It is very tempting to misuse that quote that
was incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain, where he was reported to have said, “Reports
of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” It’s great to be back, but truthfully I don’t
want to be here. I do, I desperately
want to write, my poor wee head is full of ideas and stories that I want to
tell you, but I know that I am not firing on all four cylinders yet, not that I
have four cylinders. I think, knowing
the type of beast that I am, it would be more appropriate to describe me in
horse power, but at the moment it’s more like the little donkey. I’m afraid to start this blogging, by the way
I’m going to change that awful name of blogging, it sounds like something you
do during the long winter evenings.
Anyway, I’m glad to be back, but I’m afraid that I might fall over again
tomorrow, or the next day, and disappoint many of you all over again.
So; let’s have a go anyway. Let’s open the old creative taps and see what
we can fill the Belfast sink up with.
The story, the blog, had a nice structure to it; it was, as they say in literary
circles, consecutive. All the stories
apart from being the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, were
all connected. There was a timeline to
the project, a structure, and me and my frail humanness went and broke that
timeline. So rather than shoot straight
back to Manchester and the evil, corrupt and conniving Delia, I thought I would
spend a few words, or pages, describing what I have just been through. See if I am able to produce my fifteen hundred
daily words again. Some of you might
like to take notes; some of you may want to avert your eyes, for once again the
double top secret cabal who are preparing me to take the throne of Ireland didn’t
hold back.
Think of the torture scene at the end of Braveheart,
of course you will have to replace the Australian actor with a real man, a
Celt, loveliest legs in Ireland, which by the way is why the kilt was invented,
but I’ll tell you all about that another day.
Being one of the cleverest people in the world has its drawbacks. When faced with doctors and consultants I
tend to lie back and let them get on with whatever it is they want to do as I
would probably have come up with the same conclusion that they did. The closest I can come to this situation is
the image of the torture scene in Braveheart, me on a hospital bed surrounded
by doctors and nurses and consultants and a passing car mechanic, all hacking
away at me, pulling and prodding like piranhas ripping away my very flesh. This time there was a slight difference in our
opinion as I couldn’t stand and couldn’t walk.
My appetite was gone and whatever I did eat, came straight back up again. Many of you would probably panic, but, being
a fully qualified, advanced, mountain rescue first aider, I knew that I had a case
of Man Flu.
Man Flu as many of you know, falls in to the
same category as hangovers, which of course I have already proven do not exist,
it is actually pillow abuse and my final paper and conclusions have been sent
to Sweden so that I can accept the Nobel prizes in Physiology, Medicine, Chemistry,
Physics and probably Literature as well.
It is a widely known fact that Man Flu exclusively attacks the XY chromosome
carrier. Medical professionals now also widely recognise that self-diagnosis by
the sufferer is the best means of identification as the symptoms of Man Flu are
far more severe than the simple common cold which predominantly targets the XX
chromosome holders (i.e. females). This goes some way to explain the cynicism
some women display towards their male counterparts. If Man Flu is kind enough
not to kill the infected party it will definitely leave him weak, sick, hurting
everywhere and in dire need of TLC. So
it would be safe to say that TLC was missing in this case, in fact, despite the
fact that a normal person would think I was at deaths door, Irene informed me
that I was to drive herself, her mother and two of her sisters, four hundred
miles to Saundersfoot, near Tenby.
I didn’t mind as that is where Tim got married,
Saundersfoot, and it would be nice to see the old place again. Irene, her mother and her sisters, book a cottage
for one week every year and the six or seven of them, I can never remember
exactly how many of them there are, spend a man free week and relax. Muggins here is normally expected to drive
the four from this area while the others make their own way from whichever coven
they are residing in that season. So,
have I mentioned how clever I am, I realised that my legs were swelling, quite
badly in fact to the point where I experienced that sensation normal people
know as pain. The preverts among you
will be glad to know that I bound myself up, before the drive, by slipping in
to some rubber stockings.
I had these made at a local hospital and they tend to be quite effective. I was going
to pull on a sturdy pair of shoes. This was
more to do with the fact that you should never leave the house unless properly
dressed, so the incidents of youngsters slouching about the local shopping
centre in pyjamas has me apoplectic at times.
I knew that because of my lack of mobility I wasn’t going to leave the
vehicle apart from one fuel stop, somewhere.
I also knew or expected that my feet, being at the end of my lovely
legs, would also swell so decide to wear a pair of soft slippers. These would allow me to comfortably drive the
car and allow some swelling and, hopefully, cut down on the pain factor. I bet you are all now wishing you were as
clever as me. Like all good military men
I wrote down the time I took my first pain killers on the back of my left hand
so that I could refer to it all day long and pace out my pain medication. Three routes were recommended to me by the RAC,
that’s the Royal Automobile Club, for Royals like me, not the one with big day-glow
orange breakdown and recovery vans.
I decided to cut straight through Welsh Wales,
hoping and expecting a nice drive with lots of scenery, sheep and stuff. It was mostly, well; the initial stage of the
journey, was mostly duel carriageway broken up with fecking roundabouts. I found that I was having to lift my legs
with my hands to reposition my feet on the pedals and the constant movement
kept pulling the slippers off my feet.
Margaret, one of Irene’s sisters was quite busy in the rear of the car
shouting at any male manual types we passed, making lewd suggestions about what
she would like to do with their shapely bottoms, whether they had one or not. The mother in law was complaining about the
sandwiches she had made, Marlene, the other sister, was asleep, while I sat at
the steering wheel wondering if I should tell Irene that my slippers had come
off and were jammed under the accelerator and brake pedals and we were now in
quite a dangerous situation.
The journey was now interspersed with frequent stops
were Irene would get out, come around to my side of the vehicle, extricate my
slippers and pull them back on my feet.
Of course I would have to choose spots where Welsh manual workers couldn’t
catch up to us, as although there may have been a language difference they
still may have understood classic quotes like, “Yack e da boyo, how’s yer bum
for spots?” To say that the journey was
tense would be an understatement. In fact
I was able to determine that the stress levels were, ‘Off the scale,’ as at one
point I ejected the CD currently playing and threw it out of the window, a sure
sign that meditation should be considered. I did have the Sat Nav going in the background
but didn’t turn the volume up until I was seven or eight miles away from Saundersfoot. Gertie, that’s what I call my Sat Nav, one,
because the command voice is female and two, because it is her name. Gertie took over and the map began sprouting
red lines along lanes that ran from the main duel carriageway to the seaside and
Saundersfoot.
As we passed the chapel where Tim had got married
and the vicar had subsequently banned us from the graveyard, Saint Issell’s, I
smiled as a wedding was taking place. Unfortunately
it looked quite normal as there were no sword fights going on and the graveyard
seemed relatively explosion free, although things may have livened up later,
you never know. I arrived at the house,
which was attached to the police station and I couldn’t help but wonder if some
of them may be staying for a little longer that one week, especially
Margaret. Being the gentleman that I am
and showing my wholehearted belief in equality I allowed the ladies to carry
their own luggage in to the house as I had enough problems carrying myself
in. I found a leather settee facing the ocean
and plonked myself in to it.
It was their week and I didn’t like hanging
about so I gave myself half an hour before I would set off again. I was exhausted, my legs had swollen as had
my feet, I was in horrendous pain, but as any man will tell you I accepted it
as my fate, the fate of the married man.
Unfortunately one of Irene’s sisters had been a nurse and I now came under
the spotlight. First of all it started
with the “I don’t think you look well,” which is like someone pointing at the
ocean and saying, “That looks wet!” I had just experienced a long, tense, drive, of
course I would look tired, or unwell, or whatever, plus, I had a little bit of Man
Flu. Susan then sits down and actually
asks me to promise that I will go and see a doctor, which some of you will have
already guessed that I was thinking on nipping over to Manchester and getting
out on the rip with Adrian, well; he is a doctor.
And that is where it all started going
wrong. Sure, I had been suffering with Man
Flu for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t walk, couldn’t stand, couldn’t do very
much actually. Was always falling
asleep, which I thought would make the return journey, on my own, very
interesting, and anything I ate was coming straight back up. There was only one thing to do, all right two,
but the first was to get back home, close the curtains and get on the settee,
it’s the only way to deal with Man Flu, and then there was the second thing, go
to the doctors, a promise is a promise, like never leaving the house unless
properly dressed, its just one of those things you have to do. But the thing is I had promised to go and see
a medic, I never said nothing about a doctor.
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