We’re not quite at the stage of guard dogs going missing and turning up in the cooking pot but one or two of these nurses look quite tasty. However, that is another story.<\/p>\n
But whoever thought that we’d be at these depths? <\/p>\n
It was Sunday last night when I finally crawled into bed just after the sun set. For a while I had a listen to Brute Stringbean and then switched everything off and tried to go to sleep through the usual banging and clattering that there is in a hospital <\/p>\n
Not much luck there though, as you might expect. And to make matters worse we had a phantom alarm at 03:30 – the alarm going off and someone asking to speak to The Who, one of the musicians but it wasn’t actually one of the musicians at all they wanted and I can’t remember at all the name of the person they said but at least they made out that it was someone from The Who even though it isn’t<\/p>\n
Not that that makes any sense, but since when has anything that I’ve ever written, never mind a dream, made any sense?<\/p>\n
Once again, I gave up the struggle at 05:30 and lay awake simmering. At 06:30 someone took a blood sample (my left arm is a mass of pinpricks and bruises right now) and gave me a glass of orange juice. No taste of lemon so they must have learnt their lesson from yesterday.<\/p>\n
Breakfast came round eventually and then we went through the usual performance of bedbaths and stuff like that, and then I was stuck in my special chair in the window where I could watch the World go by on the Autoroute<\/em>. Plenty of Plenty O’Toole’s dad’s lorries going past, I noticed. <\/p>\n There was another visitor today. Hans came to say goodbye as he has to head for home. It was lovely of Hans to come in to say goodbye. It was lovely of everyone and I hope that I’ll be able to see them again.<\/p>\n There was yet another visitor too. There’s another British guy here and he’d heard us talking yesterday. Seeing as he was leaving the hospital today he thought he’d come in for a chat. A very nice, interesting guy too.<\/p>\n A third visitor was my consultant. She gave me the news that my condition has stabilised – as in “not improved”. <\/p>\n Much as she is impressed that the rapid deterioration that caused the panic has now stopped, there is no date as yet as to when I’ll be going home. She wanted to know who was handling my case in Paris so I gave her the details.<\/p>\n She came back later to wish me a good evening as she was going home. What’s happening here?<\/p>\n Transcribing the dictaphone notes was next. To my surprise, there were some. They were experimenting with a new type of aircraft checking its take-off and landing abilities. Unfortunately it failed to come up to the mark. There were many people who flew as passengers in these planes who were injured in crashes or during tests including Dennis Wise, a South African footballer The sad part about it was that the counting was very casual so that when they counted the people off the plane afterwards they didn’t realise that they’d left someone behind, and they set fire to the fuselage to simulate an escape rescue. This was when they discovered the dead body of one of the passengers who hadn’t been counted correctly. This started a big scandal throughout the entire aeroplane industry. There were probably five or six attempts at a take-off and landing from various airports with this plane , all of which failed and people were injured or even killed.<\/p>\n And what provoked that, I really have no idea. It doesn’t relate to anything at all that I’ve been doing.<\/p>\n To occupy the time and to plan for any extended stay, I’ve been negotiating my mail-server around the hospital’s firewall and I can now access my e-mails. So I replied to some of the messages that I received, I can’t of course reply to some others (I prefer the innocence of LIONHEART<\/a> So that reminds me – firstly, you’ll notice the “Amazon” links. I’m an “Amazon” associate so I receive a small commission on purchases made by people who click on the links. It costs you no extra but helps pay for my web hosting.<\/p>\n Secondly, there are plenty of new readers to these pages these days. Some have said “hello” but to the rest of you, don’t be shy. Click on the button on the bottom right of the page and send me a message to introduce yourself.<\/p>\n The rest of the day has been spent reading my book on Iron-Age fortresses. Where would I be without ARCHIVE.ORG<\/a>?<\/p>\n On the subject of dreams and music though, I was mulling things over in my head, like you do … "like some people do" – ed<\/em> … thinking about the Brother John Glacier from last night, and what came into my mind, as you might expect, was So the sun is about to disappear now, and so am I. But something else that I’m thinking about as I retire is food and Hans’ visit. And given the foregoing, it’s a good job that they didn’t allow the Hound of the Baskervilles to come in with him. Hans would have gone home on his own with a lovely fur rug to keep him warm. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.co.uk\/e\/ir?t=erichall-21&l=as2&o=2&a=B000007MVL\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.co.uk\/e\/ir?t=erichall-21&l=ur2&o=2\")
\n"It’s been so many years now I still can’t forget
\nLove flew like an eagle in God’s wilderness
\nShadows were falling oh my heart beat inside
\nWe kissed on the bridge above the river of ice"<\/strong><\/em><\/a>
\nOne day I really must fill in the posts for those missing three days in the High Arctic that changed my life for ever.<\/p>\n
