My good friend Robin and I used to go walking and at times he'd break out into song. He's a great enthusiast and I have a lot of time for great enthusiasts. He also drives a fancy low down type sports car and has always been willling to give me a lift to a start location for our walks. I like the car but it is extremely low slung and one's bum feels about 6 inches from the tarmac when installed.
I perhaps should have noticed that I found it increasingly difficult to get out of the beast.
We did not always go to the country, one of my favourite places around here to go is down the River Severn and across to Sharpness, the port on the other end of the canal to Gloucester. Gloucester is the country's biggest inland port and used to welcome huge numbers of ships that would potter up the canal from the mouth of the Severn to unload their cargoes of coal, and timber. Gloucester had some huge timber yards on the edge of the town and timber came in from Scandinavia. It's all a lot quieter these days and pleasure craft seem to be dominant. There's no longer a match factory working in the City, but the Morelands factory is still next to the Docks.
There are one or two walks around Sharpness and plenty of industrial heritage to photograph. Two enormous cranes were a favourite but it seems they have been disposed of recently. Shame, they should have been listed as ancient buildings. The walks have the added advantage of being relatively flat, so more can be discovered without too much exertion.
I've not been able of late to do any of our walks. What was thought to be arthritis turned out to be polymyalgia rheumatica. Look it up here, if you really want to, but take my word for it it's not a cakewalk, in fact it's no walk. Perhaps my difficulty in emerging from Robin's car was an early sign? Put it down as a typical symptom, inability to emerge gracefully from an expensive low slung vehicle.
Other symptoms are rather more bothersome, believe me. I had ten custard days in hospital to work out exactly what I had and how to treat it. Seems an odd word: treat. My idea of a treat is a chocolate eclair not a pain in the arse.
My journey into Guiting Ward at Cheltenham was a curious and probably not untypical one for these days. Incidentally Guiting Power is a small village on the Cotswolds, why they named a ward after it is beyond me. In my book of "made up meanings for Gloucester places" I described guiting power as the uncanny ability of a vicar to ride a push bike at the same speed whatever the road conditions, they have guiting power. I digress.
I started in a clinic in the hospital where I'd become so immobile with my problem that getting to standing position was most uncomfortable. The young lady doctor took one look at me and said she would be admitting me that night but that I'd be giving them blood and other samples during the day, which I thought was remarkably selfless of me.
I was there all day, and in the first hour or so the doctor gave me some steroid pills which had a miraculous effect after about 2 hours, pain went, could move again. She did say I would not be getting any more as they might interfere with other tests they would want to do. Not an enticing prospect.
By closing time at the clinic I was transferred to Accident and Emergency next door as a channel into a bed. It was full of pained people, not a pretty site. A nurse took my details and told me she did not understand why I'd been sent there and parked me at the back of a room on one of a group of reclining arm chairs giving me a fine view of all the other people suffering various stages of pains. I had the feeling that I might be there all night. It was like a medieval painting. The tall dark Japanese woman being comforted by her friend, the big builder bloke lying on a similar chair stoically but obviously having suffered some some sort of accident. I was surrounded by people with pain, now and then what appeared to be a small boy of 14 would appear and tell someone he was then doctor, to no great end as nothing further then happened, or so it seemed.
After about an hour or so, a lady came forward and announced my name and said they had a bed for me. The steroids were still working and I could feel the jealous eyes of the others on me as I walked over to claim my place, leaving them to their suffering…
So the custard days ahead were due to start...
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