… but never mind. Do your best, because it really DID happen like this.

First of all, last night’s nocturnal ramble is far from complete. And for a couple of very good reasons too.But the good news is that I had the best night’s sleep that I have ever had in a hospital (despite being woken up two or three times). That, I reckon, is due to the cold poultice or whatever it was that they put on my arm just before I went to sleep. That seemed to do the trick.

So, in as far as I could remember it, I was still in hospital but I’d been allowed out to go to a theatre in Deansgate, Manchester to watch a Chris de Burgh concert with my family (what are they doing intruding into my nocturnal rambles?) and also a very new girlfriend of mine, so naturally I was pleased about this. We went into the auditorium and the first thing that I noticed was that everyone – including us – was dressed in black. But as the concert got under way, I was called back to the hospital for a blood test. Once that had been completed I made my way back to the theatre and ended up going in through the stage door and there was Chris de Burgh, not actually performing, but using a record player to play his records to the audience. He asked me what I was doing there and so I explained that I’d been called away. He apologised that I’d missed half his concert and gave me a free ticket for another one (I noticed that I didn’t ask for two – one for my girlfriend) and so I went into the auditorium and … it was deserted. everyone had gone. I dashed outside and started to scour the streets around Deansgate and Whitworth Street for my friends and this girl but I couldn’t find them at all.

From here we went on, via various removes which I have now forgotten unfortunately what with all of the interruptions and so on, to Stoke on Trent and a housing estate built of 1960s bungalows rather like the top half of Coleridge Way in Crewe. In one of these bungalows lived someone whom I once knew, his wife and his daughter, Zero (who occasionally accompanies me on my nocturnal rambles). The bungalow where we were rather resembled the ground floor of my house in Gainsborough Road, but to get into the sitting room (where the aforementioned were gathered) meant passing under a rather low brick wall, which necessitated crawling, but each time I went to do so I was interrupted by someone who wanted something doing. So by the time I had done that and went back, I was convinced that the arch had become smaller. But before I could pass under the arch it was the turn of someone else to interrupt me with a request. And so it went on, and on, and on, but eventually everyone had been satisfied. So I went to the arch to crawl under into the sitting room, to find that it was now far too small for me to pass under, and I was stranded.

It’s a shame that I’ve forgotten everything else that happened, for I really was riveted to my bed by all of this that was going on, despite all the interruptions. But then someone awoke me quite insistently to say that the Day Ward was to open in half an hour and I needed to leave. And so I said OK and went back to sleep. 15 minutes later they woke me again and I really did have to go. And with that, most of the details of my nocturnal ramble left too.

Back in my real room, I was on my own. I don’t know what had happened to my room-mate of yesterday and I didn’t think it politic to ask. But it was round about here that all of the fun began.

First visit of the morning was the dietician. We had an extremely lengthy chat about my diet yet again, when I set out quite clearly exactly what my dietary requirements were

And the result? For dessert at lunchtime I was served a “Lactel” crème caramel “containing fresh eggs”.

I can see quite clearly that I’m wasting my time here.

But what surprised me even more about the dietician is that she knew nothing whatever about vegans and potential vitamin B12 deficiency and potential iron deficiency. What kind of dietician is this?

Next stop was the echography, where they examined my arm with an ultrasound scan. And not that I know all that much about echographs, but even I could see some kind of foreign body showing up in the scan. It might be a blood clot, or it might be a foreign object, and so I’m destined to have an X-ray all about it.

And so off to the X-ray department where we have one of these 20-somethings in charge. I went to take off my dressing gown but she replied “we can photograph through that, you know”.
I explained that the doctor had drawn on my arm the area of interest, to which her response was “I’ve been doing this job for longer than just yesterday”, and so I left her to it.

When she’d finished (11:50, this was) she wheeled me outside, presumably to wait for a porter to take me back to my ward, and she put on her coat and went off for lunch.

By 12:50, no porter had appeared and I was still sitting in this draughty corridor and I’d had enough. Spoiling for a fight with someone and in a totally foul mood, I set off on foot to find my way back to my ward. It wasn’t easy because the hospital here at Montlucon is quite a labyrinth, but it didn’t really take me too much time and the walk, and the change of scenery, did me good.

Back here, I sent out for my food – seeing as I was an hour late for my lunch – but before I could receive it, the doctor stuck his head around the door “you have to go back to be X-rayed- they’ve X-rayed the wrong place”. So much for our self-confident 20-something, hey?

Back in the basement, I had to wait 20 minutes before I could be seen, but as soon as our 20-something came out and saw me in fighting form, she cleared off and someone else came to X-ray me. Once this had been done, I didn’t even bother waiting. I walked straight back to my ward, and finally had my lunch (with “Lactel” crème caramel “with fresh eggs” as part of a vegan diet).

Liz came round later with a supply of snapping for me to keep in store. Biscuits, crisps, fruit juice, and a big bag of grapes. This is how to be organised for a hospital when the dietician doesn’t seem to have a clue what is involved in a vegan diet. And we did a trade too. I swapped my “Lactel” crème caramel “with fresh eggs” for Liz’s banana.

And the librarian came round with a trolley-load of books from which I could choose. And I joked to Liz that both previous times when the librarian had been round with books and I’d chosen some, I’d moved rooms straight away afterwards.

And so after Liz left, they came round to tell me that I was moving across the corridor. You would have bet your mortgage on this. But at least I’m in a single room again, nice, clean and modern.

Here I seem to have settled in quite nicely and if I have to stay anywhere, this will do me fine. But 5 changes of room in 24 hours must be something of a record in any kind of residential establishment. You couldn’t make that up.

And you couldn’t make up anything else that had happened to me during the course of the day either. It’s astonishing as far as I’m concerned.

But anyway, as the night drew on, I settled down to watch Bulldog Drummond in Africa and managed to see it right through to the end for once. I had another one of these cold poultices and then tried to settle down to sleep but for some reason I found it difficult to drop off.

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