mirandacarewjones

[mirandacarewjones]

[mirandacarewjones]

“The most wasted of days is one without laughter.”

E.E. CUMMINGS

[mirandacarewjones]

No 431

 

My son had a mole on his back which he thought had changed in size and colour.  He mentioned this to me whilst we were both in Sri Lanka. 

 

When I checked the photograph of this same mole (a picture that I had taken two years previously) I saw he was absolutely right.  It was now much darker and considerably bigger. 

 

I rang our friendly Sri Lankan doctor who told us to go straight to the hospital to see his ‘go to’ dermatologist, whom he would inform of our imminent arrival. 

 

We waited for ages outside the doctor’s door and after witnessing countless brazen queue-barging episodes, we were called in.  

 

The Sri Lankan’s do not really understand our silent English queue system, and when I see how much quicker they are in getting access to the doctor, I completely understand why they wouldn’t. 

 

One man leaned over to look at our numbered entry ticket, number 13.  He then showed me his number 15 ticket and smiled warmly.

 

As soon as the door opened and a nurse came out, number 15 shot past at the speed of light and darted into the doctor’s inner circle.  When he came out he whispered to me, “I’ve told the doctor a foreigner was outside waiting to see her.” 

 

Thank you so much Mr Queue Barger.

 

The dermatologist agreed that my son’s mole needed closer investigation but declared that she’d left her special diagnosing ‘dodgy mole’ tool behind.  My son and I thought this was turning into a bit of a fiasco until she offered to remove the offending mole and then have it analysed, as opposed to the other way round, analyse then make an informed decision on removing it or not. 

 

The son and I are of the same thinking .... cut it out and be done with it! 

Marvellous decision we all thought, as we were led out to go and wait upstairs outside another door. There we sat on a bench and clutched more paperwork. 

 

A smiley Sri Lankan lady approached us and, with the universal signal to hand over our medical information papers, thoroughly scrutinised the content and what procedures we were waiting for. 

 

She informed us we were in the right corridor outside the correct surgical room of the dermatologist we should be seeing. 

 

She then sat down beside us and fussed over an old man in a wheelchair. 

I looked at my son and then back at the Sri Lankan lady.  “Excuse me, are you a nurse or doctor working in this hospital?”

 

“No,” she replied. “I just come and bring my father for his weekly treatment.”  “Ok, fair enough,” I thought. 

 

The dermatologist from downstairs had finished with her Outpatients Surgery and was now approaching us. She signalled to follow her into the operation room. 

 

Our nosey neighbour on the bench decided she should come and loiter in the room too. Her father was asleep in his chair. Why be bored outside when you can be entertained inside? Exactly ... you shouldn’t. 

 

My son proceeded to strip off his shirt and lie down on a chilly stainless steel gurney.  After a numbing injection in his back, the whole mole was to be removed and stitched up. 

 

I motioned with my head the presence of our extra voyeur standing in the doorway, which made my son convulse in giggles.  The dermatologist had to stop cutting whilst the patient controlled his heaving shoulder blades. 

Fifteen minutes later we delivered the mole in a specimen bottle to pathology in a separate wing of the hospital. 

 

A week later the pathology unit emailed to say the mole was benign and no further treatment was necessary. 

 

I can't remember exact figures but I think the total bill came roughly to about £45:

 

The consultation with the dermatologist was £3.75

The operation/surgery was £15-£17

The biopsy and lab test results were £22.50

 

Bish, bash, bosh! That’s the way to do it. 

[mirandacarewjones]

No 430

My husband watched a young man with an umbrella acting suspiciously.

He was walking around our garden square, darting into neighbouring houses, then emerging after 10 minutes, before proceeding to enter another building a few doors up.

We thought he was a drug dealer, so the hubby took a photo of him, because - why not?

A week later this man was caught hiding inside and under our building’s basement stairs. His sticking-out umbrella gave him away. It’s quite a tight space for a grown man.

My husband came out of our flat to see this chap on his knees pretending to tidy magazines on a table but with the arrival of a large rotund DHL man in this confined space, our thief decided that his hiding place was blown and he needed to escape quick smart.

A bit later I came out of our flat to see this same guy pretending to brush something off the carpet leading up to the ground floor, and then he disappeared. I went upstairs to find him standing by the door with all our post in his hand.

He attempted to pass me when I said, “give me that post”.

Declaring that he worked upstairs, I said, “No, you do not work upstairs!” and took the post out of his hands.

With a, “I’m just going to see my colleague outside”, he left.

In my postal recovery were 2 bank cards for my son and 3 PIN numbers. Also our neighbour Tim’s requested 3rd card and 3rd PIN number, (as 1 and 2 had already been stolen by our daily thief a few days before). The day’s post would have been the golden lottery for our criminal .... three spanking new accounts in three separate banks with at least three PIN numbers! Whoopppeee!

Our neighbour’s account was systematically being robbed of £7,000 a week! He has had 3 new accounts set up in his name and counting. His new, very unfulfilling job is sitting on his phone trying to close down accounts he had no intention of ever opening, whilst trying to get the banks to pay back all the stolen money.

We wanted to call the police, but the police do not want to be telephoned so you must inform them online, unless you are actually inthe process of being maimed or mauled. The response online was they would respond to all matters in 48 hours.

That was 6 days ago so far. I’d love to see a policeman at our door.

‘Action Fraud’ wasn’t interested and my husband kept being transferred to “nobody is available” and the Fraud Protection System had collapsed due to the overloading criminal activity being perpetrated. However, you only discover this is the reason after waiting 45 min to talk to them. They haven’t time to protect you or answer your call, as they have collapsed.

The banks - Santander and HSBC - were unbelievable! And not in a good way.

No wonder we didn’t think of banking with them, though they obviously want to bank with us. It’s actually their fault that criminals can commit fraud so easily. You just need a name and address. Mr Thief then can set up his brand new account, well actually one of many million accounts to be honest ….

Another neighbour says banks offer their staff commission to open as many accounts as possible. I’m not sure if this is correct but what’s honesty got to do with anything?

A new card in our name and a new PIN number that is supposed to be sent separately (though in our case on the same day as the new card) has arrived at our door and been shoved through the letterbox. The thief trots round, gets buzzed in by a gormless tenant who hasn’t asked if this buzzing person is legit or a thief, and he collects all the post and discards the ones that are not bank-related, by feel and touch in the case of a card, or by sight as the envelope usually declares which bank sent the secret PIN number.

Thief trots off, probably stuffing his ill-gotten gains in his handy umbrella, and proceeds to the mansion block next door to clear out their post and collect all new cards and PIN numbers from them.

Easy peasy. The bank has just issued a card and PIN number to our daily thief, and he then has access to the £2,000 credit limit.

My son presumably loses his credit rating ... ? The bank loses £2,000 each time but reclaims it from the insurance company who then charges all of us. And so it goes on ....

Our neighbour Tim was told that ‘identity theft’ is not illegal until a crime is committed! What country are we living in?

Well, I am pretty sure that stealing someone else’s post is still a crime. I suggest the banks, in our case Santander and HSBC, havecommitted an unlawful act of ‘identity theft’ as they have failed to carry out any due diligence before randomly opening bank accounts in my son’s name and not caring a jot!

Secondly, my son is the poor sucker who is supposed to close this fictitious account that he never set up or asked for! My son is living two million miles away and has no way of communicating with any bank, least of all a bank he has no dealings with or affection for.

The only way we could get the banks to close down their own dodgy accounts that they set up in our name was to ring them making an official complaint .... they took notice of this!

Interesting. Fraud is ignored but bank complaints are listened to and acted upon.

We saw our umbrella-touting thief yesterday following along behind the 11.00 o’clock mailman with his trolley. You cannot make this stuff up!

Today the same. So the hubby followed him in his car, stopped him and through the open window informed the cocky criminal that every single policeman in London, furnished with a fetching photograph of him with his umbrella, was out looking for him with the express ordersnot to return until they had him in their custody!

Stick that in your umbrella and smoke it!

[mirandacarewjones]

No.429

I’m a strong advocator of 'good interference' in other’s lives.

I have no particular preferences, no specific subject matter…..it’s just that I like to share with anybody standing within chatting distance any good news, ideas or thoughts I’ve just had, or stored away, if I feel it would be beneficial to them.

However, my husband loathes this quality in me and would prefer that I keep my mouth firmly shut! This sharing trait might even be right at the top of his list on the Pro side of ‘Pros and Cons of being a Widower’.

You can imagine my delight when a wonderful lady approached us in Tesco with her unasked for advice and knowledge about fish pies.

We were mulling over the very mundane and dull-looking pies versus the delicious Charlie Bigham ones which were double the price and ‘hands down’ double the taste. A middle-aged woman passing us in the aisle stopped and said, “If you like, and with barely any effort, you can make a delicious fish pie with just a few ingredients that you can find right here.”

The husband was very keen on hearing this but that was nothing to my enthusiasm that here was extremely ‘good interference’ being doled out by a random stranger! This shows that offering ‘pearls of wisdom’ to any passerby that happens across one’s path isn’t just my thing…it’s now happening in our local Tesco store.

My Aunt Linda was my sole teacher in this art….but to be honest I’d not had a lot of unasked for knowledge pressed upon me in the intervening years. I just flew the flag solo, despite my husband's warning glares.

The stranger pointed to the fish counter and said we should buy a variety of fish that was already cut and deboned for this very recipe.

Once we had this fish we should buy Tesco Finest cooked mashed potatoes. Then, she almost whispered, we must mix the raw fish with a jar of hollandaise sauce before spreading the finest mashed potatoes over it. Waving her hand about with gusto, she suggested that a good scattering of Parmesan cheese would finish this dish off and promote it into something utterly heavenly.

I ran about collecting the few ingredients….now and again checking in to ask my temporary cookery teacher if I had the correct thing. Hollandaise sauce comes in various guises so I needed to make sure I had the right sort….the right sort was the most expensive - obviously.

I made this pie that night. It took no time to prepare and 30 minutes to cook. It was superb and tasted like I’d done a few years at Le Cordon Bleu.

It was my first fish pie that I’d ever cooked and I’m 64 years old.

What great interference that was. Thank you random lady in Tesco.

Other important facts to share…..

————————————————-

Did you know that the man who created the Toblerone chocolate bar assumed that we knew to press the vertical triangular chocolate together to break them up?

Did you know that beavers have see-through eyelids so they can see underwater with their eyes closed?

[mirandacarewjones]

No 428

I wish somebody would explain one of the strangest human phenomena to me.

If I don’t choose to see a person in England, why would I want to see them when I’m thousands of miles away?

We built a house in the south of Sri Lanka, about six years ago. My husband and I travel out to this place three or four times a year. The rest of the time we live in London.

I am pretty antisocial, wishing to meet up just with our wonderful friends and family that I have already amassed. My very chatty hubby would like nothing more than to acquire a whole load more friends to discuss life with.  He enjoys long sessions of talking with copious amounts of wine and chocolate truffles. He endlessly picks up strangers to bring back for tea as he is totally deaf to my preferences. 

He is collecting more and I’m collecting less. He is an enthusiastic Tigger, whilst I’ll clip and prune as many of Tigger’s new friends as I can when he isn’t watching! 

I’ve been noticing, especially recently, a growing wave of strangers wanting to attract our attention in Sri Lanka. 

One route is ‘the friend of a friend, of a friend’ who (in their defence) must have been told we adore meeting travellers passing through. The initial ‘friend’ is a fraud, as they know that this blatant lie is a sure-fire way of being relegated out of my friend zone.

The ‘non-friend’ suggests that we would be ecstatic to meet their friend as we have so much in common…..mainly this dubious acquaintance. 

Another route is a request to see our house (hoping to have a meal or drinks thrown in) from a fellow colleague of a once-upon-a-time business mate of my husband’s. Most of these people are interior decorators. I can spot an interior decorator from a great distance.  I even have binoculars to check the jungle foliage for this species!

I avoid the hubby’s design events in London so successfully that most people think I’m dead. 

The third and increasingly used route is via my older brother’s big mouth.

Having previously built a house in the south of Sri Lanka and strenuously avoided any well-meaning attempts from strangers to come and stay, he now relishes foisting these dodgy dossers onto us.  I’ve absolutely no idea why. 

My initial response to any request I receive is to delete the offending email. 

My second is to make sure the husband never gets wind of this potential play date!

Why do these people think that it’s totally acceptable to contact us in Sri Lanka when they have never written or telephoned us in England?  In most of these cases, we both live in London, yet we choose not to see each other.

I think that might be a big clue where I stand in the proceedings!

Have they ever asked us to anything in England or have we asked them? Could it be possible we don’t much like the other?  

Yes…I think that would be a fair assumption of the situation….I’d say it was ‘spot on’!

Would they be amused and excited if I suggested that we should pop by their house for a meal, as I would be passing Gloucester Road tomorrow? How about if we brought along a car-full of relatives too? After all, we could hardly leave them all behind!

“Wouldn’t that be so much fun?” No, it would be ghastly! 

So why would it be “so much fun” ten and a half hours away by plane? 

[mirandacarewjones]

[mirandacarewjones]

"don't date the life of the party, date

the guy who makes sure the life of

the party gets home"

Unknown

[mirandacarewjones]

No. 427

We usually drive to Kensington Gardens to go for a walk.

A few days ago, we parked outside Robert Baden-Powell’s old home (first Chief Scout of the world). Once we were safely parked, the husband took so long answering some emails that we had to postpone the walk until later.

After a few hours, we returned to Kensington, parked again and walked through the gardens for a few hours then wandered back to the car.

Apart from a Mercedes-size empty space directly outside the Scout’s house, there was nothing in the little road that we could remotely call our own.

Right next to the empty space was a dark van with tinted windows. The van advertised it belonged to a security company.

Much to the hubby’s dismay, I trotted up to two young men in their matching security polo shirts. They had been parked in this road all day, apparently.

I asked them if they had noticed anything untoward like a ‘car-napping’ in the last few hours?

“What? Absolutely not!” They seemed slightly horrified.

I suggested that they must have been terribly preoccupied guarding their client to be so completely unaware of a daylight robbery right under their noses. I did point out (as an after-thought) that the thieves or thief responsible for our carjacking had

to presumably break into it first, before driving off.


I then decided to discuss our predicament with some smiley scaffolding men opposite. They were naturally fascinated by the unfurling drama. None of them had seen anything either.

I introduced the security boys to the scaffolding boys.

The scaffolders offered us a peak at their CCTV cameras, though we would need to seek police permission to do this. A very pretty lady (who seemed to be managing the serviced apartments on the corner) offered us a peak at her CCTV camera as well. She was obviously angling for an introduction to the security boys.

Off we marched towards the police station. I was feeling rather stressed at this stage.

Why would anyone want to steal an old Mercedes estate unless for nefarious intent?

Queuing at the nearest police station took ages. After about twenty minutes of form filling, the hubby turned to me and whispered, “I’ve just had a thought.” In that moment, I too, just had a thought.

Eventually we left the station clutching our crime number and harbouring our thoughts.

We asked the taxi to take us back to Kensington Gardens where, in Queen’s Gate, rested our old blue Mercedes estate.

On the first trip up to Kensington Gardens (before lunch) we parked outside Baden Powell’s home in Hyde Park Gate. On the second trip up (after lunch), we parked in the adjacent road.

We limped back to the police station (expecting to be ‘nabbed in possession of a stolen vehicle’ at any moment.) The husband explained what happened to the lovely policewoman whilst insisting that she accepted twenty pounds for their Police Orphans’ fund.

[mirandacarewjones]

No 426


I’ve decided that ‘the jury’s still out’ on having neighbours.  I’d like to give them the thumbs up but I’m being severely tested.

 

I’ve put one of my neighbours ‘in the freezer’.  I heard my husband say, “Once in, they are in for life!  No-one has ever been known to emerge from her freezer.”

 

My daughter and her family recently moved to Oxfordshire.  Within a few days of them settling in, feathers were ruffled.  My wonderful son-in-law seems to have attracted all the pent-up frustrations of a middle-aged furious female neighbour.

 

First misdemeanour was the audacious visit, during the pandemic, of a business colleague.  This visitor is an architect. He was discussing my son-in-law’s property development business.  This work meeting was conducted outside with a low wall separating the two.   The architect wouldn’t enter the house because he had to take special precautions.  His wife was being shielded for a very serious heart condition.

 

However, furious female neighbour (FFN) interpreted the proceedings completely differently, mainly because she hadn’t bothered asking.

 

She decided that Philip (my son-in-law) had welcomed a friend around to play, despite strict rules against socialising during this pandemic. He had let this ‘friend’ brazenly park in his own private parking space and then taken him up to his house to breathe Covid over each other!

 

She felt it her duty to inform the other neighbours of this outrageous behaviour via the Car Park Committee’s WhatsApp chat line.

 

The second misdeed was priceless.

 

FFN is obsessed with the aesthetics of the car parking area allotted to our little cluster of four houses.  She probably feels particularly partial to this plot, as her front door is directly opposite it.

 

When we bought our house a few months ago, it transpired that none of us legally owned the plot where our cars are parked, as there’d been a ‘balls up’ with ownership transference from the developers.  After many years it’s reverted to being the Crown’s land.  In fact, the Queen owns our car parking spaces!

 

I think, in the light of the information that we unearthed, the Queen should be included in the Car Park Committee.

 

Philip has a Ducati motorbike which is protected from the elements by a cover.  Apparently this rather smart motorbike cover is an ‘erection’.  In FFN’s rule book you are not allowed to erect a structure in or on the car parking area.

 

The WhatsApp chat line was smoking hot from missives bombarding the luckless other neighbours.

 

Philip trotted round to FFN to address the misdemeanour.  She slammed her front door in his face after accusing him of ‘doorstopping’ her and ‘bringing his bad energy’ to her door!

 

As none of us have a clue what she’s banging on about, the ‘erection’ remains exactly as it was found, protecting the bike.   My husband looked up ‘erecting a structure’ and apparently all cars are erections! Or every car has a ‘structural frame’ separate from its body.

 

So .... I think we should confer with The Queen what to do with erections on her plot of land, don’t you?

[mirandacarewjones]

NO.425

 

ICU was a mad human circus.  It was always wide awake, brightly lit and very loud. 

 

I awoke to hear a fellow inmate shout, “Feck off you, fecking eediet!”  The cursing Irishman was called Simon.   I knew this because the nurses spent the next four days shouting, “Simon! .... What’s your name, Simon? …. Do you know where you are, Simon? .... Can you tell me your name?” 

 

Doris was in the next-door bed to Simon.  She was the proud owner of a new phone, into which she shouted to all and sundry her predictions on her medical diagnosis. 

 

“I’m going to fockin’ die, mate .... My heart’s no good, mate.” 

 

Doris didn’t look remotely like she was going to die after she engineered a hairdressing session in her corner of ICU. 

 

My ‘nurse of the day’ and I were deeply impressed.  You couldn’t make it up! 

 

Christopher, next door to me, was wonderfully silent.  A few others were on ventilators.

 

I had bags of saline dripping into a vein in my hand.  Apparently, there was an abnormal amount of liquid being produced, yet I was losing sodium and potassium.  This meant every thirty minutes there was a flurry of activity around my bed throughout the day and night.

 

The registrar and a group of junior doctors would meet up and declare, “What? That’s impossible! …. So much! .... Are you sure? ….  Really?” 

 

My wonderful surgeon popped in to tell me that if my body was left to its own devices it would most likely balance itself perfectly well.  He thought I should come off the saline drips.  

 

The trouble with those wise words was I was the only witness.

 

I was holding up my swollen hand on the fourth night. It looked like a pale marigold glove filled with water.  I mentioned the similarities to a nurse who replied that she thought it looked quite normal. 

 

“No. I can assure you that I had knuckles in the old days. And incidentally my hand is now so full, that it’s overflowing into the pillow.”

 

The morning of the fifth day, the nurse shift had just changed.  The saline bag was being lifted into place.

 

“Oh.  Sorry, I’m not going to have that anymore. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be working your way. So, I’m going to try my way .... which is to just say No!  

 

Enough was enough.   I’d been terribly well behaved until then (which was extremely rare) but unfortunately my true colours had just broken through. 

 

Well, it seemed silent Christopher had also had enough!  He sat up and declared, rather forcefully, “Nurse, I am refusing this medicine .... No more for me.”

 

Then to my horror I heard a loud shout, “Feck off away from me, you eeediets.  I’m out of here! Let me home!” 

 

Oooops! 

 

I was transferred out of ICU and upstairs to a single room within the hour. 

 

I mentioned to my surgeon that he might wish to avoid the ICU for a little while and if asked he has absolutely no idea who I was!

[mirandacarewjones]

No.424

It transpired that my brain aneurysm was ‘mirrored’. I had another one lurking on the right side of my head. Great!

I was informed about this pretty soon after I awoke from the first operation to clip ‘numero uno’.

After very little cogitation..... well, none, my decision was immediate .... I asked my wonderful consultant neurosurgeon to dispatch this second intruder the way of the first. Chop chop then clip.

The following April was deemed an appropriate time to revisit my brain, having given it plenty of restful recuperation since August. March happened first, or rather Covid 19! Followed swiftly by ‘Lockdown’.

April was cancelled for most of us. The only people going into hospital were very ill people with Coronavirus.

July was mooted as a possible month to set an operation date. Then July was scrapped, as the hospital was still under dust sheets.

August came and went, along with my first operation’s anniversary.

Then another date was offered, September 5th. However, everybody who needed to attend the operating room was in ‘the starting gate’ except the anaesthetist. I’d say that an anaesthetist was almost more important to me in this scenario than my fabulous neurosurgeon! I certainly wasn’t going to participate in any chop chop shenanigans until there was somebody in scrubs qualified to knock me out! I quite like to be deeply unconscious for a five-hour operation.

It became apparent all the anaesthetists in London had disappeared! The lovely Elli, who was trying to organise ‘who goes where’ told me that even their back up agency, ‘Call my Anaesthetist', couldn’t find any to call!

September 5th was scrapped for obvious reasons ... no-one wanted to operate on wide awake patients. Elli rang suggesting I keep September 10th in my diary but "just in pencil.” I’ve rubbed that date out now. It was a tentative date, uncertain and unsure, rather like the whereabouts of the anaesthetists.

I’ve stopped informing my 'loved ones’ of hospital admissions. It’s getting boring to read, let alone write.

So ..... it’s October 10th next. They have found my previous anaesthetist! He was lost but now he is found.

Matthieu’s fabulous, even though he said to me in his French accent, "I av never seen such saggy lungs as you av ... ever! Your lungs are so saggy, is unbelievable.”

“Yes, well, enough of all that saggy business, Matthieu ... I’ve got a date set in ink to attend to and incidentally so do you, so chop chop!”

[mirandacarewjones]

[mirandacarewjones]

If you see me jogging, please kill whatever is chasing me.

[mirandacarewjones]

No.423

We were on our way to Gloucestershire, when we stopped at a service station.

Whilst the hubby guarded the contents of the car, I wandered through the garage’s automatic doors and was immediately confronted by some large obstacle blocking my way inside.

What a clever ploy - to put temptation right in one’s path! However, this tea counter seemed to be offering tea but with no immediately obvious way of obtaining it. It wasn’t like a normal drinks machine. I couldn’t see cups or levers and spouts or different buttons for one’s choice of tea. I stood mesmerised, utterly dumbfounded by this conundrum.

I walked out of the garage ... and got back in our car.

“Ok ... that was weird! I couldn’t get the teas or the flapjacks because I found the whole process completely overwhelming!”

The hubby was dispatched to procure what we needed after declaring that, “to be intimidated by a tea machine is a little surprising, but fair enough I suppose in the circumstances.”

Well, actually no, I didn’t agree at all.

I was aware this was the first time I was flying solo, two weeks to the day from my head operation but frankly ...... so what?

I sat and munched the flapjack and sipped the coffee and every now and again mumbled, “Fascinating ....... what was that all about? Have I suddenly become incapable of functioning properly?”

I obviously had to return to the garage for a second attempt at being independent. It’s like ‘getting back on the horse after being thrown off it!’

Once through the door (with a cursory furious frown at the tea stand) I made my way to the loos.

I spurted my hands all over with soapy foam and looked for the water tap. I assumed that a bar over the sink must have a hidden sensor, so I waved my hands beneath. Blasts of air accosted me and blew the soapy foam everywhere including all over my face. I jumped away in shock.

A lady waiting for a vacant loo collapsed in hysterics seeing my predicament. I then did it again! The tap dryer blew the rest of the soap off my hands. “Where on earth is the water in this place? And why is this tap behaving like a hairdryer?”

I moved onto the neighbouring sink.

This time I wasn’t going to get pre-soaped up .... I was hedging my bet. First attempt ..... hurricane blast ... second try ... water spray. Hurrah!

A little girl came out of the loo and went for the universal soaping hand drill. She was standing at the first sink that had utterly defeated me.

I waited to see if life was as tough on her as it had been on me. It was! Worse in fact!

Only this girl’s soap foam covered her from head to toe! This was entirely due to her being even more vertically challenged than me.

“Try this one ... it’s a bit better than that sink you have there. I’ve just been zapped by both taps, too.”

My confidence was restored! I was back!

This service station just loathes us all. Isn’t life grand?

[mirandacarewjones]

No.422

I had to be tested for MRSA before I was allowed to be operated on. This test consisted of various test tubes with sticks. It was a DIY swabbing affair with no room for dyslexic errors!

As most hospitals are a breeding ground for the MRSA bug, it would be only polite if ‘the powers that be’ reciprocated by testing one on the way out of their hospital too. Maybe present you with a little certificate that says they gave you back as good as you were received?

A fabulous fey, flamboyantly foreign male nurse explained to me that if it transpired that I was contaminated with the dreaded MRSA, it would be a true calamity and “much more fatal than if I didn’t have it!”

“Gosh! .... I’d much rather it was ‘just fatal’ rather than ‘more fatal’ any day of the week .”

I assume I had passed with a gold star and given a squeaky clean bill of health as no-one subjected me to an antibiotic hose-down before the scheduled day.

I was shown back into the fabulous fey, flamboyantly foreign nurse’s (FFFFN) room ten days after my operation.

He was going to remove the clips or staples from my head wound.

I asked if it was going to be a painful process, to which he tossed his head and dramatically paused ..... (contemplating whether to lie or not?) and, with a theatrical wink, made a deal with me. “If I hurt you, darling, you may smack my fat little tummy!”

So he started cutting out the clips.

“One, two, three, four, five,” he counted.

“Owch ... Ow, Ow ... Ohhhhhh.” I smartly smacked his tummy...

“Six, seven, eight…..”

“Owy...... ow ow,” Slap, smack, slap!

“How many staples is that? ... And why have you stopped counting?”

“Because, darling, you keep hitting me! I can’t possibly concentrate.”

“Please tell me there aren’t loads more to go!” Smack, slap, slap, smack!

I was alternating between crying and laughing whilst the ‘FFFFN’ was probably wishing his fat little tummy wasn’t in such close proximity to my smacking hand.

On the other hand I was submitting his extra stomach rolls to a thorough work out! His tight tunic top hinted that any exercise in that area was long overdue.

The end count was twenty two staples. He sweetly counted the lot for me. It’s the least he could do for complaining about my short, sharp smacks.

I was the one who had a scarf stuffed into my mouth and mascara cascading down my cheeks!

[mirandacarewjones]

No.421

When the ENT specialist recommended an MRI scan, I jumped at it.

At long last we could find what’s causing my vertigo!

By now it had become crystal clear that my medical insurance wasn’t going to pay a penny to a hospital with a ‘Jet for Hire’ in its reception.

We spent many hours walking around Kensington Gardens, contemplating giving up the insurance all together.

“What’s the point of it if they don’t pay up?”

“Yes ... but then you might really need it!” (Don’t I need it now?)

“Why do you need it? Don’t those consultants (whose entire pension plan we are personally funding) work in the NHS too?”

“Ok ... I get that you can’t choose that consultant or see him within the next four to six months ... but stop being so spoilt!”

So off I trotted to have the most expensive MRI scan on offer. My one had to have ‘contrast dyes’ apparently. Of course it did because it’s much prettier.

Having thought I’d said goodbye to ‘The Hospital Not Covered’ I had to return to hear the verdict of the MRI from a neurosurgeon friend of the ENT man.

This was called ‘Pass the Pauper and collect £300’, which I think was a bit tough on all of us.

He was very jolly and explained that the scan had flagged up absolutely nothing on the vertigo front ... but had found an aneurysm on the left side of my brain. Most people don’t get a pre-stroke photo of their brain.

“Do you smoke?”

“Yes.”

“No you don’t!”

“Well I really do ... and after that news it’s highly unlikely I’m going to stop on such short notice!”

“We will take you in as soon as we can!”

“I’m off to Sri Lanka in two days. I’ll be gone for a month.”

“God help you if it bursts over there.”

“Well it won’t, as what’s the point of us discovering it, only for it to kill me before we can deal with it?”

“Ok ... you have a point there. When you return you can meet the neurosurgeon I’d recommend. He works from another hospital ... is that a problem?”

“It’s frankly the best news I’ve heard all day!” (Keep your Health Insurance)

“He will crack open your head and clip the aneurysm .... sound good?”

“Marvellous.”

“You will have a hell of a headache!”

“I don’t do headaches, so that’s fabulous news too.”