Phew! What a Scorcher!

Consistantly Hot

Temperature is now averaging 25-29 C during the day.  And it is still Spring.  Wonderful!  Except that the hot weather is often accompanied by sudden and very heavy thunderstorms.  We forgot to take coats to the club the other day and got stuck at the hospital when it hailed then rained so hard we would have been drenched within 5 steps.  In fact, thunder has just started again as I write this.



Very short blog this week.  Software problems trying to edit a few short kitten videos together.  More, 'Oliver' news below - BIG (!!) changes.

Tee Shirts



"The Thrills"



I have explained who Cory Haim was to a few of the patients who would understand the specific irony of it (see last weeks blog).  I thought you might appreciate a photograph.  Or maybe I would appreciate a photograph.

Strangly, and it is only Monday as I write this, I haven't seen a single Cory Haim or Dolly Parton tee shirt on anyone.  Although there are a few Artic Monkey ones on display.  I will order an Arctic Monkeys CD off Amazon and let you know how it goes own with the new found Actic's fans.

Club wise, we have had more sessions outside.  We are trying to ensure that everyone gets the chance of a relaxing ice lolly outside basking in the sunshine.  We tend to go round to the front of the hospital so that patients can get a view of 'normal' life going on outside.  We would dearly like to do some trips into town with patients to grab a coffee and a bite to eat etc.  This has been done in the past by the charity (please go to the link if you haven't already http://www.vfmh.org.uk/) so should not be beyond the realms of possibility to start this up again.

Quite an upseting day today - maybe I'll write about it in a future blog, maybe I won't.  I don't want to give the impression that the one hour that patients spend in the club per week is some magic panacea and that it makes the other 167 hours bearable in some way.  It doesn't.  What it does do is provide some therapeutic respite to be a self, or even ones-self, for a very short time.  Direct feedback from patients is that it makes a huge difference to them; and that is all that counts.  Taking patients back up to the wards after sessions is becoming more and more difficult as we now know everyone so well as total equals and friends - you don't take friends back to be left in places like that.  Stuff happens on the wards.

Oliver



Blue bits are what is left over from
the very strong anti-septic spray from
when she had a wound in her stomach



Whoops!  Oliver is a girl.  Luckily the name is one of those that is easily converted.  Therefore Oliver is now Olivia.  She continues to go from strength to strength.  She has just started to lap milk from the lid of a jar.  She is also using a litter tray.  And today, she had her first solid food - which she wolfed down.  Royal Canin of course - see previous blog for how brilliant that company is.

Oh, by the way, I have ignored the rabbits totally since first mentioning them in this blog.  Suffice to say that I also got that wrong and they are both females.  One has just had her kits (is that the correct baby rabbit word?).  Rabbit man wants everyone to tip toe around them at the moment.  Photos when they get cute - they are seriously not cute at the moment.

But talking of cute, here is a recent video of Olivia showing just how strong and bonny she has become.

Travels

Kiki and myself have a few travels planned, but we really want to wait until we can be sure that we will not get rained out.  In the meantime I have been out on my bike again.  I am getting closer with videoing on the move, but things are still a bit shaky.  I took a trip out past Adamus (remember the D170 video?).  I took a detour to follow the river rather than the road and spotted a few small 'rustic' houses getting closer.  Before I knew it I had accidently cycled right into someone's back garden.  - Rather than explain that I was a complete idiot, I said that I was a bit lost and needed directions to the road back to Tarnaveni.  The young lad of the house jumped on his bike and led the way.  He was very happy to explain that his bike was German and therefore much better than my Romanian one (which it was!).  When we got to the appropriate turning he starting bargaining for his 'guide' services.  First he wanted my cycling gloves, then 1 Leu - I finally agreed to give him one puncture repare patch.  He seemed happy with the deal.

I also tried a track leading out of Tarnaveni.  Very, very steep but well worth it for the views of the town.  It looked like it should lead to some woods (Forest?) and then towards Herapea. - I couldn't believe it when there was a no-entry sign at the top of the hill.  Private property.  I am still finding my way around the off road bits - no equivalent of OS maps here.

End of the road in the middle of
no-where





Lovely day, lovely countryside.  Just
the place to re-charge batteries after
a week in the hospital



Yet another view of Tarnaveni.  The hospital is dead centre
(left to right) just above the middle (top to bottom).
Click to enlarge

That's all for this week.

Pe Curand

Paul

Payback the Chickens

It really is hot here now

Remember a picture of our front
garden in Winter all covered with snow
and bare.  Now its all covered in green
stuff.  Nice.

After a few (quite a few) false starts it really is nice and hot here now.  By nice and hot I mean about 25 C every day.  People are starting to get brave and wear tee shirts in the street (more about tee shirts in the hospital later).  Although we are told that it is still Spring and that Summer will be a lot hotter.  Brilliant.

However, at the moment there is always the danger of a thunderstorm or two.  They seems to start from the hills and creep up on us quite quickly.  They are very short lived and not really a problem.

These simply appeared in the garden
one day.  I really wasn't sure what they
were at all, but looked them up on google.
Apparantly they are "flowers" - interesting.

Club updates

I would love to be able to fill this bit with some potographs of patients.  Because the weather has been so nice we have held a number of club sessions outside.  There are a couple of spots in the hospital grounds which are quite pleasant with benches.  There is a shop just across the road (past the locked gates and spiked fences) which does wonderful and cheap ice creams.  Any form of iced lolly covered in chocolate has gone down very well.  We have also picked out a spot under some trees where we intend to do picnics once we can be confident that we won't get 'stormed on'.

Tee Shirts

We started to notice today that there were a number of rather 'interesting' tee shirts being worn by some of the patients, male and female.  As the morning went on, the percentage wearing them increased to at least 3/4 (sorry, that's 75% in new money).  The first ones we saw were Arctic Monkey ones (see picture).

Small Sheffield band makes
it big in Romanian
psychiatric hospital.

We then started to see some Dolly Parton tee shirts.   One of the female patients proudly pointed at her tee shirt and said, "Maddona!" - I didn't have the heart to say anything.  Some of the patients quite liked their tee shirts, others were not so sure.  One female could understand a bit of English, but not make sense of her tee shirt, "The Bees - Payback the Chicken - 2005 tour".  Well, its like this...there is a small town in the Isle of Wight called Ventnor where a band called 'The Bees' come from, although of course in the USA they are known as 'A Band of Bees'...  Indie Rock, you know? No, you don't?  Oh well, at least its washed and its new.

Another female was concerned at who 'Cory Haim' was (as "Whatever happend to Cory Haim" was written on her tee shirt).  Much easier.  He was a Canadian Actor who died a sad and lonely death in 2010 after an accidental overdose which included Valium, Vicodin, Soma and Halperidol (an anti-psychotic drug).  Is it just me that thinks there is more than a hint of innapropriate irony in several patients sporting "Whatever happened to Cory Haim" tee shirts in such an institution as this?

Out and About

I did my first real trip out on the bike on Sunday.  Not too far, just a two and a half hour round trip to visit Bagaciu (there should be a smile above the first 'a', but I can't remember how to do it).  Bagaciu is the nearest Saxon town to us with a walled church.

South to Bortoca where you take a
left.  Through Deleni and on to Bagaciu

I actually thought that this would be a very quick 'find my bearings' trip.  I hadn't counted on the hills.  Wow, there are some steep hills round here.  I am ashamed to say that I popped down to 1st (known to Mountain Bike folk as the 'granny ring') quite a number of times; and even resorted to pushing once.

Deleni - suggled in against the hills

It was worth it, both Deleni and Bagaciu are lovely, as is the surrounding countryside.  Just before Deleni I spotted a lovely off-road road that seemed to run right along the ridge of a set of hills and lead back to Tarnaveni.  I will try it soon.

The walled church in Bagaciu.  Very
little imagination is needed to picture
what this was like in the middle ages.

I did, again, try and take some video of some of the biking.  This time I mounted the video camera on my crash helmet thinking that there would be less vibration than through the handlebars.  Wrong - totally unplayable.  I wanted to include the bit where a youth on a motorcycle (small two stroke trailie) overtook me going downhill, only for me to catch up with him just a few moments later when he started braking (brakes are for emergencies only remember!).  I think I may give up on the videoing.

Not only does this look stupid.
It doesn't work!

BBQ Weather

People talk about BBQ weather.  Well it is!  Previous volunteers (I assume) have left a small BBQ, and some coals, in the garage.  I always have problems lighting BBQs- hence turning to gas a few years back.  This one lit with no problems.  Just some old newspapers under the coals.  I supplied the sausages, Kiki the burgers, Corina the wine - and, instant banquet, Lovely.

10 seconds to light - wonderful.

Burger Banquet fit for a King?

Oliver

I left this bit until last, because (lets be honest) if I'd have put it first you wouldn't have read the rest.  He is doing very well.  The hernia seems to be getting a lot smaller and 'fixing itself'.  Also, his rear right leg is gaining some strength.  It is still very bent and he falls over to one side when he walks, but it is getting stronger.  We have also got a decent lead on getting him a new home in Romania. - Watch this space.

These guys know a thing or
two about real customer
service.  Thanks Royal Canin!

I need to do some product placement here.  It was proving very difficult to get substitute cat mother's milk.  I tried all the big places that were recommended in Tirga Mures.  Then I emailed Royal Canin in the UK.  They have a product called 'Babycat Milk'.  I asked if they knew where I might be able to get some in Romania.  They immediatly got on to their Romanian distributor who arranged for a can to be delivered to a vet shop in Tarnaveni.  The first I knew was when I got an email from Royal Canin telling me where and when to pick up some 'Babycat Milk'. I am very impressed with them. - And Oliver loves it!

In fact, I gave Oliver a feed in the middle of doing this blog.  I then did a short video of him playing, biting my thumb and shadow boxing (slightly strange) - which I will attach below.  Oliver is now on my floor attacking my toes.

That's it for this week

Pe Curand

Paul

Is Spring/Summer finally here?

Technicalities



Click on this to make it larger.  One
picture I did take with my proper camera.
Look at the twisting road running into the
distance.  I videoed the run back down, but...



I had intended to include a selection of photographs taken from a weekend of cycling in the countryside, along with a short video or two taken from on the bike.  Unfortunately things didn't quite work out.  I managed to clamp the (very small) video camera to the handlebars and even remembered to hit the red button an a number of occasions.  There is also a picture taking mode on the video camera, so I took quite a few stills using the same setup.  Unfortunately, when I returned to base the video simply looked like someone was shaking the camera vigorously the whole time and the quality of the stills was awful.

So not many pictures this week.  I have put in a couple of short video clips taken from the bike, but even these are a bit dodgy.

Here is a quick video of a very famous stretch of road in Tarnaveni that was featured in a 2006 film which includes the name of this particular region of Romania in its title.  The film starred Birol Ünel as Tchangalo (who was actually much better in 'Gegen der Wand' [Head On]- which is highly recommended).

In true GMTV quiz style, the film is either:

A. Transformers
B. How to train your Dragon
C. Transylvania

(legal note - sorry this competition is now closed)

Tales of a constipated cat

Kiki has bought this high tech alarm
clock to wake her for Oliver's nightime
feeds. I did it for the first couple of times
but she is much younger and fitter than me.

A completely bespoke, hand made
kitten enclosure.  Prior to fitting
out with bed, en-suit and dining
area.  I am very proud of this.

Oliver seems to be doing OK.  A few worrying nights and a couple more visits to the Vet.  He has quite a large hernia caused by the car hitting him when it drove off.  His back leg on the side of the hernia doesn't seem to be working.  Vet says that Oliver is too young to do a conclusive X-Ray as his joints are still developing (The Vet did his dissertaion on this subject, so knows his stuff).  There was a nasty tear in the skin near that area - this seems to have cleared up completely now.  We were worried that he hadn't had a poo for several days.  The Vet gave him an enema and things got moving.  However, Oliver didn't seem to be able to push (Sorry, is this too much detail?).  I was concerned that he might have some nerve damage.  Anyway, good news is that he has now started pooing and seems to be propery on the mend.  He is eating well (see video below!).

Club Update

We now have a lovely new notice board outside the club door (one of those posh glass covered ones).  I'm not sure what we will be putting in it yet, but will try and get a photo for next week.

The weather has been lovely.  We do a few 1-2-1 sessions at lunchtime with some patients who cannot cope with being in a group.  All are wheelchair users - see very early blog for details on bringing the wheelchair (generously donated by a previous volunteer) to Romania.  We are getting a lot of use out of the wheelchair and it has been great this week to get some of the 1-2-1 sessions outdoors so that patients can enjoy the weather.

We also had a complete women's session outside on two banks of benches which face each other.  Corina started off a singsong with everyone taking it in turns.  Some of the women became very emotional and tearful at some of the traditional songs which obviously brought back memories of (much) better times.  Unfortunately one of the talents that neither I nor Kiki have is the ability to sing or remember words to songs.  I am desperately ashamed to say that the only song we managed to find that we both knew was 'How Much is that Doggie in the Window'.  I made things even worse by trying to (badly - very) translate it and sing it in Romanian (Cut costa acasta caine en ferestrele?).  Shame on us.

Patients' Voice



Brilliant book - thanks to
whoever left it in the house



I have mentioned Goffman's 'Asylums' book before on a couple of occasions.  He really hit the nail on the head when he talked of institutions like this one 'mortifying the self'.  Patients are stripped of any opportunity to be 'a-self' let alone 'themselves'.  The women have all had the shortest of short haircuts.  I use the word haircut advisedly - a drunk gibbon swinging from a giraffe's neck on a rollercoaster using a rusty hacksaw could have done a better job.  There is no reason for taking away this smallest of personal choices. - Words don't actually fail me, but I won't write the ones that do come to mind...

A previous volunteer left a brilliant book in the house called 'Speaking our Minds'.  It is an anthology of person accounts and opinions of people who experience, or have experienced, mental distress.  I thouroughly recommend this book to everyone - better than any 'professionally written' textbook. - I wonder if it was ever translated into Romanian...

I keep forgetting to provide a link to the charity website.  The charity needs two key things, volunteers and funds.  If you haven't already, I am sure you could help with at least one of those things.  http://www.vfmh.org.uk/.

One last video

Nothing exceptional.  Just a 55 second glimpse into a typical Sunday down our street.  I strapped the video camera to the bike and rode down the road a bit.  Could be any street anywhere.

Answer to last weeks maths problem

Sorry nearly forgot.  To make 200ml of 5% fat milk from a mixture of 3.5% fat milk and 7.5% fat milk you need 125ml of the 3.5% fat and 75ml of the 7.5% fat.  It is much easier if you convert the percentages into ratios first.  I hope you managed it otherwise a little kitten could be going very hungry.

Pe Curand

Paul

Seasonal weather?

Late Again

Part of the reason for me doing this blog is to force myself to make a record of the placement for myself.  However, if it was just the case of writing it down in a diary with a few pictures I would never do it.  Hence this 'fake' weekly deadline - which I have missed.  For a non-fake, not quite dead, not quite lion read on.

Some drawing activities today

Club update

We started a bit of a pilot last week. The idea being to give patients the opportunity to become more involved in the running of their club sessions.  We are inviting patients to attend for a half or full day to help to host the sessions.  We are trying this with patients of all levels of ability.  Early days, but even if the involvement is simply observing, it will at the very least help to widen experiences.  We had two hosts last Thursday, one from a female and one from a male ward.  They were really interested to chat about each others experiences of being in the hospital and also enjoyed the extra responsibility of working with us.  We also have permission to start to run a number of mixed male/female sessions.  We have tried a couple of mixed sessions in the past which worked out very well.

Festival time

Main street thronging with happy
punters with scary ride in the
background

The weather has been less than ideal lately.  Lots of rain.  Luckily it stopped for a while last Friday and later on Saturday for the annual (although I am not sure it has ever happened before) Tarnaveni Youth Festival.  The main street was closed to traffic and a number of fairground rides and food stalls appeared.  Topped off at the end of the street with a stage resplendant with a (very loud) traditional band.

Traditional band which turned out
to be much better than it sounded.

Photos

Not many photos this week, and I can't find one of myself.  Therefore here is a drawing done by a patient of me yesterday.

An almost perfect likeness

Animal welfare

Kiki and myself were warned before we came out here that we might be troubled by the number of stray dogs and cats - and also that it is a "no-no" about taking strays into the house.  There are a lot of strays, but on the whole they seem to look reasonably OK, and people are actually OK to them.  There are three regular stray dogs in the hospital grounds (Snowy, Blackie and Funny Eared Dog - we have kind of given them names).  There is a small family of cats that live in the corridor up to the club (all called Jim for some reason).  One of the nurses was calling out "Kitty, Kitty" walking up the corridor with a tin of kitten food today - very sweet.  All of our neighbours have dogs and cats - and one was walking his gaggle of ducks down the street the other day. The supermarket has an isle dedicated to pet foods.  We often meet dog walkers when we go out jogging - confusingly for me (see first blog for a clue why) they are not all Staffs named after boxers.  So, basically we have here a normal pet friendly society.

Therefore it was a real shock last Saturday to witness the single most cruel and deliberate act on an animal I have ever seen.  Kiki and I were walking back from town at about 14:00.  It was raining hard and very cold.  We were just past the hospital on the other side of the road when a car (green Volkswagen Golf?) stopped at the end of the road to the station about 10 feet in front of us.  The female passenger opened the door and dropped what looked like a small bundle of rags or rubbish on the road.  I was already scowling and remostrating with her at this act of litterbugging.  She looked at Kiki and myself directly with a real self-satisfied smirk of, "Ha, Ha, I've got away with it".  She shut the door still smirking. The car drove off, the back wheel running over the bundle - which then twiched.  It was a kitten.  About two weeks old.  Eyes still closed...

I really cannot express just how strongly I feel about that evil smirking woman - she seemed to enjoy doing what she did.  I cannot fathom how anyone could do what she (and the driver) did.



After a quick dry-off.



Our 'non-intervention' policy had to go out of the window.  We simply couldn't step over a dying animal and walk home as if it hadn't happened.  He was still breathing, but not looking good.  Large cut in lower abdomen.  Very wet and bedraggled.

Our neigbour was equally shocked about what had happened and found us some milk (we know cows milk is not good for cats so couldn't use it).  A contact from the hospital supplied a VET's number.  VET was closed for Saturday, but opened up especially.  He examined the little chap.  No internal damage.  Loads of injections; plus a formula for making 'kitten milk' (see maths problem later).  The cost - "Oh nothing, you did your bit by pulling him out of the road, I'm just doing my bit".  I am sure there are UK VETs who would do the same for no charge - Yeh, right!!  The VET called us late on Sunday, unexpectedly, to find out how he was doing and then did another (free) examination today - possible hernia; too small to operate.



Still small, but still with us and eating
very well indeed.



We are starting the search for a permanant home for him and have called him Oliver - after the little boy who kept asking for more. He has lovely colouring and markings and is eating extremely well - the VET has actually put him on a bit of a diet as he was gulping down 10 ml at each feed - it should be 5 ml.

His eyes opened today, and apart from the hernia, he seems to be doing well.  We think one of the small pot holes in the road saved him.  He was probably partly in one when the car wheel drove over him.

Maths problem - answer next week.  Mother cat milk is 5% fat.  Cow milk is 3.5%.  Condensed milk is 7.5%.  We need to mix the cow milk and condensed milk in the correct ratio to make 5% fat.  Also we need one egg yolk per 200 ml of the final 'kitten' milk.  How many ml of cow milk and how many ml of condensed milk do I need to mix to get 200 ml of 5% fat kitten milk.  You have 25 minutes to solve this.  Go...

Anyway, Enough for this week.

Pe Curand

Paul

Happy May Day

Bank Holidays

We seem to have had a lot of Bank Holidays recently.  Of course in Romania we didn't get Good (Big) Friday off or the subsequent Friday to watch the big (good?) wedding. Mind you, I don't watch Coronation Street, so I'm not quite sure who it actually was that got married - The telly in the club room was on the blink a bit, but the patients seemed to recognise the couple (was it Gail and Brian?).

Kiki and I worked over the Bank Holidays since it seemed daft not to.  We are really not sure if today was a Bank Holiday in Romania or not.  May 1st used to be a big deal for all communist countries in the past.  Maybe they are pleased here to have shaken off that particular catagorisation and want to move on.  Anyway, weather is absolutely Bank Holiday - it poured with rain all day!

Two wheels better

Only two things I can't figure out;
where the engine is or how to
start it!

I finally went out and bought a bike.  It is slightly better than I had originally intended, so it will be coming back to the UK with me.  Although when I mentioned this in the shop (in very poor Romanian) the lady looked horrified thinking I meant to cycle it back to England.

I am really looking forward to exploring some of the countryside and getting off the beaten track a bit (not that the beaten track in Romania is particularly 'beaten').  The first couple of hundred yards were not too auspicious.  For some reason, Romanian bikes have the brake for the front wheel on the left and for the rear on the right.  I nearly fell off straight away.  Then, despite having driven a car here for a week, I forgot to ride on the right.  Car drivers seemed unperturbed but I felt quite shaken after I realised what I had been doing.

Children

I mentioned about not giving the children down the street any Easter Eggs when they knocked on the door last week and that I feared we might have a few left over and that I could have given them some.  We had loads left over.  I do feel bad.  To make things worse I was walking back from the bus with Kiki on Sunday.  A bunch of young boys were playing football at the end of our street.  The ball bounced up to me and they looked at me expectantly to kick it back (probably thinking, "there's that mean man who wouldn't give us any Easter eggs - bet he won't kick our ball back".  I kicked it hard, it bounced off a parked trailer and straight out onto the main road.  I did retrieve it, but I don't think they were at all impressed.

Club Work

Not much about the club or patients this week.  Easter time is quite difficult for a lot of patients.  Some people get a visit from a son, mother or brother.  Some don't.  Some get a phone call from a (once?) loved one.  Some don't.  We are trying a few interesting pilots in the club this week.  More about this next time.

Transylvanian Saxons

Tarneveni is towards the top to the left.  Biertan is in the
bottom right hand corner.  Nearest fortified church to us
is Bagaciu, just to the South East of Tarneveni - a good
cycling destination.  Click to enlage map.

A real interest for me when I came over here was to explore some of the Saxon towns.  And by that I really mean the Saxon towns with fortified churches.  There are about 150 of these in the Translyvanian region (Siebenbürger as the Saxons (Sachsen) call it).

Biertan is a delightful small Saxon town, although not very Saxon any more.  Less than 5% of the population are German speaking.  Biertan was the see of the Lutheran Evangelical Bishop of Transylvania from 1572 to 1867.  In 1900 there were about 230,000 German speaking Saxons in Romania.  Now there are only around 60,000.  Many moved out after the second world war (or were moved out - 70,000 arrested and sent to Ukraine by Soviet Troops).  Many more moved after the events of 1989.  One inhabitant of Biertan, Sara Römischer, wrote a short and moving story of her experience from 1944 for the Siebenbürgische Zeitung Click here for Sara's story in German or here for an English translation .

All Romanian Saxons have Auslandsdeutsche status (German living abroad) which means that they are entitled to live in Germany with full rights (legal disclamer:  I don't know if that is true, but I think it is), which possibly explains why so many found it tempting to leave their old Heimat for a new one.

Anyway, whatever the history.  The towns and architecture are a picturesque delight.  Here are some pictures of Biertan until next week.

The settlement of Biertan taken from
inside the fortification

Inside the covered steps up to the church

Same steps from the outside

The church in the centre of the
fortification.  In need of quite a
bit of renovation

I used to know what this was, but
I've forgotten

One of the many towers surrounding the church

Inside the double skinned fortified
walls.



I did get permission to take this
picture inside the church - from
a real German speaking Saxon.

Apparantly the Organ works and they have occasional concerts.
The church is not in regular use itself.

Pe Curand

Paul