2 (28) YOUR LIFE IN THEIR HANDS?

AFTER A TWO YEAR WAIT... 

Wednesday 10th June: 

At lunchtime, the telephone rang. It was a call from 'Donna' at St. Mary's Hospital on the Island offering Maureen an appointment for a further operation on the leg which, two years and eight months ago, underwent a hip replacement. (She has since walked precariously with a stick and hardly a couple of steps without one.)

She was out. 

I contacted her. 

She rang the hospital to say that we have sold our house and are waiting on the legalities to determine (indeed, are trying to pack for) the forthcoming move. After two years plus of waiting, she asked, does it have to be this quick? Three or four weeks hence would see us in better condition for it. 

Donna switched into hospital coercion mode. She could, of course, ring again in three weeks time: “But if you refuse then you will be struck off the list.” 

Right, that's it then. What time tomorrow? 

7.15 am. 

So, at what seemed to me to be bloody midnight, we arrived at the Island's only remaining hospital on Thursday 11 June to by told by a pleasant little ward sister (Filipino I think - or can't you say that now?) that my Leader was second on the list that morning and I could ring at one o'clock. 

In the event, Mo came out of surgery at about 2 pm following an Exploratory Left Hip Abductor Repair - LTHR (bigger scar than last time) and the surgeon’s instruction that this was to be treated in the same way as another hip replacement. 

On the Saturday she rang to tell me she could come home. The Isle of Wight Festival was under way so I suppose the hospital thought they might need the beds; there was already a poor bloke in a side ward who had been at the festival three hours, tripped, broke a leg, said farewell to the £270 cost of his ticket and was destined to miss a great performance by Fleetwood Mac. 

Anyway, all the necessary aids for convalescence had been installed here (borrowed from the Red Cross, blessem) and the little Leader is now, in her usual fashion, setting about a return to normality, or what passes for it in this house. 

Oh, she has looked up hip abductor repair on the web, too, and it transpires that the symptoms are exactly those she has been describing to everybody involved in her follow up appointments for the past two years. Ne'er mind. Somebody finally twigged. 

Your life in their hands? 
Tell me about it.

TELE GETS WORSE. 

A cat's view. 

The cat Shadow has taken to adorning my Leader's chair; he sprawls comfortably atop the sturdy little recliner - stretched out behind her head - and moves but occasionally to remind her he is there. Sometimes he will drape languidly across the back of her neck like a black and white cat stole. He eats frugally and sleeps a lot. He would rather look out of the window than watch television and currently I feel he has more sense than either of us. 

Tele gets worse. Reality outnumbers entertainment and when it comes to reality I can't be fussed with what goes on next door - on either side - let alone down the terrace, so I certainly don't give a toss what's going on in the Big Brother house or whether, at the instigation of an English confirmed bachelor with an inappropriate beard, two characters named Mich(elle) and Mel(anie) are - or are not - going to buy a renovated French farmhouse with gite. 

I did watch the cup final. When it finished the cat Shadow suddenly opened one eye and said: “You got that wrong, then.” 

I gave him a Den's 'don't go there' stare. “What you talkin' about?” 

 “You said Arsenal would be at least three up by half time and would probably win six nil.” 

“Well I wasn't far out, they won four nil. Aston Villa weren't really in it.” 

“No, you got it wrong,” he said, “by two goals.” 

“So sue me. It was a pretty good game though, don't you think?” 

He yawned. “How the hell would I know? I was asleep.” 

He wasn't asleep for The Republic of Ireland v. England. 

He went out. Proof positive that he has more sense than either of us. It was a friendly. It finished nil - nil. It was bloody boring. 

Less so the Slovenia v England game which England deservedly won by three goals to two: at times, in the second half, Roy Hodgson's team almost did look the business.

Armada: 12 days to save England. 

My Leader and I watched this together. Presented by Dan Snow (looking very alone on a small boat in the English Channel), it had Anita Dobson playing the self-absorbed, penny-pinching Queen Elizabeth I, a true Tudor and classic example of why the French and the Russians did what they did to their royalty. 

Truth to tell, the whole thing is better put across in about three minutes if you watch Horrible Histories The Spanish Armada, which can be seen on Google. 

READING TAKES LONGER. 

Finished: Terry Pratchett's Soul Music. It took me right back to the sixties, what I remember of them. I did dismiss most of the music as rubbish at the time. What did I know? 

Am still reading: Ben Macintyre's A Spy Among Friends. What treacherous bastards they all were.

Reading takes that much longer nowadays and I have a recovering hipster to keep an eye on: she, for her sins, bought me the late Terry Pratchett's A Slip of the Keyboard (first published in GB in 2014). She has since been unable to concentrate on anything other than my reading aloud hilarious chunks from the maestro's reflections on life, death and hats. Worth every penny. 

If I'm not back quite soon we'll be on the move.