Quatre-vingt-douze

I give thanks for getting lucky with the taxi drivers today. Not only were they both congenial conversational companions, but the one homeward actually came to the right place to collect me after the company was badgered by both the ward clerk and one of the nursing staff.

For beginning to feel comfortable and settled in my new three days a week environment, until the elderly lady opposite me became so unwell I don't think she'll be coming back. She'd rung her bell when her blood pressured dropped, feeling strange as you do when that happens, and I thought she'd fainted at first but then the chap attending her called for help and there was CPR and shocks and adrenaline for half an hour or more before the ambulance team took her away. I felt for her family, I hope they understand how hard everyone tried to bring her round - including me willing her to as wilfully as I could - and for the staff as she'd probably been coming for treatment a long time and was well known to them, likewise to the other patients because even though the curtains were drawn we could still hear everything that was going on. I've been trying to find what to be grateful for in this, and well I know for sure she didn't suffer, or only very slightly and briefly, and she was being reassured and tended to as she slipped away, while for the rest of us a reminder of our own fragile mortality may be difficult to deal with but it is also a blessing to be made aware of how precious this all is, despite all our grumbles and troubles and moans.

Meanwhile I give thanks to thoughtful Ann for sending me a couple of good looking books ie. looking good to read, and also looking still very pristine. I swear she has fairies to turn the pages for her! And to the lovely Ruth for driving over after her shift at the other not so local hospital to pick up the quilt I don't want and take it to the rehabilitation hostel her daughter works trying to get homeless folk back on their feet. I give great thanks for advertising it on Facebook and for someone I know knowing something very useful that could be done with it. For watching a rain shower move across the bay as I sat with my homecoming cuppa and mulled over all of the above. All things must pass.