Not just excused, but released

I've now been released entirely from my present Jury Service. I had a phone conversation with Annie at the Hove Crown Court this afternoon. She was very sympathetic. I explained that the toe was no better - still red and swollen and painful to walk with - and it was my belief that it wasn't a blister at all, but something more serious. No ordinary blister would go on and on like this. It might be an inflamed ligament, or something called bursitis. Anyway, I had another appointment with the doctor lined up for early the following week, and I hoped then to make some headway on diagnosis and treatment.

I definitely wouldn't be recovered enough to walk painlessly during the following week. In fact I couldn't say when that might be so. So she released me from any further duties this time around.

We spoke for quite a few minutes, and I did unburden myself a little. I felt I hadn't pulled my weight. I'd been liable to give ten days of jury service, but I'd attended the Hove and Brighton Courts on only four of those days, and had sat in a jury for only two days. This wasn't at all my idea of 'two week's public service'. At the same time, I felt cheated of the full juror experience, for the only case I did any work on had been halted, so that a retrial could be arranged.

She agreed it was disappointing for me, but I must reconcile myself to how it had turned out. And I might get selected again in the future, but the computer did the choosing, and it was - indeed had to be - an entirely random process. So this might have been my one and only opportunity to serve on a jury.

I asked what I should do about claiming expenses. Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to claim any at all! But she said I must. They couldn't end up owing people money due to them, and it would be perfectly proper (and keep their accounting arrangements in order) if I submitted my claim in the normal way, and claimed what I was entitled to. Hmm. I suppose so.

It hasn't of course been a complete and unsatisfying waste of time. Not by any means. I did see something of how the court process works, even if I didn't take part from beginning to end. I had the thrill of being selected for a jury, and the experience of being sworn in. I saw the judge, the barristers, and the various court officials at work. I saw what a defendant looks like when caught up in the machinery of the law. I heard quite a bit of evidence on a subject I'd hitherto not known much about.

Most of all, I met and chatted to a number of other jurors and learned something of their own lives. It was quite clear that several of them took to me, and certainly myself to them, and it's a huge shame that we probably will never meet again.

I try not to think about it too much. The bad toe has been getting me down, and from time to time I've felt quite weepy in the last day or two. I feel very upset about not even saying proper goodbyes to all those very pleasant people.

But I'll get over it. I'm not up to pilates tomorrow, but perhaps I could manage to get to whatever après-pilates event might be arranged, and sip a bit of wine. Let Fiona take the strain.

Let's send a few texts and see what results!

Excused

It's the second week of my Jury Service. There was nothing happening yesterday (Monday), and so I went to the doctor about my bad toe, which had become noticeably red and swollen. The doctor found no signs of infection, and decided that it was a 'deep-seated blister' - never heard of those before! - which would disappear with time. Meanwhile I was justified in resting the foot as much as possible. That meant it was OK to drive in to Hove, and have only a short distance to walk.

But when I phoned Hove that afternoon, I was instructed to go next day (today, that is) to the Brighton Law Courts instead.

This presented problems, as it's difficult to park in Brighton for a full day, except at vast expense (say £15) in one of the multi-storey city centre car parks. There are a few on-street parking places that let you stay there for as much as 11 hours (for say £5), but they would be a bus ride away from the Brighton Law Courts - and there was no certainty that I'd find any of those spaces free. So Fiona would have to remain at home.

I made up my mind to use public transport instead, walking to Hassocks station, catching the train in, and then taking a bus to as close to the Law Courts as I could get. The number 7 bus was ideal for that. And I wouldn't have to mess around with coins for the bus fare. Nowadays it's a flat £2 for a single journey anywhere in central Brighton; and having installed the Brighton & Hove Buses app on my phone, I would buy two such single tickets online, simply activating them as the bus approached. They would be displayed on my phone screen, which I'd show to the driver. It was all very easy to do. They even emailed me a receipt, which I could print out for my eventual expenses claim. I really can't fault the technology here.

But that walk to the station bothered me. It would have to be taken slowly and gently. The doctor had given me some ibuprofen gel to ease the pain and reduce the inflammation.

However, I went to bed on Monday night with my toe looking redder and feeling more sore than before. The gel wasn't doing it any obvious good. It wasn't easy to get to sleep. If it was a blister - and not something more serious - then it was clearly pressing on something inside the toe, to my considerable discomfort. I did not enjoy a serene night.

Next morning - today - the toe was very tender indeed. Frankly I didn't feel like going in. Walking was very awkward, and rather painful. But of course it was impossible to phone and get hold of anybody to explain: I'd have to grit my teeth and make a personal appearance. This I did. I will say the usher on duty at Brighton, Annie, was most sympathetic. So were my fellow-jurors. Within the hour, Annie had confirmed that I could be excused service that day - a considerable relief, as I just couldn't see myself hobbling around the Law Courts for hour after hour, and all the time my toe getting worse. And what would happen if I got caught up in some case that went on and on?

So I was free to go home. I made some goodbyes. Annie would ring me later. She did. She had decided to excuse me for the rest of the week. Which meant, effectively, that my Jury Service was over.

Now some would have been rather glad to hear that! I wasn't. Although the novelty of Jury Service had worn off somewhat, I hadn't had the full experience I'd been looking forward to.

But in any case I'd got off very lightly. It bothered me that I'd put in an appearance for only four days out of a theoretical ten. This was hardly pulling my weight as far as 'public duty' was concerned. Nor was it fair to most of the other jurors, who would have suffered more inconvenience and disruption than I had. Having a painful but minor foot injury shouldn't give anyone an advantage.

So I told Annie that once my toe was better I'd be happy to put in another week, so long as my booked holidays were respected. I could tell from her reaction that this was much appreciated. They can always use an odd extra juror, if they are available.

Whether they actually take me up on that remains to be seen. I half suspect they will have to say that the system isn't geared up to any arrangement of this sort, and I should just consider myself lucky that so little was asked of me. I might of course be summoned again in the future, although my age is against that happening.

Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have been required to turn up every day, and yet never get selected for the jury box. At least that did happen once.

But it hasn't given me enough juror experience to base a book on. So Lucy Melford, the exciting new novelist, isn't going to be writing a best-seller called Guilty As Charged, M'Lud nor its sequel Keep Your Wig On! unless she uses a very fertile imagination!

A messy expenses claim

My first week of Jury Service is now over. I did finally get chosen to serve as a juror. I was sworn in, and then heard two days of evidence. But it went nowhere, and we were discharged from the case. It's absolutely impossible to say any more about it, since the retrial, if it happens, must not be prejudiced.

So the supposedly rich experience of sifting the evidence in the jury room has yet to come. At least I know how it feels when affirming, all eyes upon you. I said the words without hesitation, very clearly, with the right stress, and without stumbling over any of them. Nor did I dribble, fart or drop anything. Nobody clapped, but I fancy I got an appraising look from the judge. No, I didn't really. I'm just making that up.

This was the only case I heard last week. There was in fact a dearth of cases coming up - apparently something quite unusual - and I found myself only just justified in spending that £25.20 in advance on a weekly train season ticket. We were in the end asked to travel in on only three of the five days. Buying three daily train tickets at £8.50 each would have come to £25.50 - a narrow whisker more. I now fully appreciate why they tell jurors to pay for their travel strictly on a day-by-day basis, and not get season tickets!

The expenses form claim will be messy, though, because I used my car on the third day. And without prior authorisation.

But I had a proper reason. That toe I mentioned - the one that at first seemed to have developed a corn - began to look puffy and red and swollen. Was I perhaps looking at a blister? I wasn't sure - it wasn't like the usual sort of blister. It didn't improve as the days passed, it only became gradually more uncomfortable. I drove in on my third day's attendance because I couldn't face all the walking that taking the train would entail.

So there's a mileage allowance and a car parking fee to be put on the expenses claim form now. I'll have to append a special typewritten note, to explain what was going on to justify this unauthorised departure from plans, and the extra cash spent, and hope that they will be reasonable. I'm sure I'll have to continue driving in - so I'll discuss the situation with the ushers when I next attend, and see what they say.

Between now and then I'm seeing a doctor at my local surgery. Not my usual one, but any doctor will do for a swollen and painful toe. I booked the appointment online this Sunday morning. It's at 8.40am tomorrow. Now that's pretty good, I reckon, to get an appointment - in winter - at such very short notice!

I don't mind that it's not my usual lady doctor, but a man. It's about a toe, after all, not anything more intimate. But I did want to see him anyway, as lately he has been assigned as my 'registered doctor' and as we have never spoken (I don't even know him by sight) it would be good become acquainted, even though I remain entitled to ask for any of the doctors at the big Mid Sussex practice, and won't ever be obliged to see him again. I must however quote his name if ever requested by a hospital (or whoever) to state 'who my doctor is'. This man is responsible for all my practice records, and for dealing with enquiries about my health and treatment from outside bodies who need to know. Well, chance (and a very sore toe) have brought us together for a consultation.

I dare say he will tell me that there's nothing much wrong with my toe, and that my best ongoing care route is through a podiatrist. I will listen to his recommendation if he knows who is best locally, but otherwise I have identified a practice in a nearby town and will go there. The lady concerned has the right qualifications and sounds nice; but the clincher is that I can park close by and for nothing. I don't mind at all driving a few miles more in order to park conveniently - especially when any foot pain is involved!

The Potters Field

The Potters Field is the title of a detective novel set in the autumn of 1143, featuring the rather worldly Benedictine monk Cadfael, and set in and around Shrewsbury - as are most of the other twenty-odd Cadfael books, all written by Ellis Peters, the nom-de-plume of Edith Pargeter. She wrote this particular book in 1989. I have the paperback version, bought in Horsham in January 1996, when indeed I last read it. It's the seventeenth in a long series of Cadfael detective mysteries set in the first half of the twelfth century. I've just finished it. Lately I've been working my way through my entire collection of Cadfael novels: only three more left to read.

So why mention this one? Well, it had personal resonances. You may see what I mean if I outline the story.

Shrewsbury Abbey has acquired a large field from another abbey, formerly used for grazing. It is also the location of some worked-out claypits, and a disused cottage and kiln, that was once the home of a potter and his wife, both now living separate lives. They had been married for fifteen years. The wife, a spirited dark-haired Welsh woman, loved her man passionately. His devotion to her was sincere, but quieter. There were no children, but they were happy with each other.

Then, quite suddenly, the potter realised that his true vocation was to serve God as a monk. This entailed his leaving the cottage and abandoning his wife, who incidentally remained legally bound to him in marriage and was not free to make another life for herself. The fact of marriage remained. The life they shared seemed the true reality to her. She was distraught at losing him, and would not be reconciled to his going. But he felt driven by his intense and urgent calling to enter the abbey as a novice, and then take full vows as a monk. He did all he could to provide her with some money and the means to live. But she wanted only him, not his goods, and she became embittered and resentful. At their last meeting, she told him, viciously, that she had found a lover, someone else better than him to look after her. This was her bitter farewell, but nobody knew whether it was really true. The potter looked only ahead - to where he was drawn - and embraced the routine of the Abbey, his new home, and became utterly content with his new life.

Not long afterwards, his wife apparently left the cottage, and was not seen again. People thought she had returned to her kinfolk in Wales.

Then, within two years, Shrewsbury Abbey acquires the field and decides that most of it should be ploughed up to grow crops. In the course of the first ploughing, a female skeleton is discovered, and Cadfael gets deeply involved in uncovering who she is, who killed her, and why. (And if you have never read the book, I won't spoil the surprise by revealing what happens!)

Returning to how and why the potter forsook his wife, his view was that he could do nothing else. He was distressed by her grief and unwillingness to let him go, but the call from God was paramount. He utterly believed in that call, and felt absolutely compelled to respond as he did. He was overwhelmed. He felt great concern for his wife, and saw her plight, but had to go where his feelings were driving him. And because he felt the matter was out of his hands, it did not occur to him that what he had done to his wife might be considered selfish or reprehensible. So thoroughly and completely did he give himself to God, and such was the peace and fulfilment he found, that until the body was unearthed he never gave her another thought.

I said there were personal resonances here. Obviously The Potter's Field is not an exact parallel with my own history - no skeletal body, for one thing! - but there is this matter of years invested in a mutual enterprise, and then an overmastering calamity - beyond one's control - comes along unexpectedly, leading tragically to the destruction of a perfectly good relationship. Is there blame? Is there any question of guilt? Is bitterness justified?

I'm thinking of course of what happened to M--- and myself. I know that M--- felt herself disadvantaged and made vulnerable by the unfolding events of 2008 and the three years that followed, and robbed of a future she had hoped to share with me. Indeed, no other future seemed so worthwhile. Financially she came out of it without loss, but this wasn't all about money. It was about loss of trust, loss of certainties, loss of affection. For her the parting was bitter. She heaped blame and recrimination upon me, and accused me of wasting fifteen years of her life. Some will say I certainly did, and that I should feel shame and remorse.

And yet in many ways her situation was also my situation. We mirrored each other. I too became disadvantaged and vulnerable - and (financially speaking) have stayed that way. And I too was robbed of a shared future, and now feel there is no point in trying to build another one with somebody else. I didn't thrust bitterness and recrimination at her, nor did I accuse her of wasting fifteen years of my life; but some would say I had as good reason to say so.

And yet, what good would it do - now - to rake over past events and apportion blame? I haven't been able to do as the potter did, bury myself in a new life and forget the old one. I think about the past rather a lot. But nothing can be recovered from it. It has to be let go. The only worthwhile thing is to plan for whatever might be enjoyed in the time remaining.

I don't know what M--- has made of her life. So far as I know, she doesn't publish anything on the Internet - nor was it ever her way, to put her personal thinking out there for the public to read. I'd like to think that we are both making the best of things. But, given the bleak finality of our parting, we will almost certainly never get back together now. I can't see how that could happen.

It disturbs me to think that M--- might be worried, or ill, or in trouble, and myself never knowing about it. It saddens me to acknowledge that if she ever perished I would probably not be informed. To her family I must have become either a pariah - the bad person who made her so unhappy - or an irrelevance hardly now remembered. I might as well be hidden behind a nunnery wall, so far as they are concerned.

People slip in and out of your life so easily. Too easily by far. It seems that nothing is forever.

Corns

Well, one corn anyway! On the side of the toe next to my big right toe. It's suddenly appeared. It's pretty uncomfortable. I do have some proper cushioned pads to prevent further rubbing, but really this looks serious enough to warrant a podiatrist's attention. Not yet, though. I'm not even through the first week of my Jury Service. The appointment must wait.

I'm rather prone to foot problems, forever stubbing toes (with consequences for toe nails), and I have had blisters, small bursas and callouses galore. Also a bout of plantar fasciitis some years back. The right foot generally suffers more than the left; but wear is always even on both shoe soles, so it's not clearly flowing from some walking defect. I never wear heels - I don't even possess any. I have escaped developing any bunions, but corns come easily and seem more frequent than they used to be.

Even so, I was surprised that this one has been created in just a day! On Monday in fact (it's now Thursday). On my first day at Hove Crown Court. My journey there and back - something of an experiment - intentionally involved a fair bit of walking. But only in sections. Yet when I worked it out afterwards, I found that the total walking distance was as much as four miles. That's rather more than I usually do on hard town pavements. It must of course have been down to the shoes worn, and yet they were good shoes - the flat black pair by Hotter in this photo:

Perhaps, despite their short-distance comfort, they were just the wrong sort for four miles of tramping! Even if the tramping was discontinuous, done in sections, with rests in between. And yet I've never developed any corns from wearing them before. Well, I'll see what the podiatrist says.

More money to be spent. Sigh.

Butter Test outcome

Just a quick note. Over the last week or so I've used up the Essential Waitrose butter, then the Lurpak butter, and I'm now back with Lurpak Spreadable, to round off the test. But it's already clear what I'll be using for the future - the Lurpak Spreadable.

This is not to deny the pleasure I had trying the two other butters. Both were creamy and of course more 'natural' - the Lurpak Spreadable being 'only mostly butter' as it was combined with rapeseed oil, plus some mysterious 'milk culture'. With the 'proper butters' I felt closer to green grass and contented cows.

It was also satisfying to unwrap the pat of yellow butter and tip it into the china butter dish. Both butters looked great in it. So much nicer than a plastic tub! The dish seemed to keep the butter fresh enough, even though it was out of the fridge for much of the day, in order to keep the butter soft enough to spread. I did wonder how this might work out in the summer, though. Probably I'd be messing around somewhat, popping the dish in and out of the fridge at intervals, to stop the butter turning runny on the one hand, or to prevent it getting unmanageably hard on the other.

As for flavour, the Waitrose (a cheap, basic butter this, not one of their premium offerings) was fine for cooking but seemed lacking as a spread. The Lurpak butter definitely beat it, cooking as well but tasting creamier, and in every way nicer. So I'd definitely regard Lurpak as the better choice, despite its much-higher price.

When it came to the Lurpak Spreadable - which although still 'butter', might feel by now damned as a 'processed product' and therefore 'inferior' - I attempted to make it all fair by transferring it from the plastic tub to the butter dish, just like the other two butters. This would at least make it look the same. I wouldn't be prejudiced by the plastic tub.

Well, after a week or more without using the Spreadable for anything, I instantly liked it for flavour. In fact, to my mind it trumped the two other 'real' butters. It was also a lot simpler to keep it in the fridge all the time. So it wins, on taste and convenience.

I know it's quite unnecessary, but I think I'll continue with the butter dish, even though I could revert to the plastic tub. The Lurpak Spreadable definitely looks like real butter in that dish, and somehow I get more flavour. I'd even say it acquires enhanced status as a healthy dairy spread, when taken from that dish. It's a psychological effect, of course. Like loose-leaf tea made traditionally in a teapot might seem a better thing to drink than the water-stain from a teabag, made in a cup.

Ironically, butter will play no part in tonight's cooking. It's haggis tonight, boiled up in the oven. Plus carrots and broccoli and onions and gravy. I'd better turn my mind to it soon, if I want to eat early!