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2007 - December 15th - Saturday

JH sent off some photocopied Herald cuttings to Kathy, and JH received the several newspaper cuttings to do with transplants from Kathy about:- paired donation, and non-directed altruistic donation: these procedures are legal in the UK since the introduction of the updated Human Tissue Act which came into force on 1 September 2006.  More disturbingly, two items mentioned a) that kidneys from cadaver donors, who had died of drug and/or alcohol related problems were being transplanted, and b) that people with kidney failure were travelling abroad - in particular to the Philippines - and paying to receive kidneys from impoverished local people, who sell their kidneys to government hospitals.  Kathy, and Ralph hopefully, will be attending a Hipsey family Christmas ‘Do’, today: for the first time, this is being held in a Hall near Burnham-on-Crouch – which had been hired for the event because the number of people attending had escalated so much that it was difficult to cater for everyone – both from the point of view of the lack of room, and also all the hard work which devolves onto one Hipsey family’s shoulders.


 

2007 - December 20th - Thursday

JH attended her last acupuncture session.  In all, JH had 5, weekly sessions – the first appointment having been for history-taking only.  JH had been given an Assessment Sheet which she filled in honestly – in so much that she really had not had any benefit from the acupuncture, but that – after all – her pain pattern had ‘shifted about’ considerably since she had originally been referred for Treatment in August 2006! 

2007 - December 25th - CHRISTMAS DAY

Kathy and Ralph phoned JH in the evening and we all exchanged the Season’s Greetings.  JH had her usual sirloin steak for Christmas dinner, and chocolate sponge pudding for ‘afters’.  JH spent the day cataloguing her Hippo Collection in Lyn’s Inventory, ie, JH made entries in this portrait, A5, hard-back, note book - given by Lyn to JH in July 2000; said book is bright orange with a mauve hippo embossed on the cover; JH started making entries in the Inventory on Christmas Day 2004.

2007 - December 28th - Friday

JH went for a meal with Bill and Pic and their granddaughter Jenny at the Dartmoor Diner.  JH had been told by Kathy that her brother was planning to come to stay with his son Stephen and family in Tavistock for Christmas; Bill phoned JH during Christmas week and arranged to take JH out for a meal – leaving the venue for the feast to be chosen by JH.  As JH was expected to be at the WRVS Tea Bar by 3.30 pm (but it was the only day the Bill Hipseys had free before returning to there home in Burnham-on-Crouch at the WE) JH said she had long promised herself a trip to the Dartmoor Diner, just on the edge of Roborough Down; this Restaurant had previously been known to all the locals as the Green Café and, at one point, had stood empty until it was completely rebuilt by the present owners. 

Bill and Pic arrived – at Hippo Haven - a bit after 12.15pm, as they had done a bit of a detour round St Budeaux!  Bill, Pic, and Jenny, had a quick - but astonished - look round JH’s Hippo Collection!  We all arrived at the Dartmoor Diner before 1.00pm and, fortunately (as we had not made a reservation), did not have to wait for a table, as a couple of ladies were just leaving: the Diner was very busy.  JH had something with salad {This is being written retrospectively!} and was the only diner who had room for some ice-cream and cream – of which Bill had a spoonful, but he refrained from having his own sweet, because Catherine was cooking an evening meal – and she is a super cook!
 
We chatted: Bill told me about the letter he had received from Edwin in Canada telling everyone that Sheila had been very poorly during the year, here illnesses including a bout of pneumonia whilst on a cruise early in the year; however they had called in to a ‘warm spot’ which was a relief for Sheila and her arthritis.  However, there saddest news was the death of their son Richard who ‘lost his fight against pancreatic cancer in May’.  In actual fact, when Bill arrived to collect JH, he had picked up JH’s copy of Edwin’s Christmas letter off JH’s doormat and, when JH got home, she read her own copy of the letter: Sheila had started writing the letter but then fallen asleep, so Edwin continued; JH looked at the Family Tree and noted that Richard was Edwin’s stepson – all the children by Edwin’s and Sheila’s first marriages are ‘our’ children. 

The rain poured down!  So, Bill went to drive the car to as near the entrance as possible, so that everyone could make a dash to it through the downpour.  JH was then conveyed to Derriford Hospital – just down the road from the Diner – and to the A&E Department: JH suggested that the Hipseys come in to the Tea Bar for a cup of tea but the Hipseys decided that they should return to Tavistock, as they were planning to drive back to East Anglia for the New Year, and needed to ‘organise their time’ (JH’s phrase).  Jenny caught a bus from the Hospital down to the City.

Pic and Bill seemed to have had a wanderlust throughout the duration of their marriage – including riding a tandem bike somewhere in foreign climes whist heavily pregnant; At some point during a telecom, Bill had explained that he had spent several months in a TB Sanatorium, shortly after he and Pic were married!  JH recollected reading The Plague and I by Betty MacDonald, and so JH enquired if Bill had ever read this account of the Author’s stay in a TB Sanatorium in the States: he had.  Anyway, JH thought that the Bill Hipseys would enjoy reading Betty MacDonald’s The Egg and I (about the Author’s residence in the Olympic Mountains {North-East USA} with her first husband who was a chicken farmer - amongst other things), and so, over the weekend JH sent the book to the Bill Hipseys with a letter.  In this letter JH said she had concerns for Kathy and Ralph - as Bill and Pic did as well: there was a little bit of a thought that the Skinners had lost some of their ‘get up and go’ (JH’s phrase). JH also thanked the Bill Hipseys for their thanks on behalf of their sister/in law: JH would do it all again if she had another kidney to spare!


 
 
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