Advent Flog 2023 #5 – Dreamy Mushroom Risotto

For those of you who don’t frequent Twitter any more, there’s been an awful lot of Cilla Black content on there lately.  And if that doesn’t tempt you immediately back to Elon Musk’s Online Looney Bin then I don’t know what will.

It’s funny how Our Cilla’s reputation has taken a dip since her untimely passing in 2015.  Once she was the beloved Matriarch of Prime Time Saturday television, hoovering up ratings with shows like Blind Date and Surprise, Surprise. 

Since then it’s turned out she was a bit of an arsehole.  Not a Michael Barrymore-esque descent, no meat factory workers were harmed in the making of her downfall.  Rather she’d built up a reputation as a foul-tempered Prima donna, voted the most obnoxious celebrity to deal with by BA cabin crew back in the day. 

It’s not her historic conduct that’s had her trending on Twitter though.  People have been posting the music videos of her covering popular chart hits that used to appear on Surprise, Surprise and it’s like the very gates of Hell have been opened.

Cilla Black was a professional singer.  She was part of the Merseybeat movement, signed by Brian Epstein and was friends with the Beatles. She managed two Number One singles in the 60’s and continued to bother the charts into the 70’s.  This despite having a singing voice like a wounded flock of geese tumbling down a tin mine. 

But these Surprise, Surprise music videos.  Oh my giddy Jesus, it’s the number of ways that they’re awful that really catches the eye.  Her dressed as a boxer, doing a soft-shoe shuffle honking out “Eye of the Tiger”.  Her somersaulting over a vaulting horse while bleating a cover of “The Heat is On”.  Cycling along with two uniformed police officers murdering the Golden Girls theme tune. 

I’ve officially watched too many of them.  I dreamt about Cilla last night.  I was at a Spanish airport with my pal and ex-band mate Charles “Chaz” Paxford (a vegetarian).  We needed food and I was directed to an airport restaurant that I was told served mushroom risotto.  I went in and the door shut behind me, after which I discovered a) the mushroom risotto was £30 a plate (a lorra, lorra money for a risotto) and b) if I wanted any I’d have to buy Cilla Black a plate as well.

It was then I spotted Our Cilla in the dining area, circling like a shark, her wild piggy eyes darting around hungrily.

There was no way I was paying £60 for mushroom risotto, especially not if 50% of it was going to Cilla-bloody-Black so I escaped out of the fire door and had to tell Chaz he’d have to go hungry.

I think I’m going to have to delete the Twitter app.  I’ll never sleep again if she visits me in my dreams one more time.

Her real surname wasn’t even “Black”.  Born “Priscilla White”.  Was anything about her true?

Advent Flog 2023 #4 – Cat-a-flog 42

I’ve been meaning to blog about the following for ages.  I think now is as good a time as any:

I was in the garden.  It was late summer, earlier this year.  I was warming my haggard old bones in the sun.  My bones were feeling particularly haggard as I was recovering from a bout of Covid that had poleaxed me.  After a grim few days I felt I was on the mend and had dragged myself outside to enjoy a brief interlude of summer weather.

It was blissfully quiet outside.  It hasn’t always been so this year.  The house next door has been undergoing extensive renovations; almost rebuilding it from the ground up.  That had meant months of mess, noise and builders.  But that particular afternoon it seemed they were on a break and all I could hear was birdsong.

Tarragon joined me on the patio.  He’d been off somewhere, presumably having adventures, but had returned for a laze on the flagstones next to me.  But before too long something caught his attention, his ears pricked up and he skittered off somewhere at speed. 

Leaving just me alone again, with the sun’s gentle warmth and the birdsong.

A short while later I spotted Tarragon again, prowling along the dividing wall between us and the quietened building site next door.  I squinted at him.  The sun was behind Tarragon, but something about his silhouette was “off”.  The fur around his ankles looked matted and puffed up.

I examined closer: his paws and forelimbs were clotted with cement.  Up on the wall jumped Axwell, the cat from two doors down, Tarragon’s partner in crime.  The fur of his belly was similarly tangled with cement. 

I peered over the wall: in the ground floor extension to the rear of the house a fresh floor of wet cement had recently been laid.  Probably only a few hours previous.  The builders had probably departed early to let it dry.  Meaning it was unprotected from cats.  Most of the cement floor was pristine.  A small but unmissable percentage of it looked like it had had two small cats dragged through it.

I tempted Tarragon into the house with the idea of trying to somehow wash the wet cement off his limbs.  Caroline was out as she’d had to take her Dad to the hospital for an appointment.  One human being cannot successfully wash one cat.  I managed to wipe a little of the cement off two paws, but Tarragon escaped my grasp and there was soon spots of wet, corrosive concrete scattered through the house.

This isn’t a situation to find yourself in while you’re not quite recovered from Covid 19.

I phoned the vets and spoke to one of the nurses and asked what I should do.  She went to speak to the vet and when she returned she asked me how soon I could get Tarragon down to the practice?  I asked why?  She suggested I get him down there asap.

Cue mild panic.  It only took two attempts to get him in the cat carrier, although it cost my a drop of blood and skin and completely ruined the t-shirt I was wearing.  And there was more cement smudged over the sofa than I was happy with.

A neighbour very kindly drove me down to the vet.  Tarragon whimpered and defecated in his cat carrier all the way.  As soon as I delivered him to the reception and he was carried off urgently, without explanation, leaving me to pace the waiting area.

Half an hour later a smiling nurse brought him out again.  She told me Tarragon had the cement thoroughly cleaned off him and was ready to go home.  That’ll be 60 quid, please. 

I think – think – the vet picked up that I was home alone, couldn’t properly clean Tarragon, and wanted him in urgently so he didn’t accidentally lick up too much cement or suffer burns to his skin from the corrosive lime in it.  What I do know is that I was so relieved, baffled and suffering from a Covid-softened brain that I left the surgery without paying.  I’m not used to dealing the veterinarian shit. 

Caroline got back from the hospital with her dad only a few minutes after I got back from the vets.  She asked if I’d had a nice quiet time while they were away? 

I wasn’t quite sure where to begin.

Caroline called the vets to pay the tab.

Advent Flog 2023 #3 – Schnorbitz

We went to the Swindon Pantomime on Sunday.  I wasn’t really in the mood.  Did I enjoy it?  Yes.  It’s the second year running I’ve been to the Wyvern Theatre panto and for the second year running it was a professionally mounted show with a pleasing streak of anarchy running through it. 

David Ashley (as Nurse Nora) and Paul Burling (as Muddles the Idiot) were welcome returnees from last year and they were joined by UK Drag Race’s Divina de Campo as “Queen Morgiana”.  I can’t remember the last time Swindon had double-barrelled pantomime dames.  They must’ve upped the budget.

This year’s show was “Snow White”.  Just “Snow White”.  The seven diminutive gentlemen usually associated with this pantomime weren’t mentioned on the poster.  The seven characters did feature and it’s always entertaining hearing what they’ve been renamed as to avoid the wrath of Walt Disney’s lawyers.

Should I ever be asked to adapt Snow White (and my time will surely come) I think I’ll call them: “GP, Vexed, Euphoric, Narcoleptic, Meek, Seasonal Rhinitis, and Learning Difficulties.”

I was charmed to notice that the front of house staff had framed and hung posters from previous years’ pantomimes around the theatre bar.  The earliest one I can remember is Aladdin back in the 1981/82 season.  “Comedian” Bernie Winters starred as Wishee-Washee, accompanied his canine comedy partner Schnorbitz. 

Bernie found fame in the as one half of the Winters Brothers comedy act with his brother Mike before an acrimonious split in 1978 which led to Mike emigrating to Florida and Bernie teaming up with a 14 stone St. Bernard. 

Bernie Winters’ solo act involved him threatening to smash people’s faces in while Schnorbitz watched on with a sadness in his eyes.  This wafer-thin material sustained a career until Bernie’s death in 1991.  Fair play to him, that’s what I say. 

According to Urban Dictionary “Schnorbitz” was street slang for cocaine in the 2010’s. That would explain a few things.

I had a scroll through the Panto Archive website (est. 2016) and I don’t remember many other Swindon Pantomimes from my childhood.  Maybe the lure of Jess Conrad as Robin Hood (82/83) or Helen Shapiro as Dick Whittington (83/84) wasn’t strong enough to tempt us in?  Or maybe I’ve just forgotten? 

I’m pretty sure we did go to others. Johnny Ball (Jack and the Beanstalk 1986/76) and Blue Peter’s Peter Duncan (Babes in the Wood 1987/88) ring a vague bell. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention.

At some point I inevitably must’ve stop going to the Wyvern panto. When did I stop going?  Maybe it was 1998/98 (Jack and the Beanstalk with Colin Baker as Dame Durden) or 2002/03 (Dick Whittington with Colin Baker as Sarah the Cook).  I completely missed the Adam Woodyatt years (2014-16) and the Keith Chegwin trilogy (2011-2014; RIP).  And all the other stars who appeared around their epic reigns like “Wossname” and “Thingee”.

But I allowed myself to be dragged in the last two years.  And they’ve been good productions.  And grumbling about going is really half the fun.

Advent Flog 2023 #2 – A Little More Conflagration

Today we had the first open fire of the winter.  Far better than all the closed fires they used to have back in the day.  I suppose all closed fires become open fires if you let them burn long enough.

Yes, this sort of forced whimsy is the type of content you’re going to get from me this Christmas; you’d probably better get used to it.

I’d been out and bought of bag of kiln-dried logs and some eco-friendly firelighters.  I’m limping well enough to forage for fire-making apparel now.  I am a man once more.

The logs were stout, hairy and dryer than a nun’s undercarriage. The firelighters look like tightly-wrapped balls of straw, matted-wool and candle wax; the kind of thing you’d find clinging to a Conservative MP’s ringpiece (if you went looking for them), but presumably less flammable.

I finally met our local Tory MP at a charity quiz the other night. He looks like a bespectacled jelly baby fashioned from congealed beef dripping. If self-satisfaction was a usable energy source he’s be able to single-handedly power Helsinki using a mirror and a box of moisturised tissues.

I won’t name him; if you’re curious just Google: “South”, “Swindon” and “Wanker”.  

We have a supply of kindling as well.  You can’t have a decent open fire with quality kindling as the foundation of the conflagration.  A man popped round to deliver a netting sack of neat and bone dry splinters of wood to our door for £7.50.   Enough for at least a dozen fires.  I’ve literally paid more than £7.50 for a London pint in the last 6 months.  A bargain.  We have a reliable kindling dealer.  How middle-class is that? 

A proper kindling surprise…

…No?  Please yourselves.

In preparation for the imminent winter we’d had our chimney swept a few weeks back.  We couldn’t find the details of our previous sweep, so we took another one on recommendation.  He seemed to do a smashing job, but he had a very low opinion of our old sweep.  He didn’t think much of his workmanship at all.  He slagged him off fluently as he worked on our flue.  Absolutely rubbished the chap.  He spared him no blushed.

“Probably just as well we didn’t use year,” I ventured as the chimney sweep finished up.

“You’d have had a job,” said the new sweep as he wiped his hands on a rag, “he died of throat cancer about a year ago.”

New Sweep is a cold-hearted human being. The fire is drawing far better though.

There’s something to be said of the first open fire of the winter.  Our firebox (technical term) is small but it pumps out a fair amount of heat for a such a humble aperture.  The warmth is almost incidental.  It’s the busy crackle and spit of the fire that offers the most solace on a winter’s night.  It’s like a quiet conversation happening in the corner of the room.  One you don’t have to take part in.

Advent Flog 2023 #1 – Adflogged Out

It’s 1^st December.  A bit after 1^st December when I actually write this.  And regular readers of my profane Parish Newsletter will know it is my habit to do a blog a day from the start of December up until Christmas.  An Advent blog.  Or “Advent Flog”.  Or “Adflog”, which sounds like one of the few remaining businesses willing to advertise on Twitter.

God alone knows why I’ve Advent blogged/Advent Flogged/Adflogged religiously over the last so-many years.  Other than an unsubstantiated conviction that people are as interested in reading about my day-to-day existence as I am in writing about it.

This year I am disinclined.  There: I’ve said it.  It feels like an effort, to be frank.  November has – to be honest – hammered the ever-living fuck out of me and the idea of fabricating any sort of festive jollity this year feels like an act of dishonesty.  An affectation that everything is alright when it is not and I am not. 

I am spent.  For reasons I’ve already blogged about, like my recent health scare, and other matters.  The other matter is both nothing and something, really.  Sorry to be so gnomic.  A punch to the gut rather than a bullet in the spleen.  An insult off the back of an actual injury.  Nothing terminal, I just don’t really want to wallow in it yet.

But I will.  I will wallow, trust me on that one.

Now, despite everything I’ve written above about not wanting to Adflog, anyone with any basic observational capabilities will have noticed that I’ve gone to the effort of typing this.  Which means I’ve either decided to announce that I’m not doing “Flog-vent” this year (which has a strong feeling of “Look At Me” about it, it has to be said.)  Or, I’ve decided to do it anyway in defiance of the universe in general.  I do far more pointless things on a daily basis, like waking up in the morning and breathing.

So: yes.  You’re facing the prospect of 24 blogs over the next 20-something days.  They may not be terribly Christmassy. 

I will endeavour to try to keep them upbeat, as the idea of writing 24 essays of me moaning for around 500-ish words fills me with the sort of existential dread that could strip limescale from a blue whale’s foreskin. 

I will attempt to be funny, as trying and failing at that has been the leitmotif of my entire literary output.

And I will try to spend the time required writing these things, as the alternative is me playing Angry Birds 2 on my phone for far too much of my day.  I downloaded the Angry Birds 2 app on my phone as a distraction while convalescing my injured foot/hypertension/general exhaustion and I’m absolutely obsessed with the bastard thing now.  To the exclusion of sleeping, eating and taking my blood pressure medication.

I don’t feel like I want the gimcracks or gewgaws of Christmas yet.  I’m not sure I want them at all at the moment.  But if anyone’s going to be able to convince me, then I do wonder if it might be me?

Let’s find out together.

A Heart of Eccleston(e)

In the last three weeks I haven’t been much further than the GP surgery and back.  In three weeks I hadn’t even been able to force a shoe on my left foot.  Each excursion to the doctors had required the trainer/sandal combination that made me look like quite the escaped mental patient. 

During those three weeks I had one ambition (other than recovering my health): we had tickets for A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic in London.  I’d bought them far back in March when I had more orderly blood pressure and both feet were more or less the same size.

Jack Thorne’s adaption has become a tradition at the Old Vic, playing there  played over the Christmas season for the last seven year.  There was even a brief “In Camera” run in 2020 when a home-bound audience could watch it performed in the empty theatre auditorium via Zoom.  We did.  It starred Andrew Lincoln and it was a welcome distraction from a Covid-hobbled Christmas.

It was indirectly because of Covid that we had the tickets.  I had an email from the Old Vic about a refund for a cancelled show that I hadn’t redeemed.  It needed using before it expired.  I checked the Old Vic website and tickets for the 2023 Christmas Carol had literally just gone on sale.  I gobbled two up for a Saturday matinee. 

In June it was announced that Christopher Eccleston would be playing Scrooge.  I’d never seen the famously-crotchety Mancunian on stage so that was an added bonus.  I’ve seen a few of the new series Doctor Whos live in theatre productions.  I watched David Tennant get his Hamlet out for the Royal Shakespeare Company  and enjoyed Peter Capaldi in the West End production of The Lady Killers (adapted by Gra*h*m L*n*h*n back before he decided to torch his career and his marriage).

But I was particularly looking forward to watching an adaption of my favourite story starring my 7^th favourite Doctor Who.

That was up in the air after I took sick.  My blood pressure was all over the shop and I couldn’t walk for more than short bursts.  London felt as far away as the moon.  I got a bit upset about it.  Caroline promised me that she’d get me there.  One way or another we’d be at the Old Vic on 25^th November.

The day before the show I managed to get a trainer on my defected hoof without too much pain and screaming.  That boded well.  I was mobile enough barefoot and due back at work after the weekend.  There was no reason why we shouldn’t make it.

We got up on the morning of the 25^th.  The offending foot had decided to swell again during the night.  I still succeeded in getting a shoe on it, laces splayed, but it was like 5 pounds of mince in a 2 pound punnet. 

Caroline drove us to the station, dropping me off at the door.  The train was unaccountably on time and arrived at Paddington only 10 minutes late, which – for a Great Western Railway service – is practically gold-standard service.

Paddington was seething with passengers, a congestion of humanity not helped by building work at the station.  The entrance to the Bakerloo tube was a bottleneck.  Caroline suggested a taxi, but a combination of stubbornness and parsimony made me insist on the Underground.

You forget how much walking can be involved in travelling by Tube when you’re fully mobile, don’t you?  There’s a lot of steps betwixt and between.  But we got on the Bakerloo line soon enough and I managed to find a seat.  Half an hour later we are Waterloo and Waterloo is very close to the Old Vic.  Further away than I remembered.  I slowed as my foot was ailing and my body was tiring, but we got there.

The show itself was worth every pained step.  The stage was in the heart of the auditorium, a crucifix of planking, bestrode by lamps, with seating on all sides.  Cast members were already on stage when we arrived, playing Christmas tunes, handing out mince pies and throwing tangerine up into the Royal Circle and beyond.  It was already a buzz of Festive activity.

And then the lights dimmed, the show started and out marched Eccleston with frock coat, top hat and scowl.  It took me a while to get used to him playing Scrooge as a Southerner, as I’m more used to his usual blunt, Salfordian tones, but he was every inch the Ebenezer.  He played the gradual conversion from tight-fisted hand to the grindstone to as good a friend, master and man as the good old city knew.

The play wouldn’t have functioned without the strong ensemble working with Eccleston and the multi-talented cast played an abundance of affecting and vivid parts.  And Jack Thorne’s script was faithful to the novella while still throwing up creative twists and surprises that remained honest to the text.

We loved it.  I could’ve happily stayed and watched the evening performance.  But I’d already pushed my luck dragging my knackered old limbs as far as we had and we needed to get back to Waterloo, then Paddington and then home. 

We did it though.  We bloody did it.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Logo)

It’s Doctor Who’s 60^th anniversary tomorrow.  That can’t be right, as I’m pretty sure it was the 50^th anniversary about 3 years ago.  I remember it very clearly.  Actually semi-clearly, I was attending The Doctor Who Celebration Weekend at the ExCeL in London and I was sporting a hangover as thick as porridge for reasons I choose not to remember.

Two things I do remember: they had a number of the surviving Doctors on stage for one of the interview panels.  Doctors 4. 5, 6, 7 and 11.  Tom Baker (4, arguably the best one) perched on the arm of a sofa and refused to interact with the others for comic effect.  Peter Davison (5), Sylvester McCoy (7) and Matt Smith (11 and then current Doctor) took it in good humour.  “Tom being Tom” as it’s known in fan circles.  Colin Baker (6, arguably the worst one) had a face like thunder, which only seemed to encourage the Better Baker.

There was a live screening of the Doctor Who Anniversary TV Special at the British Film Institute that evening, which Doctors 5, 6 & 7 attended.  I understand it wasn’t without incident.

This is what I was told happened: Word reached Colin, just before broadcast, that Tom had a cameo appearance in the episode.  He, Peter and Sylvester did not; they’d not even been invited to appear.  Colin, possibly still seething from The Better Baker’s earlier shenanigans, had a monumental sense of humour failure and stormed out of the theatre.  Peter, ever the peacemaker, pursued him to try to persuade him to return.  Both missed the entire showing.  Sylvester watched it alone, fully enjoying the extra leg room.

This is why Sylvester is my favourite.

There isn’t a Doctor Who Celebration Weekend for the 60^th anniversary.  I probably wouldn’t be match fit enough to attend if there have been.  There isn’t a live screening for Colin to storm out of (he’s 80 now, I think it would be more light drizzle than a storm).  Tom Baker is nearly 90, but still with us, meaning Colin is still the Lesser Baker.  Colin, Peter and Sylvester all got to appear in their own Doctor Who mini-episodes on iPlayer, writing the perceived wrong (as far as Colin was concerned) of a decade previous.

Tom didn’t appear in his own iPlayer special, too frail, but he did do a Radio Times interview that included a sly comment that could be interpreted as a gentle dig at some his successors.  Expect to see Colin burning piles of copies of the Radio Times shortly.

There are three anniversary TV specials this time, all starring the ex and current Doctor Who David Tennant (who was the old 10^th Doctor but is now the new 14^th Doctor) and Catherine Tate (who is the past, future and current Catherine Tate).  The majority of the old Doctor Who episodes are available to view and the internet is stuffed to bursting with new and current content.

Doctor Who has been a passion of mine for roughly three-quarters of my life.  You might think it’s been a great comfort to me.  It’s not, it’s been a constant fucking torment.  I care too much about it, you see?  I’m too invested.  There was 16 years it was off the air when I thought it would never return.  There have years of being worried that the ratings might slip and it could be cancelled again.  There are chunks of it I don’t even actually like due to the writing, management, star or a combination of all three.  There are many fans I interact with on social media who I think are a fairly solid argument for Capital Punishment.

Fact is there’s quite a lot of things about Doctor Who that are a bit “Colin Baker” (or “Chris Chibnall” for younger viewers).

So why stick with it?  Why put yourself through something that often enrages, disappoints or tortures you?  Why have a toxic relationship with a television programme and its fandom?

Because when it hits the sweet spot, when Doctor Who is as good as I want it to be, I feel no pain.  When the Doctor is on the screen being the impossible and often unbearable flawed hero I need him to be I can feel a massive Tom Baker-sized grin creeping across my face and all the anguish and anger at the world is briefly washed away.  He’s an unbearable smartarse and rubs people up the wrong way, but he’s kindness at his core (or tries to be) and can’t abide tyranny and cruelty.  And when he’s wonderful it still makes the little boy in me cry.

And maybe that’s what the show and the character is to me.  It’s a compass.  To stop me from wandering too far off course.  Keeping me connected to the little me who’d expect me to be better.

Maybe it’s that.

Somethings a Foot – part five

I was expecting to hear back from the hospital about some further tests within a few days of being released back into wild.  I didn’t.  I was far from disappointed, the idea of being caged back within the confines of the hospital.  But I did need further investigations, in the interests of not dropping down dead.  So I called the hospital.  They had no record of any further explorations (other than a potential letter for a echocardiogram through the post).  They suggested I get a GP’s appointment.  Might as well suggest I fly to the moon.

I called the surgery and the receptionist, a nervy but helpful-sounding lady, told me the best way to guarantee an appointment in the morning was to present myself at the surgery at opening time. 

And this I did.  We did, Caroline had to drive me.  Our surgery is a considerable distance away from our house.  I’ve been a patient there since a child.  It used to be based at the bottom of Victoria Road, in the town centre, but it moved to the wilds of Gorse Hill a few decades ago.  More like 20 minutes’ drive away.  The old Victoria Road surgery is now a funeral parlour, so the building’s still being used for roughly the same trade. 

I should really change surgeries.  There are others nearer our house.  I have a long list of things I really should do, or really shouldn’t, which probably explains why I developed hypertension. 

We arrived at 8.20am at the surgery doors, I joined a short queue at reception (dressed again in shoe and sandal combo as my left foot was still elephantiasised) and managed to obtain an appointment to see a doctor.  My stomach was in knots at the thought he might send me back to the hospital, but he seemed content enough to change my BP medication, book me in for more bloods at the surgery and sign me off work for a few weeks to allow me to convalesce. 

I’m not one of nature’s convalescers.  I spent far too much time playing Angry Birds 2 on my phone (which I’m not very good at, annoying me and probably aggravating my blood pressure).  But the pills seemed to work.  My left foot started to shrink back to something near its usual dimensions.  My blood pressure, while still high, started to ebb back down towards something less screamingly dangerous.

All I really needed was some rest, relaxation and quiet.

It was around that time that my Father-in-Law had to temporarily move in with us due to a health emergency, of course.

But that’s another story.

Something’s a Foot – part four

The AMU was closing for the day, so we were relocated to another distant part of the hospital where they’d see if they could find me a bed for the night for observations.  Caroline popped home to pack me a bag.  A neighbour had already popped in to feed Tarragon so that was one less thing to be stressed about at least.  There were quite a few patients camped in this waiting area with me, some under blankets like a field hospital.  Beds were obviously at a premium.

Time crawled on.  It was dark outside now and raining buckets.  Paramedics were wheeling trolleys in through the automatic doors, bourn on a cold, damp, rush of air and drizzle.  There was one woman on a drip sat near me, another on an oxygen canister and a third coughing painfully into a handkerchief.  Apart from the miss-matched footwear there was nothing to show there was anything wrong with me.

I tried to keep my foot elevated.  It was singing after walking about 5 circuits of the hospital for all the tests, x-rays, scans and bleedings.  I managed to perch it on a trolly until it was moved by an apologetic orderly.  The big toe of my other foot had chafed against my trainer during my perambulations and that was throbbing in harmony. 

By about midnight it was clear there were no more beds.  There were still quite a few of us stragglers left, sat in chairs under the bright corridor lights. 

Caroline asked one of the nurses if there was any hope of sending me home as a sleepless night in a waiting room wasn’t going to help my overall level of stress.  The nurse was lovely.  She suggested giving me one more dose of the BP pills and if that moved my blood pressure she’d have a word with the ward doctor.  I swallowed the pill and tried to submerge myself deep into a Zen-like well tranquillity. 

Half an hour later the nurse took my BP again.  It was down.  Not much, but enough.  I was given a treatment plan and finally allowed to go home.  I’d been in the hospital for about 13 hours.  Caroline brought the car round, I hobbled out through the filthy rain and one short drive later I was in my own bed.

Something’s a Foot – part three

After what felt like a thousand years I was called in to see the Acute Medical Unit doctor.  He was very keen to work out the underlying cause for my hypertension.  As were we all.  He asked me a lot of questions.  Had I been under a lot of stress?  Yes.  Had I been suffering blurred vision or chest pains?  No.  Had I suffered any stroke-like symptoms or TIAs?  I think I might have popped to the hospital a bit sooner if I had, doc…

I understand why they have to ask me these questions.  Truly.  But I just wanted out of that hospital.  I felt caged.  I just wanted to limp out with some foot pain pills.  Instead I was being asked questions, undergoing tests and waiting to find out What Was Wrong With Me.

Blood was taken.  I was sent for a heart x-ray.  I was given blood pressure medication to bring down my BP.  The doctor wanted me to have an ECG, but explained I’d already had one.  I still had half the electrodes stuck to me as evidence.  I’d be finding electrodes hidden under various folds several days later.  And the most unexpected result from my blood tests was that my kidney function was “very good”.  I don’t think anyone had that in the Ben’s internal organ sweepstake.

The ongoing issue was the BP medicine wasn’t bringing my blood pressure down as much as they liked and they didn’t want to send me home while they were still concerned about it.  They wanted to work out what The Underlying Cause was, especially as the hypertension seemed to be asymptomatic. 

It was getting late by that point, and I was getting a bit upset.

Finally one of the tests and procedures showed up something: the blood tests showed there were very high infection markers in my blood.  I was ripe with contamination, my blood a soup of white blood cells.  The doctor thought that the foot problem could be cellulitis (a deep tissue infection), which would be causing the infection markers in the blood and that the infection might be spiking my blood pressure.

Which would mean that it wasn’t gout, so I win.

The cellulitis could be treated with antibiotics and they’d give me gout medicine as well.  And they gave me some more blood pressure medication, just for luck.

But the BP wasn’t coming down enough so they wanted to keep me in overnight so I could be monitored.  That was the lowest point.  I felt defeated.  I felt wretched.  I was tearful.

I just wanted to go home.