3rd August 2007 - Bridge between Holland and Belgium

We saw Dad at the window, from the car park. It's months, maybe years, since he would go to the window to wave us off. He waved down at us as we came out of the car. I was really surprised, I didn't know he could see and recognise at that distance. As I look back at it though, I think we maybe started waving first. I wonder if he'd have waved if we hadn't done so first. When we left he didn't go to the window and wave us off.

When we met him, he was pleased to see us - me, Ellie and Mark. We were ushered into the revamped quiet lounge. Revamped in that it's not the smoking room anymore. They've changed the visitors room into the smoking room and told Amy she's not allowed to smoke in the quiet lounge any more. Amy seems to have some sort of incident again because she's declined rapidly - her path seems to be stepped, not a gradual curve but huge downward steps. Poor Amy. She seemed to have taken in something about not being allowed to smoke because she told me over twenty times in the 45 minutes we stayed that she didn't have any cigarettes so there was no point asking her, and anyway she didn't smoke any more.

In the ex-smoking room there were three TV's, two of which were on but only the sound of one was audible. The one you could both see and hear was a cookery program, the other cricket without sound. Doesn't really loose much in the enjoyment stakes without sound. Fuck of a boring with sound, fuck of a boring wihtout sound. Dad didn't say anything for the first 20 minutes we visited, so Mark and Ellie entertained themselves with colouring, snap and general brother sister goading. Then Dad spoke. "That's that male model isn't it?" I looked at the screens. Unknown anonymous cricketers on one and Anthony Worral Thompson on the other. "Who Dad?" I asked. "That cooking man, very handsome man. Especially for a transexual". I tried to think of a way to answer this, or even just to continue his venture into conversation when Amy came over "I don't have any fucking cigarettes, so there's no point looking at me for one. And anyway, I don't smoke, so you're out of luck on the scrounge here" and she shuffled off, stooping and walking in a arcing path. She should have her zimmer, so I go after her with it and she thanks me. Often she'll tell you where to put it but today she's kind. When I got back to Dad his foray into the conversational field had finished and he was sitting with his eyes half closed, his eyeballs moving from side to side below his half closed lids. Teleprinter, the movement always reminds me of the teleprinter that used to print up the results of the football matches on the Saturday afternoon sport show. It used to scare me and I'd hide from it. It would scare me even more than the Dr Who that would come on not long after it. But his eye movement really freaked me out so I got us all ready to leave. Tweedledum came into the room in a flabby flurry of friendliness. When Dad stands up she started hauling up his trousers telling him he's not decent "You're no fit fur visitors like that auld yin, eh? I say, yer nae fit fur yer visitor like that! Who you got visiting you today then eh? Who's them?" she asked him. He looked at her without any flicker in his face that he knew who she was, why she was talking to him, if she was talking to him. She kept on. "Wha ur they then eh? Who's tha' wee lassie - is that yer niece? Is that yer auntie? Eh?" she kept on and on at him. "Are they visiting you or Amy? Is that yer family? It's naw is it? They're nae here fur you ur they?". Eventually Dad pulled himself together enough to say "This is my wife and those two children are here on a school exchange". She cackled into life again "Git away, that's no yer wife, you daftie. Yer soft in the heid, that's yer daughter and yer grandbairns!" Then to me she said "Dinnae worry aboot tha'. They eyeways forgit their relatives. They dinnae forgit us though, see us day in an day oot, they dinnae forgit us. He's fine though, dinnae worry aboot him. He's no one of mine but I keeps an eye on him all the same. I'll keep an eye on him, don't you worry aboot tha'. You git off then, we'll be fine here - eh auld yin? We'll be jist fine". Dad's face didn't seem to agree but we need to leave and we do. And I'm glad to go, but then I can go.

As we left Dad followed and asked "So you are just going to leave me here are you?" and as I was trying to think of a sop he followed with "On the bridge between Holland and Belgium. I suppose I can always get a train. I'll see you tomorrow".

What the fuck was going on there?