Continuing Story of Cressroads

MISSING A DOCTOR’S appointment, several ‘phone calls and his visits to the Arms at Tichborne, Blogsbody has slipped out of circulation.

Why is not a question.

But arrangements are put in place for the Continuing Story of Cressroads to spark the launch of Ross Smith’s travel-writing career wearing a traditional New Year’s Eve line in red Spanish underwear.

His eating a dozen grapes in tune with each next broadcast chime of the distant clock of Madrid’s Casa de Correos.

And then raising a glass of sparkling Catalonian cava champagne to toast the arrival of AD 2011 at www.marysol.org Los Cristianos, Tenerife.

Until all Ross most wants in time for next Christmas is a Parker’s bath to call his own as a consequence of the chance conversation that bent a millionaire Hampshire yacht builder’s ear into putting his talents to work on the creation of a much-needed design of a tub for use by the disabled as well as elderly.

Busy and fulfilled life

‘Ross Smith has cerebral palsy, but he does not suffer from it,’ writes the Alton Herald’s Sheila Checkley.

‘This is something he makes very clear to the people he meets for the first time; and, for a man who lives his life from a wheelchair, he has lived more life in his 27 years than most of his contemporaries.

‘True, he needs a full-time carer, who shares his adapted bungalow in Oakhanger on a two-week-shift rota. But Ross’s energy and determination not to be different, not to allow his disability to stop him, keep him driven.

“Ross has a five-every-morning beginning to a hectic schedule of presentations, lectures, consultancy as well as voluntary-advocacy work helping other disabled people through the tangle of the benefits system and endless housing problems.’

In a 10-word headline, the Alton journalist adds: ‘Disability is no barrier to Ross’s busy and fulfilled life.’

Wheelchair accessible throughout

Ross is invited to Mar-y-Sol on the Spanish island of Tenerife to appraise the success of the executive of a German energy company resigning his position to take a leap of faith and create a no-barrier holiday resort for the disabled and their families.

After noting the marked benefit the climate of the small fishing village of Los Cristianos had on the condition of his wife, suffering from multiple sclerosis, and for him to have persevered with the project in the years since her death.

Until next year is the 21^st birthday of his Mar-y-Sol. And acclaimed as Europe’s first hotel, perhaps the world’s, designed to be wheelchair accessible throughout.

Renate Kraus, who leads the resort’s management team, tells Ross: “We meet the highest standards expected of a quality resort hotel for the disabled and elderly as we continue to develop and further improve a relaxing as well as lively holiday environment.

“Seeking to welcome all of our guests with understanding, sensitivity and providing a holiday atmosphere that is special, familiar and friendly.

“We want our clients to feel completely at home with us. And for them to want to choose, again and again, to return to Mar-y-Sol for their holidays.”

THERE ARE THOSE Cressroads kids of old who look to the Big Cookhouse in the Sky and remember the nudge in their panties and pants from gambling on starters to their carnal delights at Frank and Aldo Berni Inns.

But Blogsbody’s last ditch attempt to assist Easton’s Chestnut Horse market its remaining bundle of £25-a-head invites to a glass of Black Tower and three-course bill of traditional Berni Brothers’ fare did little, if anything, to promote an enthusiastic revival of feelings of old.

In short, fruity memories of a 60s’ slice of melon and maraschino cherry starter for a wanton lass in her freshly starched petticoat doesn’t do it for wrinkly Easton.

But, in less inflationary-proof hostelries out and about Cressroads, publicans are challenged to muse on the possibilities of a Berni Night, similar fare but more modest prices.

Music from 1955 through 1970.

And saucy ‘life-in-the-old-dog-yet’ invites to remind their patrons aged 50-plus of how a little of what they fancied set tickers on overdrive in bygone Boomer times.

As Blogsbody prepares to go undercover for as long as the next three days in the wake of an upstanding member of the representative variety in the Palace of Westminster living in hope that flooding in today’s sorry state of Cornwall will wash away evidence of hi-jinks and house-swopping.

And, more besides, as Blogsbody plays on the heartstrings of a former music pupil of his godmother Mother Margaret Mary Aidan gone to heaven a bride of Christ; and seeks that his late Aunt Peg, a chorus girl who loved the excitement of riding pillion on a motorcycle around the Wall of Death before she entered the Dominican Order of Nuns, intercedes for his miracle of resurrection within Cressroads’ sound of the bells of St John the Baptist.

‘Don’t look for more, look to be more,’ messages Continuing Story of Cressroads agony aunt Ruby Rangoon.

‘Thanks for the details, have located your photo, hopefully I will be able to keep up with you,’  the personal assistant to ambassador for the disabled Ross Smith replies to the town hack’s invite.

 
Ten bob, Lesley,

Equivalent to a third of a trainee reporter or auto mechanic’s weekly wage but, game on, it afforded taking a girl out for a Berni’s dinner for two with high expectations of discovering a young lady’s exotic taste in seamed nylons and suspenders.

Way back when Bloggy was 15-years-old, and Berni Inn was the name of a chain of British restaurants founded by brothers Frank and Aldo Berni in the year Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in England, was hung at London’s Holloway Prison by Oldham publican Albert Pierrepoint.

Boomer days!

And the Berni brothers cashed in on the times by introducing young Brits to a chain of home-grown restaurants with false oak beams and white walls to want to promote a feel of feasting on bygone Tudor excesses.

Greater Cressroads’ Dave Mason, who went from school to beginning today’s equivalent of a 360-pence-a-week apprenticeship as an auto-mechanic, remembers it well.

“Like many a dad, mine insisted a third of my pay packet was handed to my mother. Leaving a quid, worth 240-pence, to last me through the week. And not enough to spring for a date at a Berni Inn, unless - ‘don’t you ever let your father know about this’ - mum gave back the ten-bob note from her housekeeping pot.

“True, Karen. All so bloody true,” Dave impressed on the stunning young landlady of Easton’s inflation-proof Chestnut Horse. “You’d not believe how tight it was. Or how your loins ached to afford your lady of the night her melon boat with maraschino cherry; steak, chips and peas; and slice of Black Forest gateau to want to finish up her sparkling glass of Black Tower.”

A saucy but romantic 50s-through-60s formula that paid dividends for all concerned and saw the Berni brothers sell their chain of restaurants to Grand Metropolitan for £14.5m in 1970.

“So, Dave, howzabout Tuesday 16th November 2010 - or is it 1970 - for a first  Berni Night with 60s’ music at the Chestnut Horse?”

“Karen, why not? Let’s go for it.”"

And, Lesley, their making it a night to remember how it once was for us old Cressroads kids growing up in the not-so-bad  days of gold for the Berni Brothers departed the Big Cookhouse in the Sky these past two decades ago.

Love, Mike xxx

To: jpmercurio@spanair.com 
Sent: Sat, Nov 13, 2010 10:23 am 
Subject: re. Urgent Special Request - PRM 
 
Juan,  
  
PRM Ross Smith explains: ‘I will need to be assisted onto the aircraft via an Ambi Lift; and then, with the aid of a transfer chair, assisted onto a conventional seat. If it is at all possible for me to be seated where there is additional leg-room that would be much appreciated. Aid will be required at both airports. Grateful thanks, Ross.’

3oth Birthday Missive cont.  from 13/11 

And, Keeks, with Ross calling the shots,

A young passenger with restricted mobility, but who packs out for his every next adventure in little doubt of just how much can go wrong. Not least to find himself stranded aboard an emptying flight as his wheelchair goes walkabout at London Gatwick. And why no effort is spared by all concerned to ensure his inaugural flight with Spanair to Tenerife Sud in the New Year is industriously swept clean of every last potential gremlin.

And it is in fear of bugbears sent to try us in the guise of mischievous sprites through filial hobgoblins in size-nines that your Poppa Mike risks all in opening wide the gateway to the self-styled watercress capital of the world to welcome home this coming weekend’s visitor to the Lower House of Windsor.

A voluptuous former music pupil of your Great-Aunt Mother Margaret Mary Aidan, OP, at the Dominican Convent High School in Salisbury, Rhodesia - before changing its flag and colours to Harare, Zimbabwe - who, all of these decades later, as if by a miracle of divine, spiritual intervention, hears word ex-seminarian, thrice divorced Fleet Street investigative reporter, septuagenarian town hack Blogsbody-of-Cressroads is unashamedly back on the pull.

“Life is too short,” heeds the African farmer’s daughter. “So Friday?  And I’ll drive to meet up with you in Hampshire for time together.”

Meanwhile by any other name a dark-red variant of a Greek-blooded phoenix catches up with more than 70 episodes of the Continuing Story of Cressroads.  A warts-and-all, 35,000-word illustrated read so far. And leaving little to anyone’s imagination since your Poppa Mike dressed for dinner to insist all heads were bowed for his reading of Rabbie Burns’ say-the-Lord-be-’thankit’ Selkirk Grace to spark the 250^th Anniversary Burns Supper and Order of Ceremonies embraced by the Arms of Tichborne - Archive 05/02/09  www.blogsbody.com

There’s more, Keekie. But perhaps it ought to await inclusion in a New Year 2011 missive planned to depart Los Cristianos for Graig Welsh Wales.

Meanwhile, please to let me know your festive plans.

Much love to Daisy-Mae from Bamps,

Poppa Mike xxx

Cont. from 11/11

News is, Keogh,

We’ve had visitors. After Reading, next stop Farnham. But, between estate agents’ offices, your brother for a telecoms marketeer changed production editor for works of academia favouring publication in Farnham rather than Oxbridge beds down some nights at the Lower House of Windsor.

And so it was on the morning afore you began rising-40.

His Nibs was late-to-rise. All of 20 rush-hour miles distant from his desk; offering the impoverished equivalent of 25p-a-mile for his lift to work; and leaving his Poppa Mike to require every last penny of his eldest’s total contribution of £10 towards remedying the 20-year-old family Ford’s demand for a pit stop at Four Marks’ pseudo-French Total Bonjour on the 20-mile return journey to Cressroads.

And there he was!

Not a pretty sight. Unshaven. Pulled up on the alternative dispensing side of the one and the same Total unleaded petrol pump. And especially anxious not to want to be noticed tanking up an ‘R’-reg Vauxhall Vectra.

Who you may ask?

No less a personage of low-standing in Greater Cressroads than the one exposed for having his News of the Screws’ way with a rent boy modelling a Chelsea FC strip - and why your father was not of any mind to bend over backwards and want to re-make the dubious acquaintance of the former Lib-Dem MP for Winchester.

Once was too much. After the right dishonourable gentleman as well as the town hack were invited to a cocktail party at a florist’s. No less a flower shop than one daring to compete with Floral Paul Oliver Twist along Alresford-on-Arle’s busy West Street, and calling itself Cressroad’s Rampant Stamen.

So impressed was Mark Oaten of Bramdean-not-so-Common that his bossy wife volunteered to deliver to the developing market of chimneypots for fresh Kenyan roses in a bid to replenish a philandering MP family’s demanding, if not dwindling exchequer.

But again, Keeks, you old dad digresses. And when the best is yet to come.

Stepping inside the door of Bonjour to want to turn left and pay for £20-worth of unleaded, when Oaten rushed in behind, jostling all in his path to one side and unapologetically heading off into the aisles of the service centre shop.

“Hey, you … yes, you Mark … who the hell do you imagine you’re now of a mind to push and shove?”

“Did I … sorry … please excuse me.”

“Excuse you, Mr Oaten? Never. Never. Never.”

Love, Dad

p.s. We need to talk soon. A Russian lady living in the St Melons district of Cardiff - now there’s a Christmas coincidence - seeks a new beginning to her 60-year-old life that sounds as bad as it can get for someone so deserved of something so much better.

Armistice Day 2010

NEWS FLASH! Lovely Renate Kraus on the volcanic Canary Isle of Tenerife ‘phones the Lower House of Windsor’s Word Factory to invite Ambassador for the Disabled Ross Smith, his Polish-born carer and Cressroads’ town hack Blogsbody to enjoy a winter break seeing in New Year 2011 at renowned, purpose-built Mar-y-Sol, popular spa for the disabled and managed by Renate in the year-round sunshine of Spain’s ocean island resort of Los Cristianos.

And that, Birthday Girl, leaves only the first half-dozen days of Yuletide yet to reconcile,

After your Poppa Mike places an order for a traditionally decorated, well -liquored, marzipanned and iced fruit cake from the kitchen of the Arms of Tichborne earlier today, and wonders what plans Richard and yourself have finalized for the festive time?

Within the next month, Cressroads Surgery will have run two further blood tests, after agreeing that your father’s popping of more than a million milligrams of Glucosamine Chondroitin over the past 24 months proves itself to be of benefit only to the financial coffers of assorted manufacturers of a waste of alleged alternative medicine for lubricating the creaking joints of millions of pensioners relieved of upwards of £7.59 every 40 days for their imagined nutritional supplement.

And so thanks a bunch to moonlighting, truly golden hands Doc Green.

Now helped to survive an early retirement with spoils earned from his out-of-surgery hours spent administering physiotherapy to billionaire Russian-owned Chelsea FC, between dismissing the cause of your father’s developing aches and pains as the consequence of ‘too many birthdays’.

Maligned old ticker

Meanwhile, the jury remains out on the wisdom of Cressroads’ town hack continuing to risk aching muscles, cataracts, renal failure, more strokes and heart attacks by popping a 20-mg, film-coated pink Simvastatin tab for his cholesterol, before going to his bed each night.

Yes, Keeks, all these years after a mini-stroke saw my jaw drop for a few days and longer for the dribble to dry up, Dr Beanstokes, did-he-but-know-it , agreed with your adopted Aunty Jean’s years of nursing experience and realized his need to book me in for a much overdue electrocardiogram.

Then as relieved as any patient to learn, no harm done, after Cressroads’ Nurse Lindsay pronounced soulless Blogsbody’s  maligned old ticker to be in A1 order for its septuagenarian vintage.

It is in the spirit of Armistice Day that Blogsbody has made peace with the town’s general practice and it with him. Each prepared to accept the other’s shortcomings and goings on at Cressroads’ Station Road Surgery in the self-styled watercress capital of the world. And hear thee, hear thee, daughter - believe  it, or believe it not - all with the passing of Prizebyte’s corporate threat to end its pro bona months of hosting the website for the Continuing Story of Cressroads.

After a 48-hour stay of execution for www.blogsbody.co.uk Firkin Henry poked his head around the door of the Arms of Tichborne - never fully recovered from your days of managing the Hogshire village boozer for ex-Concorde flight attendant Janie Day - and witnessed a shaking of the hands between long-suffering host and silver-haired hack given a ‘deadline’ of seven more months to complete all copy for a first-edition of a little-earner in support of young Ross Smith’s registered charity for the disabled Just Different.

Coarse pay-off between patients-in-waiting

Monday early evening’s meeting at the Arms ended with a repeat of the continuing tale of your older brother Matthew’s birth in the 1976 International Year of the Child that was resurrected for all to share in the waiting-room of Cressroads surgery three day ago.

Picture, Keogh,  the silent, miserable  scene disturbed by your father’s entrance as he spots the town’s retired, Belfast-born pharmacist Robin Good next in line to be seen by Doc Beanstokes.

“You bad, robbin’ chemist, you … ”

” … and no, Michael, they still don’t have your good lady’s size in stock.”

 After our remembering in non-dulcet tones the detail of a Saturday morning when, home from the county hospital maternity unit in Winchester, your mother of a child bride despatched her gallant middle-aged husband to Robin’s pharmacy in Alresford-on-Arle for his first ever purchase of ST’s.

And, sadly, with your father knowing no better than to call out for sanitary towels with all of their vowels, before making matters worse for a pharmacy up to its shampoo in Saturday morning blue-rinsers: “Size! After watching all that’s gone down this week, one can only reckon his miserable missus is desperate for the largest you stock.”

 “Next, please,” a not-so-amused Dr Beanstokes put his head around the waiting-room door in time to not help but catch the coarse good-bye laughter between two of his pensioned patients-in-waiting.

To be continued

When, sadly, Ross,

Our meet at Alton’s Swan Hotel in Greater Cressroads within the next six hours is made a non-starter on account Blogsbody’s website host Sy1nePrizebyte, son of one of the most renowned Court of Appeal judges in the land, threatens to put a filial corporate cyber axe to our otherwise endless, three-year-old saga of the self-styled watercress capital of the world.

In quintessentially rural Hogshire life, our IT wizard is better known as Cllr Simon May and he is found to lend his experienced hand on the pull to the pumps behind fellow parish councillor blonde, vivacious Nicky Roper’s bar of the Arms at Tichborne.

Sy1ne is creator of www.tichbornearms.co.uk   -  notable for its absence of humans  -  linking to the Hogshire Chronic’s glowing review of so thatched a watering hole appearing like a welcome beacon to lonely travellers driving down a narrow country lane en route to Alresford-on-Arle.

Senior Winchester reporter Ash Bolton explains: ‘Landlords Patrick and Nicky Roper display their menu on a large blackboard by the bar. It changes every week and features dozens of examples of homemade, locally sourced, rustic-style food from the kitchen of former trapeze artist chef Stu Colborne.

‘Sat down at a cosy, candle-lit table in a snug corner of the dining area, we felt we were sitting in someone’s living room rather than a pub … relaxed ambience … laid back, friendly staff … roaring log fire kept us feeling snug … and while the landlords’ four dogs Archie, Honey, Nelson-on-account-of-his-one-eye and Rosie slept in front of it.

‘For starters my partner chose chicken liver, watercress pate and red onion marmalade - and, come again, I would opt for it over an alternative order of baked brie and cranberry sauce with French stick.’

It was recommended Chronic Bolton try an 8oz rib-eye steak, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and potatoes for his main course, while his partner’s preferred taste ran to pork medallions with a pear and cider sauce.

‘Lavished with vegetables and potatoes,’ notes the gourmet scribe.

‘Minus drinks, our tab ran us up to around £50 for three scrumptious courses - and, in my reporter’s notebook, that ain’t over the top.’

We wait to learn what Hogshire Chronic makes of some light editing by Cressroads’ Word Factory  to one of its weekly eating-out reviews.

Home, too, of course to HostYour Say for some of the 69 going on 70 blogs and 35,000 illustrated words so far in the Continuing story of Cressroads  -  www.blogsbody.co.uk  -  and with as many more blogs, words and pictures yet to create for publication of the stocking filler Too Many Birthdays in September 2011.

Pledged, as you know, Ross, to donate profits from sales of first editions of the book to the charity of your choice - and who knows, but a publishing project destined to receive the vital pro bono support of Sy1nePrizebyte’s board of IT directors for a remaining nine months.

What evening do we next meet for supper in the loving Arms of Tichborne?

You tell me, Mike-the-Blog 

THIRTY-SIX OF Scottish author John Buchan’s Thirty-Nine Steps, and a same-sounding ‘Hannay’ for the handle of the practice manager of Cressroads’ Surgery on Alresford-on-Arle’s Station Road as that of the innocent man on the run in Alfred Hitchcock’s 75-year-old film adaptation of a novel featuring as popular an all-action hero with stiff upper lip and miraculous knack for extraditing himself from whatever sticky situation so often dogs his every next day.

“Sounds a lot like our very own Richard,” smiles his ladies’ team on reception facing across Cressroads’ Station Road to witness the flickering blue light of reduced plod power in a town reporting a 79% increase in the abuse of its old age pensioners.

No less its town hack. But Blogsbody is unlikely ever to tell it as it is for himself and others his vintage as well as seriously much older folk living out their days in the increasingly violent self-styled watercress capital of the world.  

Put under increased risk of strokes and heart attacks  

‘Thank you, Richard … Yes, Monday’s fine - and, ever grateful to you,’ Blogsbody signed off his Wednesday morning email to Hanney-the-Surgery, after a flurry of activity in and out of the Word Factory of his city-built Lower House of Windsor required he respond to a second email from his Surgery in Cressroads.

From: Hanney Richard (Alresford Surgery) <r.hanney@nhs.net> 
To: Eva, <irvingdylan@aol.com> 
Sent: Thu, Nov 4, 2010 9:54  

Subject: DR P STOKES: STRICTLY PATIENT-DOCTOR 
 
Dr Stokes is back Monday - will put in his file for his return if that is ok? 
 
Richard Hanney, Practice Manager
 

With the lovely Eva Easton embedded in his email details, Blogsbody first messaged Cressroads’ Doctor Peter ‘Bean’ Stokes via Practice Manager Hanney to want to confirm his next week’s appointment, change a prescription for statins and wonder about his continuing need for an alternative medicine recommended by the practice’s celebrity Chelsea FC physio.  

From: Eva, [irvingdylan@aol.com] 
Sent: 04 November 2010 07:14 
To: Hanney Richard (Alresford Surgery)

Subject: RE: DR P STOKES - STRICTLY PATIENT-DOCTOR
 
Have checked with your reception desk and look forward to seeing you again at 15:40 Mon., 08 Nov. 
 
You ordered a return to my taking 20mg Simvastatin tabs - one each night - for cholesterol. But your patient chooses instead to heed news surrounding the dangers of statins - Simvastatin in particular - and media reports that warn this generic drug mostly succeeds in putting patients under ‘increased risk of strokes and heart attacks’. 
 
As a consequence, your advice is sought in respect of changing my prescription from Simvastatin to Lipitor.

Before his recent retirement, your colleague Dr Green, of Chelsea FC physio fame, diagnosed me as suffering from ‘too many birthdays’. Echo, echo! And he recommended ‘1500mg daily Glucosamine + Chondroitin’. 

As a consequence, your advice is sought also in respect of the wisdom of Blogsbody - or, indeed, any old age pensioner - continuing to invest their dwindling funds in this alternative medicine. 
 
Until Monday afternoon, Mike 

www.blogsbody.co.uk