Yes – clearly my discussion with the Accounts department yesterday seems to have worked, and galvanised them into action, because they rang me up this morning to say that the Direct Billing account has now been established and I needn’t worry about the payments.
As if I was worrying about the payments anyway. It’s no concern of mine. As I said yesterday, the hospital could have done all of this on the day that I was admitted.
Anyway, it’s amazing what you can do when you set your minds to doing it, isn’t it, Accounts Department of Centre Hospitalier Montlucon?
Before all of this erupted however, I’d already been on my travels. Down to the depths of the hospital and the domain of the Body-snatc … errr … scanners. It’s like a huge time portal (made by one of my former employers, General Electric) and you pass in and out of it on a cantilever trolley. I did of course ask if I was going to wake up in the 25th Century, but knowing the Auvergne like I do, it’s probably something for bringing people kicking and screaming into the present day.
I had to drink something totally disgusting before I was scanned and to give you an idea of just how unpleasant it was, this is the first place anywhere in any hospital in which I have ever been in mainland Europe where I’ve been offered a cup of coffee afterwards. But that didn’t work and even 15 hours later I can still taste whatever it was.
But there was a moment of light entertainment down there in the bowels of the hospital. In the body-scanner machine you have to wear a kind of helmet and there are different sizes of padding; depending upon the size of your head. Chief Body-Scanner went on a fruitless search to find the right size for me.
Chief Body-Scanner – “but don’t you have a big head?”
Our Hero – “well, there’s quite a lot in it!”.
After that, I was left pretty-much to my own devices and cracked on with my University course on Hadrian’s Wall. A great chance to catch up on the outstanding stuff.
But we did have some kind of interruption. The doctor came to see me “you can go home later on today. You’ll be back tomorrow for a check-up and again in another week”
“I’m not so sure that that’s a good idea” I replied. “I’ll have to disturb someone at work right now to come over 50 kilometres to pick me up, and drive over 50 kilometres back. And then tomorrow, he’ll have to drive me over 50 kilometres to come here and then over 50 kilometres back again. If I can stay until tomorrow afternoon, there will be someone in Montlucon already who can bring me back without the slightest inconvenience to anyone”.
And so common sense has prevailed and I’m here until Liz comes to fetch me tomorrow afternoon.
When Liz turned up later (with some spare undies and a punnet of grapes) I told her the news, and that is indeed the plan. I warned her and Terry to make sure that they had plenty of garlic in and to wear it around their necks when they go to bed just in case I feel thirsty during the night.
And so that was that today. But I didn’t go off to sleep easily. I had borrowed a couple of books from the library and one of them looked quite interesting – namely the story of the discovery of some “treasure” in 1924 in a small village called Glozel, about 60kms from here.
It turned out to be one of the most controversial treasure trove discoveries in the whole of the country because while many of the objects are of a typical early neolithic style, many of them appear to be made in the Medieval period and some even contemporary to the discovery. And this led to all kinds of village feuds, court cases and the like, and the affair rumbles on today.
Anyway, there I was, riveted to this book from start to finish and it was 23:00 when I arrived at the last page. It’s a long time since I’ve been stuck to a book like that.
