#430 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (15th June 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And just a quick hello to everybody that's asked and inquired about Andre.

Thank you. I'll talk a little bit about him during this recording. So it's been a weird day, weird.

You see normally I'm up all night and last night or this morning I went to bed about 2 30 something like that. I got up at 7 in the morning, had a bath, had my breakfast, left to get the bus at 9 to get into... I needed to do three things, go to the doctor's surgery, go to the pharmacy to collect my medication and then go to the vets for Andre's appointment. And it's all within the same kind of area.

I don't mean medical, I mean area as in spatially. So I'm getting ready to go out. Andre's causing a fuss like he normally for some reason, I don't know.

But he's just been a bit of a pain. And so I put my jacket on, it's my summer jacket on and go to do it up. I've got a t-shirt on underneath and the zip breaks.

And it's broken, it's completely broken. And it's actually fallen off, the zip's actually fallen off the jacket. So luckily it was quite well.

I've actually got a little bit of sunburn on my forehead so it was a warm day. And I go to put Andre in his bag and the zip breaks. I'm scared to go to the toilet.

Seriously, it's like everything, all the zips are breaking. So I'm thinking, and I can't get the zip open. He's completely stuck to the one on his bag, not the one on his fly, on his bag.

He needs to be in a bag to take him to the vets. So I knock on my friend's door downstairs, wake him up. And she lends me his bag, he's got like a satchel.

So I put him in there and I make my way to the bus stop. So everything's going kind of to plan. I've had a bath, I've had something to eat, had a cup of coffee.

I've tried to get as many farts out as possible before I leave the building. Just general stuff. And Andre doesn't like being in the bag.

So he's scratching away and trying to get out and just trying to wind me up probably, I guess. But ultimately he ended up being okay. He was quite cool.

I took him, once I got off the bus, I let him out onto the grass so he could roll around and sniff the grass and stuff. Sniff the glass, the grass. And I had plenty of time.

The appointment was at 10.30 and I probably got off the bus at 10 past nine, something like that. I had loads of time so I could just really just, you know, go slow. So I let Andre play on the grass and I pick him up across the road and eventually get across.

And it's quite busy, quite a lot of traffic. On the bus, there was only two other people on the bottom of the bus. You can only sit, I think you can seat seven people because of all the dividers and all the seats that no one's allowed to sit on.

So I sat, I can't even remember, either at the front or the back, when I was on the way there. And then I, you know, so I got there, I had to wear me, well, as the bus pulled up, I had to make sure Andre was in the back, secured. I needed to make sure I had my mask on, my face covering, and then find me bus pass to hand it.

And all that, it was a bit of a faff. But it's no more than anyone else has to do at the moment. And then did that, got on the bus, got off, no one else got on the bus at all.

So it was just three people, I think. Unless there was people upstairs, I'm not sure. And I go to the doctor's surgery.

Again, I'm just taking my time. Andre's sort of, every bit of grass I put Andre down so he can just play on the grass and just drag himself along, because it's safe to do that. I don't let him go onto the pavement anymore.

But he just wants to get down. And I don't know when he needs to go to the toilet. So I've made that mistake in the past and held on to him.

And he's gone to the toilet over me, but it wasn't his fault. He just needed to go, and I wasn't letting go of him. So I try to let him on the floor when he wants to be.

But most of the time, it's just because he wants to go on the floor, not because he needs to. There's no way of knowing the difference. There's a result.

You know, the end result does let you know which one is the difference. And it's quite messy. I've got a dog barking downstairs.

What's going on there? I don't know if you can hear that. Anyway, I can hear it. You might be able to faintly hear it.

But I can't shut the door, unfortunately, because Andre doesn't want to scratch at the door to get out, even though he's asleep. That's one of the things about doing a recording early, because it's eight minutes to nine in the evening. There's always sort of something going on.

Here's a weird thing. Today, my black bin bags disappeared. Just disappeared.

They were out the front. Disappeared. Where did they go? Weird.

Where did they go? Anyway, they just disappeared. So I, what did I do? Yeah, so I picked him up. I went to a doctor's surgery.

I walk around to the main entrance. Oh, not allowed inside the building. Of course not.

I mean, why would be allowed into a building? It's, yeah, so not allowed in. And there was these signs all over the windows, because two doctor's surgeries and one said, we are not whoever the other one is. Ring the bell for them.

Knock on the window for us. So I ended up communicating through a window, like an open window with the staff. And there was, I counted probably five or six people in the office, just standing around, sitting around, just chatting.

And I thought doctor's surgeries were there for patients to come and be seen. That stuff hasn't stopped, has it? People still need medical attention. And after that experience, I reckon a lot of people wouldn't want to go back.

They would really put it off. And I know that men can be quite notorious for putting stuff off when it comes to medical conditions. That's put me right off going to the surgery.

I don't, I never want to go back there again. And all I was doing was collecting a letter. It was just awful.

It's like, wow. Really felt like I was a leper, you know? It's like really, like, keep away from us. Keep away from us.

The, you know, the unclean, keep away. And I just had a bath. It's the cleanest I've been all month.

So I got the letter. I just had a good old moan to someone else who was standing there. And then I, someone else came along and they didn't know what to do.

So I sold them, got a knock on the window. Yeah, it's a new type of professionalism that the NHS is offering us, the doctor's surgeries. Yeah, speak through a window.

Yeah, that's good. So did that. So glad I don't have to actually go to the doctors.

And then I went to the chemist. I want to moan about the chemist, but there wasn't anything to moan about. It went swimmingly.

In fact, it was the quietest I've ever seen it. Walked up, went in. There was one person ahead of me being seen.

And then this lady came to the counter, the other side of the counter, looked at me. And I think she smiled or something. And I said, I'm just here for my prescription.

She said, no, I'm not serving you. Not horribly, but she said, no, no, I'm in the middle of doing something. Someone will be with you soon.

I said, oh, sorry. It's just the fact that you looked over at me. And she said, well, am I not allowed to look at you? You're a very, very handsome young lady.

I said, oh, thank you. And yeah, we spent the rest of the afternoon chasing each other around the beach. No, we didn't.

So I got my prescriptions and left. I had my mask on for that as well. Yeah, that was good.

Oh, loving the masks. Nothing like a surgical mask scratched on your eyeballs. Oh, lovely.

And then I thought, you know what? I'm out. I might as well go to the toilet, treat myself to a toilet. Because I've been out, I'm going to be out for quite a while.

I know the vets aren't going to let me in their building. So they told me that. So there's no, McDonald's isn't open.

None of the places where you can normally just go in and, you know, have a little poo. You know, you can't know where to go to the toilet. But there is a public toilet that's been closed for months.

And I thought, maybe today, as all retail is now allowed to open again, all non-essential stuff, it can open if they want. So I thought, oh, maybe they'll be open. So I went over to the public toilets.

And they're really nice toilets. I mean, okay, no toilets really, really worth getting too excited about. But they are nice and really clean.

And, you know, I want to say clean. I mean, I don't test the cleanliness. I don't, you know, I don't sort of take material in as like little swabs to check the bacteria level.

But it looks fairly clean. And I went in there, just pushed the door open. And a lady came, sort of came, well, she didn't come running.

I don't think she'd be able to. But she, she, she, she, she arrived out of like a room. And she said, well, she said, what were you doing? What do you mean, what am I doing? I've come to go to the toilet, the public toilets.

She said, no, you can't. I said, yeah, I can. I'm in here.

I'm in here now. I'm going. And she said, did you not see the sign on the door? I'm looking for a sign, something that says we are closed or, you know, because I did have a sign that said we are closed due to the huge overreaction.

And I, I said, oh, I said, well, what were you, what am I looking at? She said, we don't open till 10. I said, my bladder doesn't care about that. You know, it doesn't have a timer on it.

It doesn't, can't read time. It just needs to be emptied when it needs to be emptied. And she said, oh, we don't open till 10.

I said, what's the time now? She went into her office and she came back and she said, it's 10 to 10. I said, well, it's only 10 minutes, isn't it? Besides the door was open. It wasn't, I pushed it open, but it was unlocked.

And she said, yeah, but it was closed. I said, yeah, but it's always closed. You know, it's not one of the doors, it's always open.

You push that open to get in and hope you don't catch anything. So I just, I said, can I use your toilet, please? I thought, I'll just pretend to be nice. So do you mind if I use the toilet? I promise I won't poo everywhere.

And she said, oh, it was a real, it was a chore. It was a real, honestly, I mean, getting her to allow me to go to the toilet was hard work. I can't imagine what it'd be like if I needed her to give me one of the kidneys.

I mean, that'd be impossible. That'd be impossible. You know, she was that strict about, you know, urination.

I said, thank you. So I went to the toilet, came back out. I said, there was someone else with her and I said loudly, thanks for letting me have a piss.

And then this other woman, female, lady was there. And she said, where's your ferret? Now Andre was in the backpack. And I said, what do you mean where's the ferret? Where's the ferret? I said, don't tell me you can smell the ferret.

It's not that smelly that you can smell him without even seeing him. She said, no, I saw you earlier on walking down the street with him and I waved to you. Because you had him, you were holding him when he was walking up towards the chemist in a pharmacy.

I said, oh, okay. I thought she was making out that it was stinky. So I was getting, oh, because I've had that on the bus.

It's rare, but I've had it in the past. I rarely take him onto the bus, but I've had a couple of girls on there once going, what's that stink? What's that? I can't, can you smell it? Yeah, it's disgusting. Really making a big deal about it.

And then starting spraying perfume all over the place, you know, just, I felt like saying, you know what you can smell. I think it's the ferret you can smell. When you get home, you can check it.

I think it's you. But I didn't, because I probably would have got arrested for saying that. But it's just so annoying.

He's a little boy, isn't he? Can't help how he smells. And he's ironically, perfume comes from his species. The minks or whatever.

I forget what they're called. I don't care. But you know, it's the scent that they produce is what was, that's what created perfume.

So, you know, back in, you know, many, many, many years ago. So I was going to say, yeah, so she was nice. I said, oh, see you then.

So I got him out of his bag and showed her him. He said, oh, he's lovely. So cute.

I said, yeah, I know. He is. The other lady, she wasn't interested.

I think the fact that I used her toilet. I mean, she might have just cleaned it. It might have been her that had been cleaning.

And she just didn't like the idea that I just ruined her cleaning. I was really careful. I only urinated, only half of the urination was on the floor.

I got most of it in, you know, at least half of it into the bowl. Some of it on the lid, you know, just general stuff. And I'm thinking, well, keeps her in a job, doesn't it? So then I leave.

And I'm really surprised. So far, I've seen queues of people waiting to get into stores, queues. And the stores are already open at this point.

So queues of people waiting to get in. And one of the biggest queues was at Sports Direct or Sport Direct. And for those who don't know what it is, it's, it sells just sports stuff, but like clothing, footwear, underpants, you know, Y-fronts, and all that kind of stuff.

And it's fairly cheap, not all of it, but quite, it's quite a lot of fairly cheap stuff. And sort of special offer prices and stuff. And so yeah, they, massive queue, massive, like really never seen it before.

And it's a big store. It's quite a big store, not huge, but not like London size, but it's fairly big. And I don't know how they're monitoring how many people go in and distancing and stuff.

But I won't be going in there. Never, ever, ever, ever. Not while this is going on.

Nope. I'm not queuing. I can't think of one thing in the world that I would queue for.

Not really. I'd have to queue for medication if it came to it. But I could pay to get that delivered.

I don't know what else I would queue for. I suppose if I had to queue in the garage to go and get stuff or in the local shop, because I do have a limit of however many paid at a time. But man, I mean, even locally, there was a queue outside the butcher's of about four or five people.

I'm not queuing. I'm not queuing for sausages. No, there's a line.

That line in the sand is there. I'm not queuing for sausages. No.

No. And what other things? So there was those queues. I walk up to around the corner.

I'm holding Andre, let him down a little bit and walk a little bit on the grass and I'm holding him. And I walk past this craft shop, which I'd quite like to go into. But it's new.

It used to be a big vet's. I don't know if that's a big pet shop. And they used to sell loads of stuff.

It's really good. And I've got no idea why they closed. Because it's the best pet shop I've ever been in.

Brilliant. And the people worked in there were really cool. And, you know, they knew their stuff and they sold animals, but lots of fish.

And I don't know, I just really liked it, like going in there and stuff. One of the old proper old fashioned pet shops that you go in and that have a variety of different kind of stuff in there to look at. And so they closed, they knocked down the entire building, built another building in exactly the same place.

And now it's a hobby, some hobby shop thing that I'd like to go into. The queue, it was even longer than the queue for Sports Direct. Massive queue.

Social distancing, I don't think so. Social stupidity, maybe. Social dancing.

Honestly, it looked like a family gathering. It's like, just let everyone in. They're all standing together outside, let them all stand together inside.

You know, it's, I think some of them were enjoying it. I think it was a nice day, sunny, probably talking to each other. Maybe some of them knew each other, you know, sort of local people.

So I go up past there and I go to cross the road. I can't get across. Traffic, traffic, traffic.

No one's stopping for me. Even though I've got underwear in my arms, no one's stopping. Sometimes people like, if you've got a dog or a pram or something, people will stop and let you cross.

I couldn't get hold of a pram or a dog, so I bought a ferret instead. Eventually, I got across on the right side, but the traffic on the left-hand side was near a roundabout, and this fan like, sped up. Almost like it saw me and decided to speed up and aim at me.

So I sort of dodged that and eventually I got across. I think I shouted something out. You silly Billy.

So then now I'm walking towards the vets. I've got probably 20 minutes to get there. Plenty of time.

I walk past the place where I used to live. So I tell Andre about that. I said, yep, that's the evil house.

So then I walk on. I let him down a little bit every now and then just to, you know, play in the grass or whatever. And then I cross over and get to the vets.

And I'm there, I think, I think I was about seven minutes to spare. So I was there about 23 minutes past 10. The appointment was at half past 10.

It's really weird, even though it's Monday, it feels like more like a Wednesday or a Thursday because I've done more today in outside activities than I normally do in a week. And so I've also been out with my friend. We went all the way through the fields to where there's a pond and his dog was jumping in the pond and Andre was, he walked a part of the way by, you know, again, I was holding him most of the time.

But he loves being outside. And he went to sleep at one point. And so I'm a bit knackered, being out.

So I get to the vets, I phone them up. They don't answer the phone. There's a big sign on the door, front door.

If you have an appointment, you have to phone this number in order to speak to a receptionist. Again, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get into the building because they told me beforehand. So I can't complain about that.

Although I still do want to. There is a background sound downstairs. I think someone's moving a fridge freezer.

But as I said, if I stop every time there's sounds in the background, I'll never be able to make a recording. So that's just the way it is. And so I phone up, they didn't answer.

Phone up, you know, straight away, no answer. And I'm thinking, oh, this is a bit rubbish. And then I phone up again.

And they do answer. So that's good. Yeah, I've got an appointment 10.30 for my ferret.

And they asked me my name. Well, they asked me his name. And, you know, just to do the address and stuff.

And they said, we'll put you through to the vet. Hold on. Hold on a minute.

Put you through to the vet. And then a man comes through. At this point, the traffic's really started to get busy.

You know, it was quiet enough when I was talking to the receptionist and suddenly, and the traffic's getting busy and the vet says, so you're here with Andre? I said, yes, right. He says, so what's the problem? I said, right now the problem is I can't hear you. It's really noisy out here because it's the main road.

It's really busy. Loads of buses, cars. There's a busy supermarket just across the road.

It's an Audi. So it's very busy. Probably among the busiest roads in the whole of my area, the whole of, you know, the town.

And I said, I have to go into the alleyway to talk to you. He said, no, you can't go into the alleyway because apparently I had to stay at the front door to talk before I was allowed to go down to the alleyway into the back. And I said, I'm going into the alleyway.

I seem to be in that attitude today. I'm going to the toilet. I'm going into the alleyway because I can't hear you because I do have a bit of hearing issues.

And I think I was born with it or whatever, but I had an operation when I was seven and still my hearing isn't always great. And sometimes it's hard to concentrate. If there's a lot of background sound, I can't always focus on one particular sound.

So if I'm in a party or something, is trying to talk to one person, even though they're close enough for me to hear them, the background sound seems to just be too much of a distraction sometimes. I get that a little bit when I make recordings. Even though the background sound may not be particularly bothersome to the person listening, to me, I find it annoying and distracting sometimes.

Anyway, I said to him, yeah, I'm taking, I'm going into the alleyway because I can't hear you. And you're asking me about my boy and which is why I'm here. So there's no point in me talking to you if I can't hear you.

You know, just communicate. I didn't say all that, but that's what I was thinking. And he said, okay, if you go into the alleyway, I said, I'm going into the alleyway.

He gave me permission after I said I was going to do it anyway. He then gave me permission, which was very nice of him. So I went into the alleyway and I could hear him, because it was quite a little off the road from the road.

So I explained to him, Andre's leg was just stopped working. His back leg, probably about Wednesday. He is, I don't know if any injuries had, didn't see him have an injury.

Didn't, there's no reason for it that I can see. And, and, you know, and that's it. So it's all I, it's the only information I have.

He said how his appetite and I said, it's fine. Everything else, his appetite, his vigor for life, his excitement to go for walks, his appetite for his slipper, everything else is exactly the same as far as I can see, other than his ability to move around. It just takes him longer, but he still gets where he wants to go.

And that's what I knew. So that's what I told him. And he said to me, okay, well, if you go to the end of the alleyway, on the right hand side, there's, there's a ramp or whatever it is, there's a blue container.

If you place your, the cage or the carrier that Andre's in, in or on top of the blue container, and then step back away, and then I'll come out and collect him. And I was thinking, it's like some kind of hostage situation, isn't it? You know, where people, they've both got one person each night, they swap hostages, you can have this hostage and I'll have that hostage or, or maybe money. You know, you can, we'll take some hostage for money, but you put the money down on the floor.

Yeah, but you put the person, make sure I can see the person, you leave him there. And you know, that kind of situation, like from the movies. But in this case, it was a ferret.

And I packed him in a bag, and I put him down, and the blood didn't come out for about 10 minutes. So Andre's just in this bag on his own, not knowing probably what's going on. Because the whole time I've had him in the bag, I've been there with him, but, you know, stroking him or touching him through the bag, just so he knows I'm there.

So I don't know what he was doing. But anyway, he came out. And then they, he took him inside.

And they said, we'll call you, or I'll call you, whatever, when I've examined him. Now, I didn't realize my phone was on do not disturb. Because it is quite often I just didn't realize because I'd purposely put my phone on loud.

So that if I was called, I'd hear it ring. And I put on do not disturb. In fact, right now, it's the opposite.

I, I've got my phone. I usually have it on do not disturb when I make recordings. Now it's on ring.

But I've got the volume down. So it shouldn't. If someone did ring me, it shouldn't sort of ring.

Ring, ring, ring, ring. So I'm waiting outside. My little boy's in there on his own with this man he's never met.

And I know he's a vet, he's professional, he's a doctor, isn't he really? And I know he's in safe hands, but still, you know, I wanted to be there with him. And then he came out and he said, the vet came out pretty, 10 minutes later, he said, well, there's no, he hasn't broken his leg. It's not dislocated.

He asked me what I fed him. And I said, I don't feed him. I don't only feed him once a month.

He said, what? I said, yeah, just once a month. He said, oh, that's, that's okay then. He said, really? I said, no.

And he said, have you, he said, basically it might be nerve damage, but the only way he can tell if it's nerve damage is by giving him an x-ray. I said, so you can do that now then? Or I found have you done that? They don't just do it. He said, no.

He will need to stay in and also needs to be anesthetized in order to do the x-ray. So basically, he'd have to be anesthetized because he's a wiggler. And so he won't, he won't be able to sit still long enough.

However, as I proved on my video the other day, I know how to get him to sit still and lay there and not move. Because I kind of do a bit, I hypnotize him a little bit, but I'm not allowed to be there, am I? So they'd have to do that. And he'd have to keep him in because he's so busy.

He'd pretty much do it in between seeing other pets. And I said, well, I don't want to leave him on his own. And I'd say, come on.

Basically, it turned out, it turns out that I had to pay £39.40, something like that, for the consultation today for him to be examined. For him to have an x-ray, it's going to cost at least £120 extra. That's sort of the minimum.

I mean, they do an estimate. They don't even give you an exact price, an estimate, £120. And that includes the anaesthesia and the, I hope it does, and the x-ray.

And then any treatment afterwards, then that's on top, of course. Whether they charge more to keep him in while it's being done, I don't know. Parking costs, I don't know if they call it that.

So I said, yeah, I'll take him home because they weren't going to let me take him until I'd paid. So I had the money. I paid the £39 whatever.

I didn't have a hundred. I mean, that would have been nearly £170, wouldn't it? Is that right? £120, £30, £40, £50, £60. Yeah, nearly £170 if it was the £120 on top.

So, and the £40, the £39 whatever was all I had anyway. So I paid that and I brought him home. And I have to do the x-ray.

Unless he miraculously recovers in the next few days, if it's a trapped nerve, maybe it will become untrapped. I was thought about maybe putting him in the bath and giving him a little swim, even though he hates the water. So maybe if I got in the bath with him, like a warm temperature, and maybe if he swam, he could get a bit of movement.

If I give him a massage and stuff, perhaps that could get a bit of movement. I don't know. But it looks like I'm going to have to do the x-ray, get the x-ray done, which means it will be in a couple of weeks, I guess.

It's just the idea of I've got to go all the way back there as well. Forgetting the money part, it's just going all the way there, going through the whole process again, but this time having to leave him there and then come back either later in the day or the day after. And I've never been without him.

It's really weird. And I'm thinking maybe it's not so much that I'm worried about him not being with me. I think it might be the other way around, that I'm not used to him not being here.

And I'm sure that he'd miss me, and it'd be horrible, but in a way, he'd probably just fall asleep. Eventually, he'd be scratching at the cage to get out, and then eventually he'd fall asleep. And I've no doubt the people that work in the vets would be giving lots of attention, because he is classed as an exotic animal.

So it's probably, in some ways, it's probably quite nice for the vets to have an animal other than a cow or a dog, because that would be the standard, wouldn't it? But I'm sure they get rabbits and penguins and the odd giraffe. So it's pretty nice. The old cages, they must be.

Those penguins are quite big, aren't they? They stand on each other's shoulders, apparently. I don't know if it's true. I'll just make that up.

So I brought him home. I went to the, yeah, I went to the shop on the way back, because there was a shop just up the road, crossed over, and then wait for the bus. I think three buses went past, and then my one came.

Got on there, got home fairly quickly. Couldn't believe again, the queues, the queue for the hobby place was even longer than it was before. And then going past, I didn't look at the Sports Direct queue, but the queue outside of, I think, PC World and this discount store, massive.

But what's going on? Anyway, I'm going to go, because there's a lot of noise downstairs, and it's just too noisy. I hear people shouting. So thank you for listening.

Take care of yourselves. Remember to be kind to yourself, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye.