Something in the air

I give thanks the Donnie Darko clouds dropping rain into the bay while I walked to the station didn't drop any on me. For having time, after discovering in the train toilet I really needed to be in a facility that kept still and had a lockable door, to find one. For having enough data on my phone (just) to research where the nearest one was, and after detouring to that and finding it out of order, finally mastering the mystery tour of ambiguous signs to the next. This wasn't Radar key operated, you had to press an intercom type button and the door to a baby changing room opened, with the disabled loo off that. There were lots of high up wide open windows in the wall and it was in a busy shopping centre so I couldn't tell if all the voices I could hear so clearly were actually in the baby room or on the street outside - most disconcerting!

It's been a while since I've been in the city and it all seemed rather fraught and fractious with lots of sugared up kids and heavily smoking adults, so I give thanks for the oasis of calm that was the Waterstones cafe - and a damn fine Pastel de Nata too! I give thanks for being able to buy the bits I'd gone for -  a new saucepan to replace the one I hope to get clean but will need to take time over, a new smoke alarm as though it may have been just a dodgy battery in the old one, when I say 'old' I mean older than recommended by far, a loaf of yummy spelt bread from the health food shop and a mini retro alarm clock that I fell in love with last time I saw it but resisted on the grounds I have my phone. I have given in not just because it is very appealing, and very reasonably priced, but also because I can see what time it is when I wake without being tempted to go on line!

At the hospital everyone seemed even more frazzled than the folk in town, with patients and paperwork going astray and queues for rooms and procedures. The waiting room was full of rather grim and grumbly mumbly types so I was listening to Buddhist chants on my earphones when suddenly I had the funniest thought - what if next time I came in fancy dress? Would anyone crack a smile if there was a five foot four banana on the chair next to them? I suggested this to the poor hespered specialist when it was my turn and there must have been a few raised eyebrows as gales of laughter drifted out of the consulting room. Hmm, I'm not sure about a banana in a renal clinic she said - how about a cranberry? All the staff I spoke to thought it was a brilliant idea so I might just look into it! How am I? Well we'll have to wait for the blood results but the general opinion is that if I'm stuffing my face with Portuguese parties and thinking up practical jokes to play I'm doing OK whatever they say...