The missing link

The phone rang while it was securely zipped into my handbag, which was buckled into a pannier of my bike, while I was cycling into town at high speed on a busy road.

It's an electric bike so high speeds are feasible, except that above 25km/h you get no help from the motor because that's the law. I can actually do 30km/h or more if the wind's behind me. Wearing a helmet, of course.

But anyway – by the time I'd slowed down, pulled safely into the side of the road, unbuckled the pannier, extracted the handbag and then the phone, it had stopped ringing. But it was a number we knew.

The hospital. This could have been a call to inform us of Janine's expected appointment with the rheumatologist, who some 18 months ago sentenced her to eat a calcium tablet every night for two years, along with a daily injection of a magic fluid that encourages her bones to absorb calcium. It would be nice to know if it's working because plunging a needle into my wife's tummy at nine o'clock every morning needs some justification.

The rheumatologist should be able to tell if it's working from Janine's recent bone density scan at the big hospital in Tenerife and a blood analysis at our local hospital. A blood analysis is obligatory for every ailment these days, perhaps because modern technology delivers the results within hours rather than days, so why not? I'm not criticising, I think it's brilliant. Depth of information must always be useful.

What? Yes, right, the story.

I decided not to phone back to the hospital there and then by the roadside because being hard of hearing and with traffic going past, a phone call would be an uncomfortable experience at both ends of the line. I carried on into town. When Janine arrived on her mobility scooter we decided the least demanding option would be to pop into the hospital on the way home to enquire at the patient information desk.

The hospital is on our daily route. So are the health centre and, conveniently located next to it, the mortuary. There is also a crematorium, which has never been used because apparently it contravenes certain local or national regulations about siting or emissions or permissions or…

Okay, okay, the story. So we called into the hospital on the way home. At the information desk Janine produced her little blue tarjeta sanitaria, health card, and we explained about the phone call. With a few tippety-taps of a keyboard the assistant found her future appointments. There was only one, and that was with the cardiologist a couple of months later.

So not, as yet, the rheumatologist. We looked at each other and at the assistant. 'Perhaps the call was for me,' I suggested with a flash of insight. It takes a few moments. 'We use the same phone number.' The assistant nodded – they all seem blessed with great patience – and I handed her my little blue health card.

'You have an appointment with the dermatologist next week,' she discovered.

'Well, yes. I already know about that. It's noted in my calendar, look.' I showed her the calendar on my phone, fully synchronised with everything else.

'And,' I added, 'they sent me an SMS text reminder last week.'

The assistant looked up sharply. 'An SMS? Did you tap Confirmar?'

I wasn't aware it was necessary to tap Confirmar, I told her. A cita is a cita, an appointment is an appointment.

'No, you have to confirm.' She handed me back my little blue card.

'So who do we have to phone?' asked Janine after a short pause. She hates phoning almost as much as I do.

'No, we don't phone,' I reassured her, 'it's in the SMS message. You just tap – umm – a link.'

'Sí!' agreed the assistant enthusiastically. 'Un leenk!' The proper word in Spanish, which I knew perfectly well but sometimes the recall mechanism gets stuck, is un enlace, but when technology is involved English often works.

Back at home, I found the SMS message and clicked the Confirmar link but nothing happened. It must have timed out.

The following Sunday I received a phone call in the early evening – weekends don't happen in hospitals – informing me that I had an appointment with the dermatologist next week. 'Yes, I know about that,' I told the voice.

'But you didn't confirm.'

'No, I'm sorry. Un error.'

'No pasa nada,' the voice said, no problem. 'But now you confirm you'll be there?'

'I do. I'll be there.'

'Next time, you should click the Confirmar link on the SMS message.'

'I will,' I said. 'I promise.'

-------------- NOTES --------------

I have no idea how things are in other parts of the world, such as the UK, but the Spanish health service has embraced information technology wholeheartedly and generally successfully. Everything gets easier little by little, as long as you know what to do. An appointment with our doctor or nurse at the health centre now requires no more that a few taps on the mobile phone. Higher level appointments are less accessible but still integrated into the system.

It's great, if you can keep up with it. However, there's always the information desk at the hospital or health centre, where they're well used to perplexed Gomerans and foreigners turning up to be rescued.

Gymnastics

'Wow!' Bill exclaims. 'This is new.'

Bill and Doris are strolling along the seafront in San Sebastián, on holiday here once more, a pleasant habit developed after their first one-day visit long ago on a Canary Islands cruise.

They have just stopped to admire a clutch of new exercise machines installed on a broad stretch of pavement next to the beach. In fact there are two clutches, the second of which Bill has not yet noticed, fortunately.

He strolls over to the first clutch and strokes the handlebars of a static bicycle, a smart little device painted a bright, glossy green, quietly suggestive of health and ecological awareness. 'Nice. The old ones had got really tatty.'

'I'll give it a go,' he decides, and steps over the sensibly low frame to perch on the saddle.

'It's a bit small for you, Bill.' Her husband is not a big man but generously proportioned horizontally. On the exercise bike he looks like grandpa clowning around with little Jennifer's birthday bike.

Bill pedals briefly then dismounts, wincing. 'Saddle could do with a bit of padding.'

'Try the leg-swing thingy,' his wife suggests tactfully. This is an updated version of the old one, a footplate at the end of a sturdy pendulum. You can stand on it with both feet and swing sideways, keeping your upper torso straight while allowing your swinging legs to oscillate your spine for you.

While Bill is having his spine bent to increasingly alarming angles his wife occupies the second of the twin pendulums, placing a single foot on the platform to swing one leg at a time. This feels good for the leg in some indefinable way, as long as you take care not to crash it into the static leg.

Bill slows his swinging to a stop and dismounts carefully. 'I'll have a go at the wheel.'

He heads towards a big green wheel like the helm of an old sailing ship, but he doesn't get there because – unfortunately – he has just noticed the second clutch of sporty devices, installed some distance away across the pavement. He potters over to take a look.

This is more serious stuff, a proper outdoor gymnasium with high bars, a mysterious ladder and a still more mysterious inclined bench. A slim young man in brightly coloured running gear is doing pull-ups on one of the bars. Bill gains a new gleam in his eye. He's remembering his youth when he used to row in long, narrow boats that flew like birds along the river and demanded serious gym training from their crew.

When the slim young man has completed his twenty pull-ups and trotted off along the coast, Bill positions himself under the bar.

'Bill...'

'It's alright Doris, don't fuss. I just want to see if I can still do it.'

Doris begins to look worried. Bill spits on the palms of both hands, rubs them together, rubs them on his Hawaiian holiday shorts then reaches upwards towards the bar. His extended fingers fall tantalisingly short, even when he rises on tiptoe.

'It's too bloody high.'

Doris looks relieved. 'It's meant for serious athletes, Bill, not old fogeys.'

Although stemming from wifely concern, this harsh realism is a mistake. Bill tenses himself again. 'I'll jump.'

'Bill!'

Bill jumps. His fingertips brush the bar. Encouraged, he crouches, takes a deep breath and launches himself upwards again. His fingers close around the bar and he hangs suspended above the ground.

'See?' he crows. 'I'm up.'

An elderly local strolling by pauses to look. Bill grins at him then, gritting his teeth in athletic concentration, he pulls upwards with both arms.

Nothing happens. He remains suspended at the same distance above the ground.

He tries again, his face contorting and turning pink. His fingertips turn a brighter shade of pink.

'I'm out of training, Doris,' he admits. 'I'll have to work up to this more slowly.'

'You're heavier than you used to be, Bill,' his wife points out comfortingly. 'Get down.'

Bill looks down at the ground. 'What, do I just drop?'

'No! Wait. You'll hurt yourself.' Doris places herself next to the dangling feet. 'I'll catch you.'

The elderly Gomeran joins her on the other side of the feet, wagging a finger in warning – 'Cuidado!' – followed by an enthusiastic but unfathomable monologue. Bill's Spanish is perfectly capable of ordering a beer but not of understanding complex instructions for descending safely from a high bar.

His adviser turns towards Doris and performs an impressively choreographed enaction of what Bill should do. Basically, bend his knees before dropping, to land springily like a parachutist.

'Bill, he says to bend your knees as you drop.'

Bill bends his knees, drops to the ground, staggers and is caught by Doris and the adviser.

'Gracias,' says Doris, smiling gratefully.

'Thank you,' says Bill, pulling his shirt back into place.

'De nada,' replies the adviser – think nothing of it. Then 'Buen día,' have a good day, and he strolls off chuckling.

'Let's go and have a beer,' says Bill.

-------------- NOTES --------------

The new machines are mostly straightforward replacements for what was there before, and very welcome. As the old ones deteriorated or fell apart and were removed, the local population gradually abandoned them. It might take some time for the daily habit of a session on the 'aparatos' to return.

Sadly, the greatest draw among the old machines has now gone. Two side-by-side metal seats, each with a set of pedals in front, were ideal for senior citizens to sit and observe the comings and goings on the beach, or to engage in conversation with a companion, while occasionally twiddling the pedals for a healthy flexing of the knees.

However, it's churlish to carp at a splendid set of outdoor gym equipment for free use, a great facility for the residents and a potent source of silly photos for one-day visitors from Tenerife.

The man who patted a head

An elderly man, proprietor of a noodle stall in the covered market, casually pats the head of a young girl as he passes by her café table.

He pauses when the girl's mother reprimands him angrily. The stallholder makes the mistake of defending himself - all he did was pat the kid's head - and at that moment the father arrives at a gallop to see what's going on and valiantly assumes the task of rebuking the assailant.

The noodle man continues to protest his innocence but the girl's father will have none of that and ends up grabbing his arm and hurling him to the floor.

All this was captured by a security camera and presumably by a mobile phone or two because a video is soon circulating on social media.

The stallholder later told a local news channel that he'd patted the little girl's head because she was very adorable. 'Old people like to pat young children's heads,' he explained plaintively.

Isn't this a sad little story?

Well, I think so. It happened in Singapore, but it caught my attention for being such an extraordinary event. If you sit an adorable little kid at a café table anywhere in La Gomera you can fully expect him or her to be patted on the head every few minutes, or get their cheek tweaked or tummy tickled, or find themselves grabbed from their chair by a waitress or waiter to be whisked into the café to meet the other staff, play with the cash register, ring the gratuities bell a few times and emerge with a lollipop.

Children are a joy for all of us, is the general idea. I once went over to say hello to a young shopkeeper we knew, seated at a café table with her toddler in a pushchair. An adorable little lad. I tickled his tummy, winning a smile. 'Llévalo,' his mum said. Take him.

'Take him?'

'Take him.'

I lifted Leo out of his pushchair, perched him on my arm and ferried him around the tables to be introduced to Janine, some foreign friends sitting at another table, a few locals, the café's proprietor and anyone else who fancied tickling his tummy.

The boy could well be expected to be screaming with fear by now in Singapore but for this Gomeran it was all just routine. I returned him to his mum who was deep into something on her phone's screen and barely noticed Leo had come back.

Perhaps this is why Gomerans grow up so much at ease with each other and even with weird foreigners. They experience social interactions of every kind from year zero. They learn who to trust and, I'm quite sure, who not to trust.

Perhaps it also helps to explain another theme I touched on in a much earlier story (Give us a kiss), the essential role of physical contact in every encounter. If you meet someone in the street and pause for a word or two, the need to touch them is irresistible. Arm, shoulder, back, choose the most appropriate, but touch you must. You can even tickle an elderly man's tummy if you know him well enough.

So what happened to the poor guy in Singapore who got thrown to the floor for patting a toddler's head?

It's reported that he suffered light injuries but nothing serious, and the girl's father eventually realised he had overdone his role as family guardian, apologised to the stallholder and invited him to a drink at the cafe table.

The victim said he didn't want to pursue the matter any further. His son did though, declaring that he trusted justice would he done. He smelled money, in other words, and that's sad too, isn't it?

The return of the interrogator

Transcript of a merciless interrogation of the author after a lengthy but entirely explicable pause in his formerly reliable output. He was first subjected to a similar ordeal in November 2016.

Cold and Humourless Interrogator: So, once again we begin with a defensive and clearly biased introduction: an 'entirely explicable pause...'

Defensive Blogger: And once again you quote from the introduction to the post-conversation transcript. How is that supposed to work?

CHI: (snapping) Don't quibble!

DB: Sorry.

CHI: (adjusting his steel-rimmed spectacles irritably) Do you accept that the last time you contributed a post to this blog was in May 2024?

DB: If you say so.

CHI: (snapping) I certainly do! It was well over two years ago.

DB: Okay, okay. It's only a blog. And why am I sat here like a hoodlum with a paper bag over my head and my legs tied to a kitchen chair?

     (Silence)

DB: All right, a bit of wild imagination creeping in there.

CHI: At least it demonstrates some residual brain activity.

DB: Look…

CHI: This is supposed to be a blog, may I remind you, about everyday life in La Gomera. Is nothing happening? Has the entire population set sail for Venezuela?

DB: The population's growing, actually. Whole place crawling with babies. It's nice. Lively.

CHI: So, why the deafening silence from your pen?

DB: (chuckles) I like that.

CHI: (peevishly) You understand perfectly well what I mean.

     (Silence)

CHI: We have ways, you know, of…

DB: No, no, wait, I'm thinking. I'm not sure I want to get into this.

CHI: You're in it.

DB: (sighs) Look, I've been having a rough time recently.

CHI: (mockingly) Oh dear. Do tell?

DB: Really? There's nothing more boring than people going on about their problems. At our time of life, never ask anyone 'So, how are you?'.

CHI: (still mocking) So, how are you?

DB: Fine now. But in recent times my wife and I between us have had appointments with a dentist, an odontologist, an audiologist, a traumatologist, a cardiologist, a dermatologist, a rheumatologist, a physiotherapist, a urologist and a radiotherapist. We've had ten days in hospital, electrocardiograms, X-ray imaging, computer-assisted tomography, photon beam radiotherapy and bone density scans.

CHI: (momentarily nonplussed) That must've been one hell of a car crash.

DB: That's one way to describe it. Others are senior citizenship, the third age, autumn of life, twilight years, final decline into oblivion. I'm not so keen on the last one.

CHI: (shaking head sadly) So you've given up? Going under?

DB: Not at all! As a wise acquaintance remarked, if you have no health problems at all it's because you're dead.

CHI: Incidentally, it's AN urologist, not A urologist.

DB: In Spanish it's un urólogo, pronounced oo-ROL-ogo, which solves the problem. (Mutters something inaudible.)

CHI: (leaning back in his chair) Let's be frank, shall we? One suspects, from your prevarication, that you've simply run out of ideas.

DB: So many hours spent in waiting rooms does tend to drain you. The ideas are there, just not bubbly enough. I'll get back to it, sooner or later.

CHI: You intend to write more stories?

DB: Yes. Sure! Well, I think so.

CHI: (nodding) I see.

DB: No you don't see! You don't see at all. If I promise to carry on as before, relaunch myself then find I can't keep up with it, that's worse than not starting at all, isn't it?

CHI: (sniggers) Your loyal readers might be quietly relieved by either of those alternatives.

      (A long silence, then the Defensive Blogger rises to his feet)

DB: Fine. You asked for it. I'll start by writing about a crotchety, dried-up husk whose only pleasure is to try and upset vulnerable victims.

CHI: (mocking again) So when can we expect to see this miraculous renaissance?

DB: Now! I've just done it. (Points a finger) And I know who you are.