Friday 8th October

Fortunately I had nothing important planned for today, because it’s been a bit of a wash-out.

On the way up to bed last night, the OH was just heading up the stairs when one of the three cats decided to race him.  Consequently, although the cat beat the OH to the top of the stairs, this was not just because Bubbles is infinitely faster, but also because the OH ended up taking the short route back down to the bottom.  He sat briefly on the bottom step looking pale and sickly before turning bright red and swearing vehemently at the cat, who was peering through the banisters at the edge of the landing, and then at me for insisting we have cats.

“Bloody animal!  I’ll break its bloody neck if it tries that again!”

Bubbles may just be a cat but she’s not stupid.  She disappeared from the landing and into the darkness that is Celeste’s room.

I helped the OH up from the floor as he continued to mutter dark plans for kamikaze cats.  I thought from the way he had returned to his normal demeanour so quickly that he was alright, but just after he had brushed his teeth, he was violently sick (all over the bathroom floor, naturally.  Couldn’t make it to the loo, obviously) and recollections of head-injury letters from when George was playing rugby at school came into my mind, setting off alarm-bells.

“I’m fine now,” he grumbled, when I suggested that we needed to go to A&E, and to prove his point, threw up again.  He gave in.

At that time of night, the drive to the nearest hospital isn’t too bad, and the ring-road is a positive delight.  Sadly, everyone else had decided that it was a good time to visit A&E too so the wait to be seen was lengthy, to say the least.  I can understand why those who are bleeding everywhere or have bones sticking out of them take priority, but you’d think they’d slot a few of the less urgent cases in at the same time.  Or at least make those with alcohol-induced injuries wait until they’ve sobered up.  And that was on a Thursday night.  I shudder to think what it’s like on a Friday or Saturday night, and it makes me glad I ignored my mother’s suggestion to train as a nurse so that I could meet a nice doctor.

Eventually, at around 4 a.m. the OH was seen by someone who diagnosed concussion.  Well, yes, I knew that, that was why we had gone to A&E!  In the old days, we were told, he would have been admitted for observation, but since he hadn’t been sick again and because of the shortage of beds, could we please go home and watch for other symptoms.  Another head-injury letter and a recommendation for paracetamol if the headache got too bad.

“No prescription?” the OH asked weakly.

“It’s cheaper to buy it over the counter.  I can write a prescription if you really want, let you subsidise someone else’s expensive cancer treatment if you like,” the – frankly, rather snippy - tired doctor said.

“No, no, that’s fine,” the OH chipped in quickly.

So I got the opportunity to drive him home again, complaining all the way about the state of the National Health Service, his head and the cats, and it was all my fault for making him go to A&E in the first place.  Next time I won’t bother!

So today we have both catnapped – and I had to get on with trying to clean the house and do the washing and so on with a husband under my feet as well as the cats.  I almost wish I had taken up one of Verity’s suggestions of a part-time job.  It would have been good to be out of the house today.   I walked down to the local shop to get some fresh veg for lunch, walking extremely slowly, but saw no sign of Monica or Claire, or Deirdre, for that matter.  A good chance to catch up on ‘Diagnosis Murder’ in the afternoon while the OH had another nap was blown by falling asleep myself, but thank goodness for SkyPlus, so I was able to wind it back and find out who had really done it.  There are some aspects of modern technology that I quite like.