annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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Hectic

This is how it’s been:
1. Thursday. Someone in California, a business, is taking 6p from my bank account every few days. They sit in ‘pending’ for too long. WTF? I finally phone the bank who agree it’s weird and def dodgy so they decide to stop my card, agreeing to not do so till I’ve been to yoga that evening and bought a new batch of ten classes.
2. Friday: I realise that without my card not only can I not buy anything in shops, but not online either, including Kindle, and I can’t fucking park my car as none of the parking meters or car parks take cash any more. I have writing group in the morning and the silent disco that evening, both in Brighton, and the crime writers festival in Shoreham on Saturday. After Big Thinking I decide to risk it during writing group and on my way back, to buy train tickets for the other events. I do my online HIIT class, writing group – no parking ticket, yay, get train tickets with senior railcard, all good, home for a rest before disco.
3. Bloke takes Shirley for a walk along the riverbank. Half an hour later he arrives back, doubled up in pain, barely able to speak, covered in mud and says he slipped on the smooth wet chalk of the towpath and really landed hard on solid uneven ground. As he’s made his way back to his car and driven home, it takes me a while to realise that he’s REALLY hurt himself and needs to go to A&E to be checked out. He refuses, I insist. This goes on for a while, but I win. I get my stuff for the disco and the pre-dance dip in the sea, shove that and him into my car and drop him off at the hospital. Waiting times (after 14 years of Tory cuts) are massive – rumours of ten hours or more. I’m not sitting there with him for hours, I’d probably kill him before he got seen.
4. I drive to Shoreham, park by station, wait for train. Announcement ‘We apologise but the next train to Brighton is cancelled due to trespassers on the line” I don’t care. I sit on a bench, next to a mother whose two children won’t leave her alone, Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, endlessly. I’m glad they’re hers not mine. Why am I doing all this? I’m so fucking tired already. Do I really want to go to the disco? Yes, I do. Chances to dance don’t grow on trees and this is the last one till spring. So on I go, trains arrive, I head for the beach via public toilets, as I know the ones on the beach are closed, but these are too – wtf? Go to Pret, ask if I can use the loo, yes, but there’s a queue. A queue with a drunk bloke banging on about selling tickets for the toilets. Sigh.
5. I get to the beach, knackered – it’s much further from the station than I remember, I’m dragging a heavy trolley, and it’s all been far too much hassle, but yay, there’s Tor setting up down on the border between shingle and sand, and A arrives at the same time so we strip off and head into the sea and what bliss, what utter bliss it is to feel the shock of that cold water on our frazzled bodies, under the neon lights of the pier.
6. The disco is great, as always. I can’t say I’m an energetic dancer – I don’t pick my feet up much, but I shuffle and sway and sing along (Don’t leeeave me this waaaay), with three of my pals from the mental health swimming group and am so very glad I went. Then I look at my phone and discover that Bloke has had all sorts of tests – ECG, Xray, CT scan, and has a partially collapsed lung and several broken ribs. Fuuuuccckkkk. That was Friday – he’s still there, in ESCU, which is the place halfway between Intensive Care and a normal ward - having had his lung drained of nasty-looking pink fluid which is being collected in a useful looking big glass jar. The morphine stops him giving a very coherent account but I believe the tube will come out tomorrow morning and he’ll be kept in at least one more day for observation, then home if all is good.
7. Since when there’s been a lot of driving round in circles, taking phone charger, books, clothes, coffee. Luckily he had some cash which he’s let me spend while I wait for my new bank card. I was due to go to the crime writers thing on Saturday but I woke up feeling totally overwhelmed, unable to fancy sitting on a hard chair listening to people chat shite all day so I went to choir instead and sang lovely songs (Beyonce’s Running and Sweet Honey in the Rock’s Breath and ones written by the choir leader), all quite out of tune but surrounded by kind people who could see I was stressed and just smiled and let me be.
8. Then back for a short burst of the crime writers – a couple of afternoon sessions including Peter James, author of the Grace series which I just found tedious to be honest so I went to M&S with some of Bloke’s cash and bought myself a ready meal, fuck the UPF, back home to get the dog, hospital visit for not very long at all – he of course has been on his own and is desperate for conversation, whereas I’ve been rushing about for what seems like all my life and don’t want to listen to anyone, least of all him on morphine. Plus this is the same unit that Sammie was on when she’d had the first lot of kidney stones removed and was still very poorly.
9. Walk on pier with dog as the sun went down, home, vile ready meal – why did I think it would be all right? It wasn’t. Fire, Strictly and sleep.
10. Today, sauna with the Grief Warriors, in and out of a stormy sea, so restful and perfect and exactly what I needed. Roast dinner in a pub – not very nice - quick hospital visit, then home and relax. When Bloke’s not here I find I can do things I can’t do when he is. I rolled a little spliff, put on some music, did a bit of washing, hung it out, cleared the kitchen, made some soup, organized my room to enable comfy meditation, all of these with frequent pauses, all at a good, slow pace. Yoga, soup, Strictly results, writing here, Ghosts on some weird TV channel, bed. By the way I have a 30 day free guest pass on Headspace meditation if anyone wants it. I’ve found it brilliant. I’ll just need your email to link it up.
11. And bed now.

12:05 a.m. - 21.10.24

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