When All Around You...

A dentist I used to attend had a lot of 'Inspirational' & 'Humourous' posters pinned to the ceiling in his surgery.

As I lay there, rigid as a board, with every muscle screaming pain, I would try to relax, - funny how that gas never made me laugh! I would read & reread those posters- which never seemed to rotate or change.

There were plenty to read, as the whole ceiling & quite a lot of high walls were covered with them. Sprinkled with small children's grateful thankyou pictures!
A concept so strange & foreign to shakingly frightened me, I could never imagine being grateful to a dentist, as a child! Although I must say, I did really like this particular dentist, & I loved his accent. He told me he came from Poland, & he had marvellous green eyes. And he did extensive & excellent work on my teeth. I even trusted him. Not enough to completely relax, mind you!

The one poster that always stayed in my mind is one that said, "When all about you looks Dark... Look up!" It was printed on some artful photograph of light coming out through clouds, & it really struck a chord with me. I often think of it, & will always 'look up' when things are particularly trying or frustrating.

When we lived in the inner city Hotel in the Southern City, our flat overlooked a carpark. Not a very large carpark, but it was usually full, as parking was hard to find on the busy one way street thoroughfare.

Almost the whole of the front of our flat was a huge balcony that had been glassed in. It was beautiful in winter, as the sun poured in, & warmed us on chilly 5 degree days. Our lounge had huge sash windows, which we seldom opened- they were so heavy, & the sounds, & exhaust fumes, of the traffic was too intrusive to invite into our home.

But the sights we could see from our windows were often extraordinarily funny, unexpected, & very interesting, & sometimes quite shocking. I would urge folk to always 'look up' should they be parked in a carpark overlooked by tall buildings.

At lunchtimes our busy Bistro was crowded with diners, & more than a few would linger long over lunch, especially on Fridays, which seemed to be a chance to start an early weekend. The patrons would perhaps indulge in one too many glasses of wine or beer, & then they would retreat to their cars, in very amorous moods, & well... we quite often closed our drapes!

And many was the patron, who would furtively look all about them, then decide to pee in our shrubbery at the edges of the carpark. I could never bring myself to shout at them, though I suppose I should have. My Father in law, who maintained that garden hosed it very vigourously, & kept the shrubs trimmed very closely, while he was our gardener!

Once, when the shrubs were quite tall & vigourous, the police came to the hotel looking for a man who had been seen running into the hotel. When he saw the police he bolted, & though they looked everywhere for him, they couldnt find him. They searched all the shrubs, with no trace of the man. Finally they left, & as I looked out the window, I saw the man crawl out from under a car, & run off in the darkness. I dont know what his 'crime' had been, but I thought he was probably very lucky the car owner had not decided to leave, while he was hiding under the vehicle.

Once we saw a very elederly man come lurching out of the hotel, set sail for the footpath, & as the ground sloped towards the river on the far side of the road, he gathered speed, & rushed straight across the road & fell over the chain fence & rolled right into the river! GOM, who was Happy Young Publican Husband, in those days, tore off downstairs just as others were shouting & rushing to rescue the old chap from the river, which luckily was very shallow at that point.

Quite often, that same elderly gent, who had been hospitalised, escaped from the hospital in his pyjamas & caught a bus into the city to come to the Hotel. HYPH would ring the Hospital & someone would come & collect him. He was quite frail, but surprisingly strong when he was thwarted in his efforts to spend the afternoon at his favourite 'watering hole'.

We do have a lot of peculiar memories of sights & sounds from the carpark.

So, dont forget to always look up!