DEMENTIA CARE: THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL.

Disclaimer. Scottish weather gives you a little bit of everything. Sometimes within the space of an afternoon. It is mildly extreme. No earth-shaking tornado. Temperatures that dip into the negative numbers, but not to Arctic extremes. Heat that will fry you if you take your taps aff.
   Taps aff weather is any amount of daylight in the months of June through to mid-September. If the breeze doesn’t chill you to the bone, you can take your tops off and work on that Scottish tan – sending your skin-tone up into the higher levels of healthy colour – to just shy of milk-pale. Call that a win.
   I looked outside and saw icicles hanging in the rooftop guttering. They were electric blue. That’s thanks to the electricity coursing through the decorative icicles. It’s that time of year when plastic ice, lit from within, is a thing.
   The night sky showed me the moon and told me there were no clouds. Premonition of frost. For once, weather stuck to the script. The night is now the afternoon, the last leaves are barely clinging to the trees, and fake snow builds up over the course of a few days of frost.
   It looks exactly like snow, in the grass. But it isn’t. Not quite yet. (That changed fast. Stay tuned.)
   Pills are delivered, going by the script.
   But the regular sequence of events was severely disrupted. So I went in search of anything that made it through to the pharmacy.
   This meant going outside into the cold. I prepared the layers. Scarf under winter cardigan. Slight jacket. Heavy coat. I’d have worn the waterproof gear if I’d needed it. Heavy gloves. Keep your hands warm when you are out there. Be comfortable in the extremities. Leave a radiator blazing in the hall for your return. Make sure that hall is lit, even though it is day now.
   When sunset is near with not a cloud in the sky, sunset does this slow-motion thing like something out of a Sam Peckinpah western. The night takes forever to arrive. Reluctantly, the streetlights come on. The sunset sky lingers, anyway.
   This wasn’t one of those afternoons. A thick band of cloud settled in like mashed potato on a mission. It was still daylight, of a sort, if you could call it that. I put a light on in the hall for my return in darkness. It was a nice warm hall.
   Off I went. Patches of ice. Nothing to speak of. The air, though. I turned into a steam engine, taking in great gusts of frozen air and chuffing out clouds of heat that I was reluctant to part with.
   Chuff chuff chuff, I chuffed along. An engine of heat and cold, heat and cold. Throwing heat away as if I didn’t need it. Taking in cold and wrapping it around my lungs. My hat lodged squarely under my hood, I was ready for anything. A sudden burst of rain, and the hat-brim would protect me. If I had to, and only if I really truly had to, I could wrestle those waterproofs on.
   Sounds are different in cold weather. There was a slight bit of wind, adding to the chill. The weather had taken a turn into the negative numbers recently. I’d hoped for a late afternoon just above freezing. But that wasn’t on the cards.
   I saw festive lights here, there. Sheer garden lunacy and an overabundance of inflatable snowmen. I thought they bobbed in the wind, but some of them were mechanical on second glance. The frost looked more and more like snow as I walked by every fresh stretch of grass.
   This was an apocalyptic landscape of frozen dog turds and shaky snowmen. At least if I stood in shit, I wouldn’t pick any up on my shoes. It was solid stuff. I could see that much by the flashing lights of clockwork inflatables.
   Somehow, I expected the ground to be far slippier, but I was fine. Just my luck. The postie was doing his rounds as the sun set. He was on one of those delivery runs. Must be delivered between 9.00 and 12.00. As we near the depths of winter, those deliveries are made by 5.00 at the latest. That’s when they change the times from 9.00 to 1.00. Still delivered by 5.00. So, in a strange way, that’s an improvement. They still get to you by 5.00, even though the official delivery hour is one hour later.
   He surprised me the other day by popping in at 8.00, just to get my delivery out of the way. He’ll be back around in a few days at sunset with the next parcel, I am sure. It’s great to have a regular postie who is excellent. You treasure those people. Then they move away, on a different run, and a little more light goes out of the day.
   After making sure no car could knock me over, I closed to within shouting distance of the pharmacy. I’d tried phoning through to avoid the disappointment of my pill run, of course. But they were not taking calls.
   I rounded the last corner and wondered at the set-up. The last time I’d been to a pharmacy was a million years ago. One customer at a time. Wear a mask. Markings on the pavement outside, for members of the queue to keep their distance. Quiet inside.
   All gone. I stepped in and joined the rear of a short queue. Were these people already being served? I found out when the pharmacist appeared and started taking details. No. Everyone in the queue was fresh to the game.
   Pharmacies are designed for Hobbits. But only three Hobbits at a time. I lurched forward in the line. There was one pharmacist I recognised. The one who eventually served me seemed familiar. I placed a detail from the memory banks. The past is a foreign country: they dye their hair differently there.
   I remembered her as having vibrant red hair. Maybe working in a pharmacy through the Covid years simply deadened the hue. I was chasing up a late delivery. It should be here by 4.00 o’clock.
   This much, I explained. I didn’t go into detail on the supply problems. There was a whole situation at the surgery. Winter puts unbelievable strain on the health system. I was witnessing that in the queue as I listened to various human stories unfold. If there’d been less strain, I wouldn’t have made the trip to check on pills.
   I’d managed one call through to the pharmacy earlier in the week, to be told to check with the surgery, and the surgery assured me that the delivery would be through by 4.00. But the pharmacy wouldn’t deliver to me that late in the day. As this was a Friday, I thought I’d pick up the whole thing and save a weekend without pills.
   She’d check for me.
   And away she went. She returned with someone else’s order. I get bits and pieces of the human interest angle. The pharmacy isn’t the warmest of places. I’ve stepped to the side, to let people see that I am in the process of being served.
   As much as I can, I keep my distance. No one coughs or splutters. Names are called. A friend inside says her friend is outside. The woman outside eventually weaves in and takes her pills.
   Another woman says she’s there for the pills and that she has to deal with a blood test result in three months. Where’s that test being processed? Alaska? The pharmacist kindly explains that the doctor may have misspoken and meant to say three weeks.
   It’s a polite way of explaining that the woman misheard the doctor and the whole exchange is diplomatic as fuck.
   A man is there to pick up the pills on behalf of so-and-so. He has to wait a bit, and wait a bit he does. I have a huge bag with me for the delivery. It has a handle at one end so I can grip it vertically and take up as little space as possible.
   The new guy moving ahead in the queue regrets bringing his big green backpack, and doubly regrets still having it on his back. Only Hobbits can rummage around in here, and we’re past the Hobbit limit.
   A concerned mother explains the need for an over-the-counter medicine. Her child is eleven…and a half. No one is a fraction of an age past the age of 6½, when it is really important to be far from an immature 6. If you are still pulling that shit in your twenties, even on behalf of someone else older than 7, I’d weep for you.
   Cold pharmacy. Scotland’s weather is not extreme. But you get used to what you get used to. And freezing is freezing wherever you are in the world. It brings travel problems. Eventually I’m told the stuff will definitely be delivered next week.
   Are there any pills I could take away with me? The dietary stuff, the supplements, can wait. She goes to check again. No one seems to be served prescriptions. New requests are taken. The queue is out the door now.
   People are told how long it will take for the pills to be made up. And the pharmacy is short-staffed. Half an hour. Some in queue say they’ll be back tomorrow. Closing time is mentioned. And there’s a reminder that the pharmacy is only open in the morning on a Saturday. Everyone is fine with this. No one loses the plot.
   I am told I could be given some pills. The dietary stuff? Part of a supply problem. What about this delivery next week? If pills are available, will they be delivered or will the whole delivery be delayed until the supply problem is resolved over these dietary supplements?
   She has to go and check on that. I can be given the prescription for pills to take somewhere else if I really need to go right now. Or I can wait twenty minutes. I decide to wait twenty minutes for ESSENTIAL PILLS.
   There was no way she could guarantee a pills-only delivery. They have done this in the past. Sent part of an order with the rest of it catching up. But winter weather is a factor now. The fewer trips they can make, the better. Snow is on the way, after all.
   So I see a vacated seat and wait for twenty minutes. More mentions of closing time. Come back in half an hour. Finally, the woman seated next to me is served. She was just ahead of me in the queue. Grateful for the medicine, she leaves.
   I’m called over by an unfamiliar pharmacist. She is likely to be temporary, covering for others I would recognise. I am handed two packets to place inside my giant bag. Instead, I place the life-boosting pills securely in my big coat pocket.
   A quick check of the time tells me I was kept waiting for fourteen minutes instead of twenty. They really are doing their best under increasing pressure. I step into the night. No long lingering sunset here. Darkness descended like a hammer coming down.
   Home after a last check to cross the road. Cold key in a colder lock. A wall of warmth. I have a coffee and heat up. For some reason, the cold lingers. My old winter coat is done. Later that night I head for another coffee and I see the glare through the windows. Snow fell for a while. Not deep. If it is still there in the morning, I’ll take the extra-wide brush to it and use the salt shaker to clear both paths.
   Morning sees the snow still there. I get to work, with the prospect of a coffee and chocolate ahead of me as a treat. Clearing snow starts with the step, and you create small clear areas to stand on, to the side.
   The bulk of the snow is cleared from the side of the path, to avoid creating snow clumps in footprints. I create clear zones by going for diagonal slashes past the spot I am trying to clear. Then I push the nearer snow to the clear spot behind. I’m avoiding creating huge mounds that I suddenly can’t shift.
   I clear out to the street, and sweep left and right to make a zone for the carers to walk over when they leave the van. Then it is out to the other side of the house to do the same thing there. Slightly different layout. Same techniques work. I take it easy, so I don’t keel over from hypothermia.
   They found me there, impaled on the extra-wide brush. Bizarre gardening accident. It’s how most of us would want to go.
   The hardest part is dealing with the patch of actual street. There, one person walked by and clumped through, creating icy patches. I go at it in a half-hearted manner. Coffee beckons.
   There was more exertion than on the trip to the pharmacy. But the air is kinder in the morning hush. I go inside and have coffee and all is well. No lingering feeling of cold.
   The sequel to this story comes on the Monday. It rained, but not sufficiently. A thin haze of rain did its worst. The snow would not dissolve. Instead, ice ruled. What did I care? I didn’t have to go out in it.
   Except. The pharmacy sent text messages. I could pick up pills. Another trek to the ends of the earth. Well, in that icy snow…might as well be. I prepared differently this time. Couldn’t get there before 4.00 in the afternoon.
   There was light waiting for me on my return. And I even had extra soup to use up. Well, I’d have that on my return from the wilds. My new coat would serve me better than the old one had. I switched to hard boots. And I used the grippers.
   I hardly ever have to wear the grippers. You haul these on very carefully, to avoid snapping them. They are rubber contraptions that fit over your shoes. Well these barely made it over the boots. The spikes on them will help you climb walls.
   Out I went, wrapped up and ready to go to the North Pole. Fucking hell. I definitely needed those grippers. The boots were hardly used, so had excellent soles. But I benefited from the crunch of studs through ice to the pavement beneath, anyway.
   I took it easy on the corners as I changed direction in fading light. There were patches of cloud, and so we returned to the business of a long slow Peckinpah sunset.
   On the way, screaming schoolgirls crossed my path. They were on a stretch of ground devoid of snow. This was no good. They had to race ahead to untouched grass to reach snow to make snowballs that they could create for the strike back against the boys who were chasing them. The boys had snowballs to hand, of course.
   I was aware of traffic. No snowballs came my way. Instead, the passing bus absorbed all the ammunition.
   Pharmacy hijinks, round two.
   In I go. The place serves as a community catch-up for some people. Chatty guy knew chatty woman. Someone threatened to smash her car up. The threat didn’t sound convincing. I was handed two packets of pills marked HOME DELIVERY.
   Nothing else. So the pharmacist from before had gone out of her way to notify me that the rest of the pills were available on the Monday. Rather than waiting…who knows how long…for the next shipment of food fuel. The supplements will definitely be delivered.
   With that, I was out into the night. Streetlights now competed against bobbing snowmen lit from within. I’d only seen two real  snowmen. Giants. Built out on the street and not in gardens. There hadn’t been enough snow in gardens to make those giants.
   Sunset lingered in the distance. I worked my way back across treacherous ice. The crowds of schoolchildren had vanished. Crunch crunch crunch. I didn’t regret wrestling the grippers into place.
   Strain. The strain of the health system in winter. The mid-month delivery of medical supplies was messed up by many factors. We got by. Even if I was forced out across an icy landscape, things worked out.
   Home. Soup. Warm. Glad I wouldn’t have to do that again. Let’s hope I don’t have to make an icy trek in January. January weather is December weather, but lighter at night. That’s all. By supper, heavy rain came down and gradually killed the snow. But not the bobbing snowmen. They were still glittering away, late into the night.