A Tale Of Two Bypasses

Today I've returned from Sheffield's Northern General Hospital after spending a week there having a double heart bypass graft. The experience has left me with a deep admiration for the care and professionalism of our much maligned N.H.S.- apart from one particular subject - FOOD.
The Northern General provided me with new culinary experiences, probably top of the list is for the first time in my life I experienced the real fear of starvation. This was propagated by several consecutive days of eating next to nothing!
I realise that the anaesthetic process suppresses the appetite for a day or so but I know mine had returned when the morning cornflakes took on a gastronomic aura.
Meals were organised in advanced by filling in a tick-box list for the next day's lunch and evening meals.
Anything hot arrived incognito - being securely hidden from the eager feeder's view until the very last minute by a plastic lid, a cunning device allowing the provider to be away and out of (polite volume) earshot across the ward. Cold items usually sandwiches or salads were either packed in label-obscuring plastic boxes or, in the case of a salad, hidden beneath a mound of lettuce leaves.
I sampled the "Egg" salad. Beneath the near-impenetrable leaves was the following:
1 tomato cut in half, 4 slices of cucumber and 5 slices of a very small hard-boiled egg (only 3 of which had any signs of a yolk). That was it! I just longed for a spot of simple salad cream or a little grated carrot to stir a glimmer of interest.
My ward-mates shared these experiences with the same horror. Barry's 2 piece lemon sponge trapped inside a lidded pot that clung to it's miserable life by piece{A} being so hard as to provide gavel duty when someone auctioned off an edible rarity and piece {B} steadfastly refusing to leave the nest in spite of prising with the (grubby) cutlery. A pot of soup eagerly awaited by Ray (who hadn't eaten for 2 days) was fridge-cold. Try a beef sandwich, one slice of bread /one thin slice of reformed beef /one slice of bread. Vegetable curry and rice, bear in mind here that the ward was hot enough to reduce a Flora pack to liquid in 5 minutes, consisted of a glutinous mound of diced veg starting to crust over which was so hot (chemically) as to take what little breath was available coupled with a heap of rice dry enough to totally dehydrate the fittest patient in half an hour.
By the 5th night of my 6 I was having not only food nightmares in my very limited sleep sessions, but could think of nothing else during waking hours. I watched all the cookery programs on the TV with the firm belief I would never live long enough to enjoy a decent meal again.
Toast was to be my saviour. It was served before bedtime every night with butter/jam along with a cuppa. On the sixth night the waiting was unbearable. I had hideous thoughts that for some reason it wouldn't arrive - a bread strike, a work to rule in the kitchens, don't serve toast on a Monday because it offends some remote Afghan hill tribe, whatever.
Imagine my relief when that familiar trundling sound was heard and the now universal clapping and cheering got nearer and nearer. I had 6 slices that night.
During the food delerium periods I had a repeated fantasy of devouring a Big Mac and fries in the car park of the Worksop Branch on my way home. I believed then and still now that this kept what little sanity I had left.
It's about 8 hours since we made that little diversion down the Worksop Bypass to McDonalds and consumed what I now consider the finest meal of my life, (can't remember the last time I had one)
Moral, take salad cream, sandwich pickle and cutlery and enjoy your bypasses!

p.s. 30/04/2009
I'm fine now and mentally able to point you in this direction for further delights in the hospital food category: here

Global Warming Arrives!!

These photographs were taken on February 2nd 2007 in Carlton Wood, right behind our house. They show a group of three Rose-ringed parakeets settled in the trees. To my knowledge this is the first sighting of these birds in the area (unless you know different). They stayed all day and were seen in the area until sundown.
These parakeets are fairly sedentary so I hope they stay around and perhaps breed here!

The Rose-ringed Parakeet (Psittacula krameri), also known as the Ring-necked Parakeet, is a gregarious tropical parakeet species that is popular as a pet. Its scientific name commemorates the Austrian naturalist Wilhelm Heinrich Kramer.
Ring-necked parakeets are long-lived, and nest in holes in trees. There is no record of their presence impacting on native birds, but the RSPB is monitoring areas where these birds have settled
In the wild, Rose-ringed Parakeets usually feed on buds, fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries and seeds. Wild flocks also fly several miles to forage in farmlands and orchards causing extensive damage
Ring-necked Parakeets first bred in England 1969.
The smooth, non-glossy white eggs are about 30 mm by 23 mm. The female incubates the eggs by herself. After the young hatch, they are fed by both parents.
The European populations became established during the mid to late 20th Century from introduced and escaped birds. There are two main population centres in Britain: the largest is based around south London, Surrey and Berkshire, and by 2005 consisted of many thousands of birds. A smaller population occurs around Margate and Ramsgate, Kent. Elsewhere in Britain, smaller feral populations have established from time to time (e.g., at Studland, Dorset).
They are slowly spreading from their southern stronghold and are now seen as far north as Sheffield and Leeds; a pair nested and possibly bred in Sheffield in 2003
The Rose-ringed Parakeet is considered one of the best talking parakeets and can learn a vocabulary of up to 250 words. The speech clarity can be pretty amazing and they have a habit of practising until perfect and then shocking their owners with an accurately uttered word. Now these birds come in many mutations, including the common green, blue, grey among many other colours.