normally at ten minute intervals. After we had been waiting for an hour, another bus was diverted from its own route to provide a service but only to Hyde. It was packed to the gills and the normally twenty minute journey took seventy.

On arrival at Hyde bus station it terminated. There were no taxis available and I had a thirty minute trudge through the slush to get home. I didn't stop to take any photographs on this last part of my journey.

For more W posts visit ABC Wednesday.

John Marks: Singularities Part II

image © 2003 nick lown.

I've just had an email from John Marks whose collection Lifting the Veil I published some years ago.

He hoped I might find a place for this. Now, whilst I don't usually consider submissions any longer, in this case I'm prepared to make an exception and use it here.

SINGULARITIES PART II

Near is very far
space, time,
continuum,
hope.

there's a vastness that appals
chemotherapy,
white walls

scurrying through
the corridors
of the christie this monday morning
early
meeting emile, yes, named after Jean Jacque's eponymous hero,
as if I didn't know,
married at the weekend, it has spread,
we fear we'll soon be dead.

his carribean lilt
echoes in my head.

we smile and laugh and joke with the nurses
as they try searching for a vein
in vain.

what else can you do
blues the colour of blue?

john marks

The Perils of Tea

I mentioned recently somewhere that I was being advised to cut out/down on drinking tea.

My news prompted a response by Big Titty Angel and a warning about the perils of Orangina.



At the moment I am trying to acquire a taste for Jasmine - that's the green tea not the murdering bimbo in Emmerdale.

Sky Watch Friday: Hospital Chimney

I had to visit Tameside Hospital on Tuesday for a routine check-up - nowt much wrong with me - keep on taking the tablets - give up drinking tea - come back in four months.

It was a bitterly cold day with snow on the ground, but as I came out after my appointment I saw this chimney blowing out white smoke into the blue sky and thought "that could be my contribution to Skywatch Friday this week".

smoke

market entrance
a thrown down cigarette
still smokes

© 2008 gerald england

A seasonal haiga can be viewed on Autumn Haiku 2008.

ABC Wednesday - N is for No Smoking

Last year, smoking was banned in pubs and restaurants in England and Wales, as well as in workplaces and other public buildings. A blow for good sense, the health of the nation and some clean air for folk to breath.

So what happens? Suddenly the smokers are driven out of the pubs and onto the streets.



High streets everywhere are filled with groups of people, huddled together in all weathers, puffing away at their weed. Instead of being hidden away they are in full view.



Moreover they leave behind their litter. There was supposed to be crackdown. Yes a grandma gets fined £50 because a four-year-old throws a sweet-wrapper on to the pavement, but no-one tackles the smokers.

No Smoking signs are put up everywhere, or the owners are fined. There are even signs in four languages.

Am I beginning to sound like a grumpy old man? OK, I'll shut up.

My other ABC Wednesday N posts this week are ~~ Newton Hall from the Rear at Hyde Daily Photo ~~ Newton Bank Printworks at Old Hyde ~~ No Through Road at Sithenah

To visit more ABC-Wednesday N posts go to Mrs. Nesbitt's Place.

Four Hours in the Life of a Sausage

We went on a trip yesterday to Oswaldtwistle Mills, a Lancashire shopping complex.

About 3pm we went into Ye Olde Sausage Shop where the display included some described as Cumberland style. They couldn't call them true Cumberland sausages as they weren't actually being manufactured in Cumberland.

"But", we said, "They are in links. We want them in the round like proper Cumberlands."

"You want them round? I'll make you some then!" replied David the butcher. And so he did.



We got home about three hours later and unwrapped our purchase.



Just over half an hour later:



And before 7 o' clock struck all that was left was:



I should add that we don't eat sausages very often these days, as they don't fit into a general low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt healthy diet. But good quality sausages once in a while are fine for a treat. These were every bit as good as the ones we used to buy regularly from Jack Curvis.