42) The Telephone Call in The Night Nobody Wants. 15th July

 Lying inside a 60ft narrowboat, trying to get comfortable on a sofa which transitioned to something which vaguely resembled a bed, but felt like a heap of lumpy bricks, I'd finally fallen asleep for the night. 

My daughter, Robin was next to me as my other half had 'given up trying to sleep on the bloody thing' after the first night where he kept rolling downhill into me, giving me about a foot of space and resting various sweaty bits of his body parts on me all night. Robin, being the kind soul she is, offered him her bed. She was.next to me.

Pitch black on the boat except for the LED of the smoke alarm and the standby light of the tv which we hadn't worked out how to switch off.  I'd more or less settled my left elbow into the gap in the cushions, beaten my pillow into shape and had finally drifted off to sleep lulled by the gentle movement of the boat. All was silent. 

1.48am, I was woken by my phone sending a chill down my spine. Who on earth would call at this time of...

And I knew.

The call everyone dreads, one I'd been anticipating for over a year; When will it be? What will they say? Who will it come from?

I was about to get my answers. 

'HOSPITAL' my phone said; I'd programmed the number a year back as all calls from the whole hospital come from the same number.

Help!

I fumbled trying to slide the green button to 'answer,' my hands like jelly. 'Hello.' I tried to sound calm. I failed.

'Hello. Is this Izabelle?' said a young, gentle, female voice.

'Yes' I said, scrambling to my knees on the bed to hear her better. Shit, shit, shit. Robin leaped up from her sleep to hug me. In the quiet of the boat she could hear everything. We hugged, we listened.

'It's the staff nurse from ward C7,' she paused for a moment. 'I'm so sorry, but Dad has just passed away!' 

She explained she'd been at the desk outside his room, where he'd been for the past 3 days and she'd noticed his breathing had changed so she went in to see and 'he'd gone'. 

Just like that, he was - gone.

What now? What're you supposed to do when you're four days from your car by boat and about 40 miles away by road, its 1.48am. Even if I was to get a taxi at that time I didn't know where to look for one or where to send it, and was the marina where my car was parked even open? Not only that but there was also a 3 hour drive home as well. And he was already dead.

I thanked the nurse and hung up.

What was I supposed to do now?

Robin and I went outside for some air - it seemed the right thing to do - we grabbed our quilts and sat on the front of the boat, in the pitch blackness of the English countryside night, with a million stars reflecting off the inky water. We sat, we hugged, we cried.

After just over two hours we went back inside and watched the dawn rise over the water through the window. It was a sunrise dad wouldn't see. He'd never see any sunrise ever again. 

And there was nothing I could do.

There was no-one I could tell at that time. Ant had to be the first one I told. Such news travels fast, so I couldn't risk telling anyone until Ant knew and he had told me many times he didn't want to be told in the middle of the night as he has difficulty sleeping.

I rang him at 7.30am. 'Hi Ant, How're you?'

'OK at the moment, until you've rung.' he said. He knew without me saying a word.

'So sorry Ant, dad's gone.' my voice crumbled.

'Ah!' he said 'OK'. There was a short silence. 'I've finished cleaning the freezer now.' 

And we moved on.

At 2.30 in the afternoon I developed a bit of a stomach ache, mild at first, but it wouldn't go away. Fifteen minutes later I was sending my daughter to check the bathroom was free as I needed to use it FAST. 

I'll spare you the details but it was awful. I lay on the boat bathroom floor which usually I avoid at all costs, while my stomach decided by which route it wanted to expel its contents. It chose both. The sweat was pouring off me and I felt like death.

I staggered out of the bathroom and collapsed on the bed. Robin found me and I told her I thought I may need to see someone. I thought at one point I was going to follow dad out of there. The thought that some bright spark may have decided it was a good idea to have a joint funeral for me and dad gave me the will to fight.

Robin called 111 and they decided to send an ambulance. This meant pulling the boat to somewhere identifiable so the crew knew where to go.

Meanwhile, I was sat on the loo. Boat toilets are vile at the very best, all the waste gets stored in the bottom of the boat in a tank, which usually needs draining every week or two depending on usage. The smell is vomit inducing and this one right then was worse than most. As I flushed again in an attempt to leave the room to lie down, it decided that was the very moment to become full and the level backed right up to the rim with a mixture of all the contents from the tank. Vile vile vile. Then as a gastro bug goes, I had to go again. Not having the strength to hover, and having no other option... I'll not distress your imagination any more.

The Marina staff were amazing and let us moor the boat by the entrance, they sent word to the reception for when the ambulance arrived and let us use the pump out device even though they were officially closed. Boat pump outs require a £15 token for 8 minutes pumping.  Five minutes is usually enough to empty a tank but they give eight on the timer to be sure. 

The guy doing the pump was shocked how much flowed out. He said there was no way the boat had been emptied from the previous hirers. It was still emptying when the timer ran out at eight minutes.  That was OK though, current crisis averted and we only had a few days left anyway.

The ambulance came about an hour later - by now I had no idea of time. They took my stats and declared me 'in all probabilities not about to die', despite my fears. They said they wanted to take me in ideally, but it was probably not in the best interest of the seriously ill patients at the hospital as I was probably contagious. They left, telling me to drink flat Lucozade and lots of water and leaving me in bed. The family confined me to the one room and spoke to me from the other side of the door for 24 hours. They thought I'd somehow ingested some food poisoning bug or maybe some canal water.

I felt like I'd lost an argument with a horse.

Great!  Happy holidays all.

I've had better holidays.