Holiday is over Back on your Heads!

Holiday is over and after a three and a half hour trip back that was very trying to say the least (usually two and half hours) we arrived home.The first night we just crashed out and the next day the grass needed cutting and we did some shopping for all the things we have run out of.

Now normality has returned with the usual moaning and squabbling from the kids and a list of things to do that were put off before we left.I rang Harefields hospital and told them that we were back home and my mother visited and I gave her the gifts we had bought while away.

Why the strange title for this post? it comes from a joke that I heard and still makes me laugh now;

A man dies and ends up in Hell and the Devil says to him you have three choices of where you want to spend eternity and points to three doors.
The man says can I have a look first before I make my choice the Devil agrees
He opens the first door behind is fire,brimstone and people burning in agony."Don't fancy that" says the man,
He opens the second door there are people being whipped and beaten."Don't like the look of that"he says
He opens the third door and there are loads of people sitting waist deep in sewerage drinking tea.
He takes a moment, then he decide. "It has to be the third door" he says.
He goes in the third room and  the door closes behind him.
"Right" says the Devil, "Tea break is over now back on your heads"

I am not suggesting that my life is like that joke, but life has a way of throwing up those sorts of unexpected outcomes at us everyday and it doesn't matter if you worry or not they still happen.
People often say "I hope you don't have to wait to long for lungs". But people never say "I hope someone will die soon".But the two statements mean the same in the real world.
Human beings are very good at protecting themselves from the truth of their own behaviour ,but worry about things that they can't do anything about.

Well my birthday is nearly here and 8 days later I will have waited on the list one year. A interesting but stressful one but one filled with new experiences not all fun.
I have done a lot more than I thought I would be able to.Met some great people online through Twitter and other sites I use. I have talked to famous people and ordinary people with extraordinary lives. Followed three people who have had transplants watching them recover,some quicker than others.Waited with others like me still to receive the gift of life.

Started this blog and continued to write it! Got published on another blog as a guest.Started to run a website, learning a new format and extending my knowledge of the web.Got commended in end of year competition in the local Photography Club. Hoping to take more winning photos when it starts again in September.

The only down side to this time of the year, apart from being one year older. Is winters approach,that is something I dread,but with the advent of the Autumn, I hope though I can get some good pictures :-)

On that note I thought I would post some of the pictures I got of Brighton on our last day out before our holiday finished.

Brighton Pier

Walk on the Pier

The pier from the beach

Seafront

Watching the waves

Not quick Enough

Brighton Pavilion

Fountain

Eastbourne pier & Memories of Whitebait

Eastbourne from Beachy head

Our holiday is going well the weather is still being kind and we have enjoyed the time with relatives catching up with the news.Our most recent foray was to Eastbourne again.This time to the pier.we spent the afternoon having a walk up the pier took tea and coffee in one of the cafes and I played some pool with my son in an games room in the arcades.
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;

Eastbourne pier

Beachy head

Sussex seagull