V. E. Day for Hens! Sniffing Tomatoes! Kidney Stones!
A News Briefing from May 2025
HELLO!
Well, there was no May News Briefing last week as promised or even a JOY PARADE for that matter and I’m really very sorry about that.
The End-of-May post was MEANT (in a large way) to be about gardening, of which I have been thinking a lot - and we will get to those green-thumbed musings shortly, but first I have to tell you about something else:
!!KIDNEY STONES!!
I woke up last Saturday morning, full of the joys of S, swept down the stairs in my pjs ready to click-clack away like a stenographer writing to you all when - WHACK! - I collapsed! Before I knew it I was zipping along to the hospital in the back of an ambulance up to my eyebrows in morphine and sucking on gas and air like Alice’s Caterpillar on his hookah.
Gosh- the pain! I’ve never experienced anything like it. The sort of thing that makes you want to reach into your mouth, down into your stomach, grasp your belly button from the back and turn yourself inside out. Just a constant, inescapable pain like someone prodding you with a red hot fire iron except the person prodding you is your own kidney.
Terrible! Terrible! TERRIBLE! Would NOT reco.
BUT…
One thing I have decided to do this year is to attempt to take Trying Situations (and there have been several) and find them INTERESTING. Often easier said than done, but I think there is something to this reframing devise. I’m a naturally curious person -bit of an old nosy parker - so finding things INTERESTING does come easily to me, even when rolling around on the floor in agony.
So here a few things I found INTERESTING during my 12 hours of going to and staying in the hospital:
1. Without The Case of The Kidney Stones, I wouldn’t have met J and A the paramedics. A was tall and almost vibrating with action and decisiveness. I liked his Yorkshire accent and firm eyebrows. J was shorter with tight curly hair and kind eyes twinkling behind his specs. He explained everything so beautifully and calmly that despite feeling like my kidney was taking a hacksaw to my abdomen I felt in very safe hands. Both J and A liked dogs which was lucky because my puppy, Elvis Potato, flirted outrageously with them.
2. In the admissions bit at the hospital I was very taken with the woman who said matter-of-factly to a nurse “Now, I’ve had a mini stroke but what I’d really like is cheese sandwich…”
3. As someone who is circus clown level of clumsy at all times, I found it extraordinary how deft all the nurses were at doing fiddly jobs like blood tests and popping in cannulas and whipping through observational tests speedily all whilst keeping up a flow of conversation. I was in too much pain at the time to remember what most of those conversations were about only that they were upbeat, gentle and very soothing.
4. Awful lot of clipboards in a hospital. Nurses kept whipping them out like rabbits from a magician’s hat.
5. Mid afternoon the tea trolley came around. I couldn’t face anything at the time but I was fascinated by the man in charge of the municipal tea urn. He was about 18ft tall with a moustache so sharply and neatly trimmed and sculpted I wondered if it was made from plastic.
6. When I was wheeled off for my scan, the porter (bright smile, claret coloured polo shirt) pushing me explained, “I’m not a doctor, but I am like an Uber driver but for wheelchairs and I’ll try to make this a five star journey.” which he did. Marvellous!
7. Talking of the scan: the position I was asked to get into for it was like something from a Bettie Page photoshoot.
8. Morphine is delicious and I have never enjoyed a cat nap more than the half an hour after it was administered where I lay in a dimly lit bay listening to the gentle beep of a blood pressure monitor. In the distance I could hear a vague conversation about what sandwiches were available. (Tuna, cheese, egg).
9. For the final few hours of my stay I was looked after by Nurse S who I now worship like a god. Here is a picture of her from memory. She is having a baby in November, called me “Luv” a lot, and deserves every medal, award and trophy going.
10. By nearly midnight I was feeling well enough to sit up. At this point Nurse H swung into action and made me some hot buttered toast. Nothing has ever tasted or will ever taste as good as that Almost Midnight Hospital Toast. And then when Nurse C (lovely tattoo of a bouquet of wild flowers on her wrist) appeared with hot, sweet tea and a packet of digestive biscuits I could have wept. That tea? NECTAR!
11. Whilst I waited to be discharged I made friends with an elderly woman who was waiting for some antibiotics. She was terrific fun! She’s been there a long time and has already used her sewing kit (“Never leave home without it…”) to fix something of her daughter’s AND a rip in a nurse’s tunic and was asking around for anything else that needed mending. Then she had a cup of tea, drew on a sketchbook app on her iPhone and made me promise to look after myself. As I was leaving, her daughter was downloading a new game for them both to play on their phones whilst they waited on the pharmacist. I think it was Sonic the Hedgehog…
Just to get bit Vera L for moment: the NHS is extraordinary and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bumhead. The kindness, care, good humour and gentleness of every member of staff was just incredible and I will forever be grateful to them for looking after me so well.
Also, this shouldn’t be a thing but unfortunately it does need saying: 99% of the staff who treated me had come to the UK from somewhere else. Moving somewhere should never be about what skills you have - we are all just people- but I couldn’t be more thankful to the truly global team who looked after me when I was in such terrible pain, vulnerable and feeling a bit wobbly of confidence. I’m so glad that each of them came to this silly island bringing so much kindness with them packed in their suitcases.
I’m feeling a lot better now thanks to them all and have been recovering gently at home this week surrounded by dogs as shown in this candid, unposed photo of me from the other morning…
Now, shall we get on with the May News Briefing properly? Yes, let’s!
HOUSE & GARDEN
Other than that last bit of drama, May has been a good and pleasing month with all the important things happening - peonies everywhere, a great billowing fog of cow parsley in the lane, Ox-Eye D’s popping up all over and on the whole it’s been lovely outside - real Princess-Diana-Going-To-The-Gym weather.
If April’s News Briefing was about cooking, this month it’s been all about the garden. Not that the oven hasn’t been on! B, who is my Middle Neph’s girlfriend, turned 17 so we had a party and I made a cake. THIS cake:
This was a proper Victoria S with strawbs and edible flowers. I think it tasted ok. I’m not sure though because the candles were hardly blown out before everyone fell on it like a pack of velociraptors and I didn’t get a crumb. Gannets!
But the garden! This has been my main concern this month. I’ve gone mad planting and repotting and sorting and plotting.
My potting bench is an old door rescued from when my neighbours had an outhouse demolished. It’s a crackled old thing hoiked up on some wallpaper table legs, and all month it’s been in almost constant use. I’ve been like Lucille Ball in that episode of I Love Lucy with the chocolates, except I’ve not been stuffing my face, just madly repotting geraniums, pelargoniums, cosmos (lovely, slightly fennelly-type foliage) and anything that looks a bit daisy-ish plus lots more besides.
Like, for example these gorgeous packets I bought during my recent jaunt to Harrogate.
And I’m delighted with this pot:
I wanted it to have the slight feel of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose about it- especially at twilight which I think it does. THRILLING!
Whilst pottering about outside this month I’ve thought a lot about my grandad, George. Heritage wise I’m really a mixed bag- my grandparents were Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English. George was my Scottish grandad. He loathed having his photo taken so we only have a few pictures of him. Here, instead, is a picture I drew of him this week.
George was wiry with a mop of thick white hair and a stubbly chin. He felt the cold terribly and even in the height of summer he had somewhere in the region of approximately 25-100 layers on at all times - vests, flannel shirts, wool jumpers, quilted waistcoats, jackets, gilets.
By the time I met him he’d already had quite an exciting life. During WW2 he’d been sent with the army to North Africa and to Italy where he drove a tank up the steps of a town hall there because someone dared him to. He was that sort. He’d also taught lady mayoresses to drive, set up a canoe club, sailed the canals on his boat and had scars on his legs made by two pet ferrets he’d shoved down his trousers as a teenager when he was nearly caught poaching.
He was a Bit Of A Bugger which is what made him wonderful.
For me though, it’s always gardens that I think of when I think of him. Him and my grandmother, Betty, lived in a little terraced house which had a long garden at the back that in my memory was always filled with hundreds of overflowing pots - fuchsias, tumbling roses, gladioli. He had two greenhouses there and I loved sneaking off to explore them. I’d throw open the doors and hurry inside where the air would be fiercely hot and tropical. I didn’t mind though - I just wanted to stand there surrounded by George’s jungle of tomato plants and sniff and sniff and sniff! I loved the smell of hot, wet earth and tomato vines. (I’m slightly allergic to the leaves so I’d head back into the house covered in itchy, red blotches which instantly gave me away for having stolen some toms, but it was v. worth it.)
Eventually, my grandparents took over the garden next door. The house belonged to some students who were only too glad to have someone deal with the outdoor space for them. George turned it into an allotment and I remember hanging over the picket fence marvelling at the Mr McGregor-iness of it all.
Years later, I had my own allotment for a while but it was never much good. All I really got out of it was some rhubarb, a few courgettes and a space for my then 7 year old Middle Neph to practice his backflips. Joining the dots now I realise that perhaps the reason I didn’t really get anything to grow there was because it was constantly being tumbled upon by a small, muddy, clown child…
Fast forward to now and inspired by George, I am about to embark on my own little vegetable patch. I’ve got two big raised beds built ready to be filled. Of course I’m very late doing all this but I’m hoping to get things dug in over the next few weeks. I think vegetables in one (courgettes, spring o’s, carrots etc) and maybe cutting flowers in the other? Certainly later in the year I’ll be filling one of the beds with heaps of daffs and tulip bulbs ready for next spring.
In the meantime I’m going to sit here outside the hut, contemplating and hoping that my current green thumbs turn into George’s magic green fingers.
WORK
I’ve started work on the illustrations for a new book this month. I wrote the story over twelve days back in January whilst hugging the fire and now having cleared the decks of another project, I can get stuck into the illustrations for it.
I’m not allowed to say too much about what the book is, other than it’s set in New York over one winter (absolutely ideal to be drawing snow in June…), but I thought I’d show you a sneak peek. Here’s a design sketch for one of the characters - a chihuahua called Bandit with bockety teeth, grubby grey fur and a voice like Danny DeVito.
More soon…
NEWS FROM THE HEN HOUSE.
FREEDOM!
Finally, after months locked down in their Nissen hut my land girls are free!
The government sent news via the wireless that all bird flu restrictions were lifted on May 15th and there was much halloo- hallaying!
I raced down the garden, flip-flops smacking, to the air raid shelter to tell the girls and you’ve never seen such excitement! Knitting was stashed way, espadrilles were fetched out from under the nest boxes, beaks were painted with Teasing Pink lipstick, and Estée Lauder Youthdew was spritzed liberally behind the ears. Handbags were gathered, sandwiches were packed, curlers were teased from feathers and flasks of hot tea were speedily prepared.
And then FINALLY they were ready!
The doors were flung open and off they went!
It was so cheering to stand (hands on hips) watching as they raced about the garden checking everything was where they’d left it months ago and investigating all the recent additions - the new plants, all the fresh leaves sprouted during their confinement and the sky high above them. Once all this was ticked off they could really get stuck into digging about. And -oh boy!- can they dig! All thoughts of broodiness were abandoned as they spent their first day of 2025 scratching about outside in the - well, I was going to say ‘the sunshine’, but it was actually a little overcast at that moment, but to be honest the grey tinged sky set off their gaily coloured head scarves more beautifully than sunshine would ever have done.
Naturally, the dogs were very confused by all this. Elvis Potato and HRH Poppy kept a gentle, half closed eye on the girls in between their naps. Betty Lou (Yorkshire Terrier/rabble rouser/Counter Hon) OF COURSE spent much of that first morning glued to the french windows taking detailed notes and making her presence known with little growls of indignation. By lunchtime, as expected, she was exhausted and had to retire upside down on an armchair, snoring.
And so now the minute I wake up I rush down to let the chickens out and they spend all day pecking about, digging, verbally abusing passing pigeons and generally causing a nuisance but I’m thrilled by it.
The other evening I stood by the kitchen door watching as they prepared for bed. Slowly they gathered themselves together and ambled back to their Nissen hut. They hopped over the step into their part of the garden and for several minutes they each stood preening themselves- fluttering their feathers, flapping out their wings, fluffing themselves up then smoothing themselves back down. Then, with a final glance at the garden (which they’d left a disgrace), they disappeared inside for the night.
When I went down ten minutes later to lock them up all three were fast asleep. Margot’s specs were on sideways, Winifred hadn’t put on her cold cream and only half of Pearl’s hair was up in curlers. Fresh air and adventure had worn them out entirely.
FINALLY…
Thank you for reading this month’s NEWS BRIEFING! I’ll be back next weekend with JOY PARADE No.8 - full of jolly things and certainly involving less details of my internal organs.
In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this newsletter I’d ADORE it if you were to hit the heart button below, and do please follow me on Instagram (I’m @mralextsmith over there). Also subscribe to and share this newsletter to all your chums.
Thank you so much!
In Tearing Haste,
Alex T Smith
HEAD PIGEON.
I love Bandit! Reminds me a little of my dog Charles, who came to us all beat up and blind. He’s a real tough guy now and bosses the whole house around. You know, like chihuahuas do.
Glad you’re on the mend!
Delightful read, even though you.d had to endure the pain!