(music) Whisper Wednesday | LMBYTS #1387 | Jason Newland | 2nd July 2025

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Whisper Wednesday. Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

And Vinnie has just awoken at 7 in the morning on I think Wednesday the 2nd of July 2025. I've just heard his ears flap. However, he's not come in here yet, so I don't know.

I just flushed the toilet so maybe that disrupted his sleep. Anyway, only listen when you can safely close your eyes. It's quite warm already.

It's supposed to be, well, according to people that told me there should be some rain today. But it looks like it's going to be, if it does rain, it's going to be a warm rainy day. So I'm off to see Uncle Sausages again, my neighbor Uncle Sausages.

That's what Vinnie calls him. I saw him Monday, Tuesday, so I'm seeing him today. I'll probably see him tomorrow and Friday as well.

I was hoping to try and just see him on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but kind of needs me to visit a bit more often. So I'll continue to do that with the hope that maybe he'll be able to go home or come home. Because he lives opposite me.

But I really don't know, I genuinely have zero idea if he'll be allowed to come home. Well, when I say allowed, of course, he can do what he wants. He's mobile, so he can physically leave if he wanted to.

But that possibly wouldn't be a good idea. I don't know if you can hear that, Vinnie's just climbed onto the sofa with me. After chasing a fly for a little bit.

Now Vinnie is going to stay with a neighbor. So quarter to nine, I'm going to take him to a neighbor for him to stay there for the day, well for a few hours. And then I've got a taxi booked for between 9 and 9.15 to go to the hospital.

And Uncle Sausages has got, did you hear him making weird noises? Stop it. Uncle Sausages is having a doctor come round to tell him, hopefully, some kind of treatment plan. Because he's in limbo at the moment, he's not really sure what's going on.

So, this has been in there since Friday last week, or the week before last. So, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So this is the 13th day he's been there.

And other than giving him medication to reduce the ammonia in his blood to stop him from being so yellow, or cerebellum, or whatever they call it, it's, I don't think he's on any other medication, and he said he's stopped having that drink as well, so he's not stopped having that medication. Constantly getting monitored, constant blood tests, he's not, he's not wired up to any kind of machine or anything to check his vitals, so, you know, they do come round and do his blood pressure, and stuff like that.

He was on a trip for a short while before his full body scan, because he was nil by mouth, so it was so hot they had to get liquid into his body.

Hey, don't be barking Vinnie, don't be barking, it's too early, there's someone in the garden. I hope that's not the builders. That's way too early for them to be coming here and climbing on the roof.

Seven in the morning. Ooh, I tell you, yesterday I heard one of the builders, basically, scaffolding outside my, well, outside my windows, which leads to the roof. I didn't realise until I got home yesterday afternoon, I can't open my windows.

The scaffolding's so close to my windows, I can't actually open them. I can put them on a latch, you know, so they're open, kind of a crack, but I can't open them up to let any air in. Wrong time of the year for that, wow.

So it's a bit of a sweatbox in here. In the bedroom, I can open the top window, so I don't know how they managed to do it, but the living room can't open any of the windows. So I'm hoping that they'll be finished fairly quickly.

Because, I don't know, just, I don't want to be sitting in here not being able to open the windows. I open the windows in the winter, all year round my windows are open, and now I can't open them. I think I might have talked enough about not being able to open my windows.

I'm not really sure what else to add. So yeah, Finn, he's going to stay with a neighbour, and then I'm, I'll head up to the hospital in a taxi, so I've got that booked, couldn't get an earlier taxi, because there's, it's the school run, it's, so there's no, no taxis between pretty much seven and nine. And there was no reason, I couldn't go there too early, because I'd be waiting around for hours and hours, and getting there at seven is a little bit too early, because they're all getting ready, and the nurses are going around, and I'm kind of in the way a little bit.

And they're having their breakfast, and yeah, I think the, I have got there around eight, just after eight before, that was a one, one off time, and that was a bit too early. But that was just because one of my neighbours gave me a lift, and he left at half seven, dropped off his daughter at school, and his wife at work, and then dropped me off at the hospital.

So by the time I got to the ward, it was about quarter past eight, maybe a little bit later.

But it was still a bit too early. I think anything before nine is a little bit, you know, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, there is the visiting hours are eleven o'clock onwards in that ward, so I shouldn't really even be in there before eleven o'clock, but no one says anything to me. And I think, that was weird, I think I just spoke through my nose then, I could hear my nasal cavities, that was weird.

I think in a ward like that, visiting hours don't really seem to apply so much. You know, if it was a ward for people with broken bones, or people that have their appendix out, things like that, basic, quite simple, I don't know, normal operations where the person's going to be fine and recover normally like, you know, then I suppose the visiting hours are a bit more strict.

But here, in the kind of ward that Uncle Sausage's is in, it's, they're more flexible.

I feel like I've got to know some of the staff now, because I've been in there nearly every day since he got in. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so this will be the 11th day that I've gone in there. I did have the weekend off last weekend, Friday and, no, Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday's pretty much a no-go, unless I get a taxi, I can't get in there. And I have tried to get the buses when I can. I might attempt to get the bus back, you know, two taxis a day is way too expensive.

Although I have asked, I called up Universal Credit yesterday to see about getting an advanced payment and they said, what's it for? I said, taxis, baby, it's for taxis. And she said, what do you mean? I said, okay, it's, they kind of like, they take you to places, phone them up and they come and pick you up. I know what taxis means, but what, what do you, why, why are you getting, why, why are you getting so many taxis?

And I said, it's because of Uncle Sausages.

And she said, oh, okay. And then the phone cut off. And I thought, oh, she'll call me back.

She didn't, didn't call me back. And the reason I didn't phone back is because firstly, I'd already been on the phone for way too long, waiting, you know. Secondly, the chances of me getting the same person is practically non-existent.

So I'd have to go through the whole thing again. So what I did is I went online and I left a, they call it like a journal entry where I just typed in that I'd spoke to someone. They hadn't left a note or anything on the system, which is, I don't know if that's just the way they are, but I was always told when I worked in a call center, which basically was what they're doing, isn't it?

When you walk, when you work in a call center and a customer phones up, put down why they called, when they called, why they called and what the outcome of the call was.

You know, even if it's a case of, oh, customer called, wanted to speak to renewals, transferred them to renewals, you know, just something like that, just to keep a track. It's just good, good customer service. I would argue, I wouldn't argue, but I would say, but I don't know if they're going to respond.

It seemed really weird because it says, if you want to an advanced payment, click here, and I clicked, and I just, a big writing came on the screen saying, no way, go away, you're not having nothing. No, I didn't. It said, there was like a drop down list of things, and not one of them was advanced payments.

I think the way they work it out, if you do get one, is you pay 10% back over the year. So for 10 months. So if you borrow, I guess, 300 pound, you pay 30 pound a month back for 10 months.

So just say, I don't know if they're going to get back to me, but I kind of need to plan ahead a bit now, because I don't know how long Uncle Sausage is going to be in there. And I've already gone through my life savings, getting backward and forward over the last 10 days. So now I kind of have to be a bit strategic.

So yeah, that's my planned day today. Get there, hopefully, I can sit with him while the doctor talks to him and tells him how they're hoping to proceed medically. And that way, I can have more of an understanding.

And perhaps I can explain it better to Uncle Sausage, because he doesn't always, and this is not criticism, I don't think he understands always what they're saying to him. And I think part of that is, is overwhelmed. Huge part of it is he's overwhelmed.

And you can't blame him. You know, he's never been in hospital before, never been unwell before in his life. Doesn't even have a doctor.

He's not registered with a doctor surgery. He's 78 years nearly, and he's been tip top health. So this is, I don't think he, I don't think anyone in that situation could really fully grasp what's going on.

And it's a very confusing time. I find it confusing. It's yeah, mind you, I find a lot of things confusing.

I can't think of anything offhand, but there's sure there are some stuff. So that's my plan. Yesterday, I went, I wasn't going to go, actually.

I went Monday. I told him that I was going to visit Wednesday, but I'd give him a call Tuesday. I called him and he said he'd seen a doctor, and he wasn't very happy.

And I said, do you want me to come? Would you want me to come in? And he said, that's something only you can decide. So I thought that was a yes, wasn't it? And also he was a bit, he felt a bit lonely because his, his neighbor, the man in the bed next to him had left. So he'd spent, spent a week with this man.

They got to know each other quite well. And suddenly he had no one to talk to. So it's kind of a little bit, I think he felt a little bit lonely.

Although he does have tennis on the TV now, so that's, that's bright, has perked him up a little bit. For the first week, he didn't watch any television. And I kept saying, why don't you stick the TV on? Just have it in the background.

Don't even have to have the sound up. There's so, there's plenty of sports on normal TV, especially the weekend. But he said, no, no, no, no, no.

And when I did eventually just turn it on a couple of days ago, I think Monday, he was really surprised at how good the picture was. And Wimbledon had just started the week, that's tennis, just started on Monday. And I think it's, I think it's a pleasant distraction.

So when I visited him yesterday, he was half asleep. But he was listening to because I got to him probably about, I left here at midday. So I got there probably 20 to 1, half 12, 20 to 1. He was half asleep, but he was listening to the, to the tennis.

So I think for him, listening to sport, or some kind of sporting activity, whether it's football, rugby, cricket, tennis, it relaxes him. And it feels nice. And I just, I just stood there and stared at him for a while.

Made him jump when he looked up. It was worth it. I think he was surprised to see me, even though I did tell him I was on my way.

He seems to be talking a lot quieter as well. And slower. I don't know quite why that is.

He didn't want to go out yesterday. So that's the first time that he didn't want to go out for a walk into the, you know, go out into the sunshine. I thought I did manage to get him what he's been craving for a few days.

That's ice. And when I say ice, I'm talking about ice, ice, not, not ice as in removing people that have lived here their whole lives. I'm talking about ice as in frozen water.

So, he was on about, well, I've got to get some water, I've got to get some water, frozen, frozen water. I said, do you mean ice? He said, yeah, frozen water. And I said, well, I can get you some of that.

He said, we need to get a flask, a flask. I said, why? He said, because I keep the ice frozen for longer. Then I thought to myself, well, I don't have a flask.

I can't be trusted with flasks. That sounds strange, doesn't it? But I don't think I've ever had a flask where I didn't break it. I don't know why, I just have a habit of dropping flasks and breaking the inside bit, or the glass bit inside.

Although it's been a little while, I think the last time I had a flask was 2005, probably, 2004, 2005. Yeah, maybe later, maybe. It's been a while.

So, what I did is, I said to him, you know, you can just get a cold drink from Costa. I'll get you a bowl of coke, and it'll be cold, it'll be in the fridge. So, I did that the day before.

And then he said, what if I want some ice? I was just pleased he'd stopped saying frozen water. So, you want some ice? He said, yeah, I want some ice. So, what I did is, I went downstairs, got him another bottle of coke from Costa.

I got him from the big, because there's a big Costa, well, a larger Costa with seats. And there's a smaller Costa, which is closer to his ward, with no seats. It's just a takeaway.

So, I go into the larger Costa, I get myself a bottle of Fanta, I get him a bottle of coke, and I get myself a chocolate brownie, because I'm worth it. And I then walk up to the other Costa, and there's a customer there at the till. And the man serving hands back to me, and he was doing, I don't know, making a coffee, I suppose.

So, I'm kind of hovering behind the lady who's being served. And then another lady comes in. And there's this, there is like a place where you queue.

And she said, are you being served, or are you queuing? I said, I am, I'm not being served. But I'm not really queuing. But I am queuing.

But I'm not really queuing. And she said to me, what do you mean? I said, well, if I can't queue there, the man who's got his back face to us might think that I'm, that I've just got the items out of the fridge, and try and charge me for this stuff. But I've already bought it at the other Costa.

And she said, okay, why are you waiting here then? I said, I'm gonna see if I can get some ice. She said, I see. I said, yeah.

Ice. I thought she might correct me by saying frozen water, but she didn't. That was good.

Frozen, broken water. I personally don't drink ice. I never have ice ever.

Because ice, it's tap water. I don't drink tap water. So I don't, I never have ice in anything.

Apart from when I do. But generally no. I'm not saying I've never had ice, because I have.

And if I reckon in this weather, I probably would have ice. If I was, if I was sitting outside a pub, for example, I might have ice in a glass because of the heat. But generally, I don't have ice.

But the ice wasn't for me anyway. And the man turns around. He finishes serving the lady that was already there.

So it's just me and the other lady who's waiting in a queue. So I'm standing in the queue now. And he said, anything else? And I said, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.

He said, what do you mean, wait? I said, wait a second. I just need to just explain. He said, no, you wait.

I said, what? He said, I don't know. I just, I'm not really sure what's going on. I said, it's fine.

These two bottles, the Fanta and the Coke, I've already purchased them from the other Costa up there. He said, OK, you look very confused. He said, what about the chocolate brownie? I said, that's in my pocket.

You can't even see it. He said, oh, fair enough. And he said, well, how can I help? I said, I was wondering, just wondering, say no if you like.

He said, I will say no if I like. I've got complete control over what I say. I said, OK, I guess you should.

He just, you know, I'm just asking, is there any chance I can get some ice in a cup? And he looked at me and I said, that's the end of the sentence. There was nothing else. That was it.

Can I get some ice in a cup, please? I don't know what else he expected me to say. Did he expect a song? I don't know. Pull out a piece of paper and start reciting poetry.

I don't know what he expected. And he said, sure. So he went and got some ice.

And I said, it's for a patient. I think I said it's for a customer. Then I realised that hospitals don't, they call them patients, not customers, don't they? I suppose customers would be a private hospital, wouldn't it? They'd call them customers.

And he said, fine. Do you think it's weird, right? Do you know when you see someone every day, but you don't know them? You don't know anything about them. And that's what is going on with this bloke in Costa.

I've seen him nearly every day for the last two weeks, nearly. Well, yeah, it's nearly, getting on to two weeks. And I feel like I know him a little bit.

I don't, I don't know anything about him. But I just, it's weird. And it's a little bit like people in the street that I've seen for years and years, heading towards work, walking through the park, getting ready in their bathroom.

I mean, okay, obviously that involves climbing a tree, but I can't, I'm just seeing people doing things that are normal. And I kind of feel like I know them a bit. But I don't, I don't know who they are.

I don't know anything about them. I noticed that when I was going to work on a bus and I started to nod to people because it was the same people, the same time every day, almost felt like I knew them. And I remember saying to someone once, like, after about six months of doing this, I said to her, you know what, I feel like I know you now, seeing you every day on the bus.

She said, yeah, you should do, I work at your place. I literally sit opposite you on the desk. I said, oh, I thought you looked familiar.

You just look different. You look different when you're at the desk than what you do when you're outside. She said, I know because I'm wearing a coat now.

And she, it's kind of strange without being rude. She used to wear a Kim costume at work. No one knew why, but it didn't seem, it didn't seem to affect her work because she was on the phones so no one could see her.

When the management came round, you know, from the head office, she was just like all the weird people that dressed a bit strange or like, or acted a bit weird were put into like a room just hidden away. I looked forward to those days because it was a nice break from working. Me and those other people would just sit around chatting and never got round to asking her about the Kim costume.

But the bloke dressed as a pirate, he was, he was interesting. He was, he was just a big fan of pirate movies. He said he's always wanted to be Kirk Douglas.

And I said, okay. It's hard to follow that up really, isn't it? If someone just comes out with that whole, in case anyone's wondering the reason why I wear a pirate costume to work. Actually, he said pirate uniform.

The reason I wear this pirate uniform is because I'm a big fan of Kirk Douglas when he was in pirate movies in the 1950s. It's hard to have a follow up question. What's your favourite dessert? It just doesn't fit, does it? Oh, dessert.

What's that dessert that doesn't, people don't eat anymore? Angel delight. There was this dessert, I don't know if it's, it might still get sold, but it was one of my favourite desserts. So it's kind of like, let's see, it looked like custard.

It wasn't custard, because I cannot stand custard. It wasn't custard, but it was cold. Strawberry, chocolate, banana flavoured.

There might have been different flavours, but they're the ones that I remember. And it was this powder which you put in, and I don't know if you mix it with milk and just use a, like a, what do they call it, a mixing thing, which makes it all fluffy. Not a drill, a whisk, whisk.

So yeah, and it makes it all fluffy and bubbly and oh, yum, yum, yum, yum. And my step mum used to make knickerbocker glories. Be careful how quickly you say that word.

Knickerbocker glory, which is, if you don't know what it is, it's in a big, long, quite high glass dish. I think it's basically, do they use the same thing for Sundays as well? Not on Sundays, but like, or is that a long dish? I don't know. Anyway, so what she used to do is she'd put in different levels of stuff.

So there'd be some ice cream, there'd be some fruit, there'd be some angel delight, maybe some whipped cream at the top. There'd be some, uh, what, those, those fingers, they're not bread, but oh wow, I can't even remember what they were called. I used to love them because they would melt in your mouth.

Wow, what was it called? I'm sure it was something fingers and they were kind of pastry-ish and they had a bit of sugar on top. And I think what she used to do is either just stick them in so they melted or crumbled them up and, you know, made little toppings, kind of, or breadcrumbs as well. And yeah, it was sugar and it was lovely, amazing, possibly a flake at the top.

Oh, it was glorious. And then these big long spoons with a tiny little, a tiny little kind of spoon thing at the end. So big long handle.

Probably quite good for helping with constipation, I imagine, but let's not focus on that. So with very long handles, you can really get into the, the hard to reach places, which is like, I always found right at the bottom of the dish. There was one bit that seemed to just be very hard to get to, and then maybe be a bit of ice cream or a bit of chocolate or something just right in there.

And I'd dig in, really dig from different angles until I got to it. I never quit. When it comes to chocolate, I never quit.

Oh, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. And also trifles. We didn't have custard on our trifles we had.

Angel did I. The reason for that is because custard is horrible. I didn't like custard. I would not eat, I would never ever eat custard ever.

Not going to happen. And that's just not going to happen ever. So this is one of those things I don't like.

So we used to have, I think because I was so anti custard, maybe my brothers also didn't like custard. So my step mum would just figure a way around it. So we used Angel Delight instead on top and some cream.

Lovely it was. Oh, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. So I'm thinking, why am I talking about Angel Delight? I don't know why, but I'm not sure if they sell it anymore in the shops.

Because I think it's one of those things that possibly wasn't nutritionally the most beneficial um, edible product in the world. But it was yummy. So yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy, yummy.

Another thing I used to like to eat is Viennetta ice cream. Again, I don't know if it's still around. And another, I didn't understand why it's not the most popular ice cream in the world.

Because it's layered again, kind of like a lasagna or a trifle. They say trifle. It's just a dessert version of a lasagna, isn't it? And I learned to make lasagnas.

I did, I learned when I was a school boy, I learned on a more industrial level when I worked in a canteen in a bakery. So there's hundreds of people being served and I made this massive uh, lasagnas and my boss, who is the chef, he was doing all that stuff and I said, why don't you teach me how you do it? You know, because it's very different making a little lasagna to making a massive lasagna.

It's just a little bit, but I don't know, it's a different kind of process.

So in the end, he taught me to do it so he didn't have to do it. I just thought that made sense. It gave me something to do, a bit more interesting.

And so he got me, when it was lasagna day, I would always do the lasagna. I'd do the whole thing, maybe two or three of them. And he could just stand chill out.

I think I felt quite proud because they did come out nice. And he went, because he was a trained chef, he went through the whole thing with me and step by step. I felt quite accomplished actually, because people liked the lasagnas, they were popular.

And I think we did a vegetarian version. There was a lot of people there, it wasn't so much that they were vegetarian, but they could only eat meat, like halal meat and stuff like that, which the kitchen didn't provide. The canteen didn't provide, so what they would do instead is maybe have a vegetarian version.

So they were quite popular as well. What I did though, is to make the lasagnas taste a bit nicer. With the vegetarian ones, I just sprinkle a little bit of meat in there as well, just to add a little bit of taste, a little bit of pork.

So I think that was, they were popular. I didn't, I really didn't. Wow.

Even now, 34 years later, I still wouldn't, I still gonna say I was joking. I would not ever do that. Wow.

No, no, no. You fed them pork and they didn't think they were eating any meat at all. I don't, I'm not sure there was even one vegetarian there at all.

Like vegetarian, vegetarian, but the vegetarian or meat or the vegetarian meals were a substitute for, because of religious issues or religious beliefs or whatever. Those pork grindings really went down the tree. It just shows you if you don't know.

I was, I still find it, I didn't do that by the way, I'm just joking. I still find it funny though, the amount of people, not even necessary religious, of any persuasion would say, don't eat pork, it's a dirty animal. Name a clean one.

Where is there a clean animal? Just name one. I mean, my little, the love of my life right now, Vinnie, he's a dirty little bugger. You know, humans are dirty.

He was just, there's no clean animal. I'm technically clean for maybe five minutes after I've had a shower and then I fart, you know. Oh dear.

Oh, there's a bit of activity downstairs, so I'm just waiting to see if Vinnie's going to start barking or not. It's quarter to eight in the morning. I've got one hour until I need to take Vinnie over to see the neighbors.

And they've got a little dog there till about midday. So he's happy running around with the other dog, who he likes. And then I'm hoping I can get back by two o'clock at the latest.

Yeah, yeah, I did it. There's a lot of shouting outside. That's weird.

It's a bit early for that. I just heard someone go, What's that about? I don't know. Oh yeah, the, I just love Angel Delight.

I used to. I doubt the, um, what was that ice cream I was talking about? It was basically, well, they did a mint version and possibly, yeah, different versions. But the one I liked was just vanilla ice cream with, it was bits of chocolate, like, I don't know how to explain it.

Viennese ice cream. For those that don't know, it's like a big, long oblong kind of block that came on a tray, a brown tray, I think, wrapped in plastic, white, you know, just like ice cream, you know, frozen kind of plastic. And then inside a box with Viennetta on the side and a picture of it.

And I really liked it as a kid and I used to eat it. I've had it as an adult. I don't know if it's still produced because I've not had any for a while.

I just like the layout. Chocolate, ice cream, then chocolate. And it's like these little, little flakes.

I don't know how to explain it, but it's nice anyway. There was a time when I was about 16 living in a flat above the chip shop and I had such little money. I would sometimes spend all my money, which would be maybe a pound, on some ice cream, Viennetta ice cream, and possibly, thinking about it, possibly a, what would I have with it? What is that, what are they called?

Like the, the, not syrup, maybe syrup, not sponges, but like pie.

Oh, I can't think what they call it. It's like pastry and then there's sort of syrupy stuff at the top, which is very sticky and thick. Oh, the name of it's gone out of my head, but I used to heat that up and then have that with the ice cream.

And that was my dinner. That was my lunch. And I feel so full, but not in a good way.

Because I needed food, proper food, not just sugar. Probably wasn't my best decision ever. And there was a time when I used to have, yeah, when I was in the chip shop, I got a part-time job cleaning before work.

I needed to try and get some money. And I used to get home, I used to work from 6.30 to 8.30 and then I'd start work at nine. So I'd go home, it's only a five minute walk, get home, have some Corn Flakes, have a can of Coke, would you believe? I mean, I've not done that since that time.

A can of Coke with my Corn Flakes. It's a weird mix. And I'd watch breakfast TV for like 15 minutes.

Then I'd go downstairs and start working. And I think my boss told me I had to quit my morning job because I was working too many hours. It made me too tired.

I was like, yeah, but I need the money, baby. And it wasn't much, it's probably 15 pound a week, maybe. I mean, probably what? Two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 12 hours.

So Monday to Saturday, 12 hours a week. And yeah, maybe 15 to one pound, 15 hour probably. So 20 pound a week, maybe 18 pound a week, which would really make a difference to my lifestyle.

But it was quite tiring, you know, waking up at six in the morning. Yeah. Back then, I wasn't a big fan of early starts.

I really, really, really, really wasn't. I mean, really, I was not a big fan of starting up, getting up early. It was a constant struggle for me.

And now I wake up at four or five every day in the morning. I don't know what that noise is. Someone's making noise in the garden.

So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself.

You deserve to feel safe. Lots of love. Bye.