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| Eastbourne from Beachy head |
Playing pool brought back so many memories as I spent many hours during my time in Nursing training playing pool with a good friend in my training group.I was playing pool the night I met my wife in the social club of the hospital I trained in.Although the hospital is now long gone, our memories are still strong, my wife even had a go at pool when we were playing, to show my son that she could play.
After we had finished we went to the town to find somewhere to eat and decided on a lovely little Italian restaurant where we had some lovely pasta and I found another memory booster on the menu.
Whitebait-small flour coated and deep fried whole fish. I have been looking for these for ages and was over the moon to be able to eat some again,I must explain why.
When I left Sussex and returned to Oxford I did so to be near my eldest daughter. The relationship with her mother had ended and she had returned to Oxford about the same time as I had got together with my wife.
I had made a commitment to continue a relationship with my daughter despite this.So when a new Regional Unit for Forensic Care opened in Oxfordshire I applied.
I had a great job in Sussex with good promotion prospects and my wife's family were local. But I felt that my daughter was more important and so I applied to Oxford.
I was offered the post and moved into the hospital.But before we opened there was a period of training this allowed us to work 9-5 for a few weeks while we sorted out the new clinic. A time for team building and sharing this was done in a local pub called the Waterloo (also now gone) just down the road from where I live.
We would spend our afternoons drinking and getting to know each other and having a great time.
Although I didn't particularly want to work in Oxford this was a good time in the Forensic Unit's history when we started out, as we had high hopes for the future.I remember fondly one of the specials served in the pub and a favourite of my ward manager Prem Calloo was fried whitebait served with chilli sauce washed down with lagers and dark rum, many a happy afternoon was spent there!
I was able to buy whitebait in the past, but have not seen it for sale for a long time, so I was so pleased to taste it again.My son tried it and he liked it as well.
Unfortunately Prem is also gone now, he died of a heart attack in front of me in the Clinic we started, just a few years later. One afternoon when we were working together he just dropped dead. He has a headstone in the local graveyard near Agatha Christie and is remembered fondly by me, when I eat whitebait, always with some hot sauce!
All in all this holiday has been steeped in memories for me and a realisation of the passing of time, it may be because I am getting near my birthday at the end of August, and birthdays of late tend to be reminders of the passage of time.But I do hope that there will be many more different memories yet to come after my transplant and maybe a few to revisit again, many of those will be in Sussex.
Whatever happens you cannot go back you must continue forward whatever that brings.
I thought that a couple of photos would be nice after that deep and rambling trip down memory lane so here goes;
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| Eastbourne pier |
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| Beachy head |
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| Sussex seagull |
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