I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

I found this on the internet while searching for something entirely unconnected. It's my mum's favourite poem. She can never read it without choking up near the end. The weird thing is, she's now passed this onto me and I can't read it to the end without welling up. Parents eh?

"The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock: T.S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

IV league

Outpatients on Wednesday. it was quite packed in the waiting room because the docs were away at a CF conference in France (Brest?) last week. I think I saw Gazza from the forum, I was going to say hello, but before I did he was whisked away into a side room. I never know what the etiquette is with other PWCF anyway; whether it is OK to chat with all the cross infection concerns these days. Anyway I was ushered in by a new CF specialist nurse (she's hot, but I didn't say that ;-)) FEV1 was relatively unchanged at 2.85 and FEVC was down a bit at 3.5, I had decided beforehand to go on home IVs barring some kind of miraculous turnaround in blows.

The doctor was new as well, is it just me or are the doctors getting younger and younger? I have to admit the first thing that runs through my head when I see a new doctor is "Oh god, can he/she fit a cannula?" I don't like being the guinea pig to some inept youth learning how to find a vein (Andy Jones was particularly bad for the first year I remember ;-)) I always get my IVs fitted on the big vein that runs at the back of my arms, I can do left or right, but obviously the left is more practical because I'm right handed. Other than that it was just a normal IV visit; cannula went in OK, after an initial scare when it stopped bleeding back. Standard procedure (for me) is to give me the first dose of Ceftazadine and Tobramycin, to check if there are any allergic reactions and then go round the back of the pharmacy to pick up the boxes of IVs. At that point I was going to ask the CF specialist nurse about Laura but then I decided against it; it would probably put her in an awkward position as she wouldn't be allowed to say anything due to patient confidentiality, and then I started to question why I wanted to know more in the first place. Anyway, before I knew it I was driving back with plastic bags and boxes of bottles, bungs, needles and syringes. I've put it all by the side of my bed. The Tobramycin dose has changed from 4ml twice a day to 7.5 ml once a day. I'm taking some kind of immodium variant as well because IVs seem to give me the runs these days.

I then discovered that I'd run out of needles for the Tobramycin finger-prick-test so I foolishly decided to do it with a normal green IV needle. I attempted it four times but the blood was not forthcoming so I had to ask the long-suffering R to do it for me. She didn't hold back, in fact it was a bit of a painful gusher, Ouch! No masochist, me ;-)

Out with the old, in with the new!

We've had four good years together; she's been there in my hour of need, she told me all about this great new drug called Dnase. We went travelling together, to Croatia, California, and Shanghai, she's never let me down (apart from America where she decided to run out of batteries halfway through the trip damn it.) But now, our relationship has run it's course and the end is nigh (sniff.) It's time for me to replace my old Ineb. And try the younger and smoother model...

OK, I think I've took the analogy a bit too far ;-) Anyway, first impressions; the new model unfortunately looks exactly the same (no sleek redesign by some young idiot like Ben from the Apprentice), but the original jaw-rattling shake it did when you breath in (sometimes so fierce you would end up droping it if you weren't holding it) is now a lot gentler and quieter, the beep is different too. I love my new Ineb ;-)

Me and R went to see the Doves on Saturday in Delamere Forest. They were great, the sound was really good. The field in which they played was like a natural outdoor audiorium. We left just before the last song to avoid getting stuck in the car park on the way out. Not very rock and roll but when you get all night baby sitters you have to make the most of them ;-) In out defence we did get to hear the final encore "There goes the fear" as we were walking back along the woodland path. Magical. Another obscure fact: I saw these guys play back in New Years Eve 1999 at the Night and Day cafe (Manchester), on that night they were the unsigned backing band for Badly Drawn Boy and were most famous for their early 90s hit under the name Sub Sub.

Video and Moviemaker nightmare!

I'm trying to edit together a video of my old band for the CF YouTube thinggummy and I can't seem to insert other pictures without buggering up the audio stream. Anyway, I've decided I don't really want to use the song after all, although it does pick up towards the end. We did do better songs but they aren't on the video, unfortunately. I'm on the right with the pink guitar by the way :-)

Waiting for the Sun

I've decided that I'm going on IVs on the 17th this month whatever happens. I tried to get it done this Wednesday (10th) but apparently all the doctors are away on a conference so it's emergencies only. It's officially been over a year since my last dose of IVs and I'm timing this next set to finish before the holiday next month. Although I feel fine chest wise there is a bit of a wheeze and I'm a bit worried there may be something lurking down there that the nebs aren't touching; Since the age of 12 I've always had IVs at least twice a year so I may as well take it. Like a man. Sniff (no, I'm not looking forward to it ;-)).

Where's the glorious summer gone? Here are some pictures from the BBQ we went to last week, it was so hot I actually had to go in the shade in the middle of the day. P.s. now the Apprentice is over what the hell am I going to do with my Wednesday nights? For my money Kate was the obvious winner but Alan Sugar always picks the one you don't expect (Ruth Badger, Claire, and the Irish Lady from series 3 were all better candidates than the previous winners IMHO) I thought that Kate had got the better idea on the day - I mean some of Yasmina's chocolate flavours sounded disgusting. I think if Kate had got her price down she would have won. I was surprised at the outcome because in the final Kate's performance overall was much better - she seemed more organised and focused early on whereas Yasmina struggled to get her idea off the ground, totally ignoring any initial advise given. I'll have to apply for next year :-)