Girls In Uniform

I knew that using this title would get someone’s attention……..

I was back at the hospital yesterday. With my ears. Well, that might be kind of obvious – I guess I should have said, “for my ears” and the ongoing attempts to get them right following my operation last February and various different infections since then.

I am very appreciative of the service I receive from the NHS – America wake up and listen to Obama! – but I did not appreciate the hour and ten minutes wait in the pharmacy. The reception at the pharmacy was staffed by two ladies of a certain age. I promise you, they were like something straight out of a Les Dawson sketch. They WERE Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham personified. But without the headscarves….

They did make the time pass somewhat more amusingly. Normally I wait patiently (how apt) trying to spot one of the several attractive young pharmacists that work in the department as they busy themselves collecting potions, lotions, pills and bandages in the background. I think it is back to that thing I have for women in uniform – air stewardesses, dental nurses, Avon ladies and the like. I am not sure why I have a thing about ladies in uniform. It certainly pre-dates the policewoman stripogram that my petrol station dealers gave me as a leaving present. It may have had something to do with Miss Diane in the original Crossroads I suppose……..but I digress.

Clearly Cissie and Ada were volunteering. I cannot imagine that they were being paid to receive their customers. They were having far too much fun. They were there for the company and to entertain the various people waiting for their drugs – fat people, old people, people with damaged limbs, people with hacking coughs, and, kids in school uniform who looked like the Cheshire Cat having been allowed to skip class on the first day back at school.

Cissie and Ada talked loudly. They must have done. Even through my infected ears, my perforated ear drum, my ointment plug and wads of cotton wool, I managed to catch every word of their conversation. They were doing the crossword. They were doing it badly. “Helicopter moving part, four letters”, says Cissie. “Blade” says Ada.  “A thread, six letters ending in d” says Ada.  “Cotton” says Cissie. This went on for a good forty five minutes or so until one waiting patient volunteered the answers “rota” and “strand”. “Oh, we’ve done it. We’ve finished. We’re cleverer than we look.” exclaimed Ada to Cissie, ignoring the fact that they had been helped somewhat.

Cissie and Ada greeted every patient with the same message. It could have been a script from Little Britain. ”Do you want to get a coffee? Computer is down. It’ll be a good fifteen minutes to wait.” Regulars would take their advice. They would go for a coffee in the cafe run by the Friends of Leighton. Or they would go to get their blood test done. Or, mostly, they would go to have a “quick fag”. Anyone over 60 would be invited to share Cissie and Ada’s thoughts on how we are “too dependent upon computers these days” and how “young people today wouldn’t know how to run a reception without a computer to rely on”. And, neither did they.

Cissie and Ada decided that they needed to share their mobile phone numbers with each other, producing brick-shaped objects that would not have been out of place on the set of “Wall Street”. Cissie, who wouldn’t know how to turn a computer on, didn’t know how to program a number into her phone. Ada, walked her through the process in excruciating detail, making several errors on the way and oblivious to the growing queue of infirm people clutching prescriptions and desperate to escape for another cigarette.

My stay was a little longer than fifteen minutes. This was due to the fact that the pharamcist had to check with the consultant that he really meant me to put an unlicensed lotion normally prescribed for bad knees into my right ear, and, because they needed to go back to the ward I had just left to get some of the ointment that I needed for my left ear. Apparently, the hospital pharmacy didn’t stock it because it only comes from Australia. As you can see, we are at the experimental stage in the treatment of my ears……

But, my drugs were finally dispensed and by a very attractive brunette with an East European accent and a nice white uniform. So, it was worth the wait.

Related posts:

Ear, Ear – the operation

The Avon Lady

The Air Hostess

Swine Flu

So, that old “butterfly effect” again! A pig sneezes somewhere in the ruins of Tenochtitlan and a brief Mexican wave later we have a pandemic of swine flu and a further risk to the global economy as up to 30% of the workforce dies, goes sick or stays at home to tend their loved ones or through fear of mingling with the great unwashed.

So, will this be just another damp squib like Bird Flu, SARS and the great Ebola scare of recent times, or, are we really on the verge of finding ourselves living out an episode of Survivors for real? Hell, and it’s not as if our Texan buddies need an excuse to shoot the odd Mexican that strays across their ranches at the best of time.

Conspiracy theorists are already claiming that the virus is man-made. Sceptics might also claim that it is a useful distraction from some of the world’s more pressing political and economic travails. For sure, anything that keeps Gordon Brown off our news screens is most welcome.

Well, Cancun may well be off my holiday destination list for the time being. And, I might hold my breath for as long as I can next time I am flying. But, I won’t be rushing out to buy bottled water, tinned peaches and a shotgun and holing up in an underground bunker just yet……

Ear, Ear

 

Having spent the best part of the last two months frequenting the depressing environment of Tameside Intensive Treatment Unit (RIP Ken!) it was with some trepidation that I approached my ear operation yesterday.

This was my first operation (unless you count a semi-circumcision and I was too young to remember) and my first general anesthetic. I was somewhat tense as C drove me to the hospital. My fear was partly the result of my recent hospital experience (they are not healthy places – full of MRSA and the like), partly C’s driving (I much prefer to be in control), and, partly because my homing instinct is strong and I was fearful that they would keep me in overnight, and, partly because everyone has spent the last week or so giving me their worst “general anaesthetic” stories.

Why do people do that? You are getting married – people share their wedding day nightmares. You get pregnant (well obviously not…..) and people tell you their giving birth horrors. You need an operation and, well frankly, you don’t want to know what happens to people in the operating room.

To be honest, one of my greatest fears was that I might just begin to drift under the anaesthetic and I would look up to see the face of one of the medics I was at university with smirking at me from beneath their surgical mask. All of them were irresponsible alcoholics and I wouldn’t trust any of them near me with a sharp instrument. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

Indeed, the whole lead up to the op was quite stressful. None more so than the whole process of buying pyjamas. Yes, pyjamas. Proper grown-up, adult night attire for adults. Not “PJs” or “jimjams” as C insisted on calling them. You see, I have not possessed a pair of pyjamas for………well, let’s just say that my last pair probably had teddy bears or super heroes on them.

Since being an adult I have much preferred to sleep commando, au naturale, in the buff. Calm down girls! But, with the prospect of an overnight in hospital, it was necessary to think of my dignity, the poor nurses, and, the not wholly unlikely need to hide an involuntary erection. Well, I often wake up with one, there are nurses about….in uniform…..and, to be frank those hospital gowns are rubbish and offer no protection. Nowhere to hide.

So, a week or so ago, C took me shopping for pyjamas. Jeez, when did anyone connect the words “pyjamas” and “fashionable”. Being a bloke, I wanted something traditional and practical – blue and white stripes, fly, draw strings. Oh no, no, no. “Far too old fashioned”. “Wouldn’t see you de..” (don’t go there). So, I spent two weekends….TWO WEEKENDS – it only took me two hours to buy a new car for Heaven’s sake – trying on every shape, colour and style of designer sleep attire that John Lewis had to offer. And, finally ended up buying a pair of M&S pyjama bottoms (lycra-type material, elastic waist, NO FLY….but trendy, apparently) and a white Polo t-shirt.

I drew a very clear line when it came to the prospect of buying slippers. I am not an old man yet! I have fought hard to fight off my working class, Midland background. I only wear white socks when doing sport these days. Consequently, I never wear white socks these days. My family still won’t leave their houses to visit anyone without their slippers. It is the first thing they do upon arrival – take off their shoes and don their slippers. Me, you get in my shoes or, if I think I might dirty your carpet, in my stocking feet (socks that is – I don’t wear stockings……..often).

No slippers for me. I took my flip flops (or “thongs” as the Aussies call them). I was hoping for that trendy, looks-younger-than-his-age, surf dude look as I walked the corridor to the operating theatre. But it was not to be. To be fair I was not helped by the fact that my friendship bracelet had fallen off just two weeks after we returned from our Thai holiday The hospital gown, my fluffy dressing gown, and skinny legs sticking out the bottom didn’t help. Oh, and the look of sheer terror on my face!

I actually wasn’t feeling too bad as I arrived at the hospital, despite the fact that I had had nil by mouth for the previous five hours. I was hugely relieved that my insurance company were refusing to pay for an overnight stop unless required so the hospital were happy for me to go home as long as there were no “complications”. Also, my environment was pleasant. I was going private. I had a private single room with en suite and a plasma screen. A nurse came, filled some forms, took my blood pressure, pulse and temperature. I left my urine sample (I’m never quite sure how much they need so decided to fill it as much as I could without “spillage”). The anaesthetist came, cracked jokes, filled some forms. And, then my Consultant came………….and he scared me.

He was clearly having a bad day. He was in a bad mood. It seemed to be my fault. He was annoyed that BUPA had refused to sanction an overnight stay (I think it messed his schedule). He was annoyed that the person who should have showed at 1pm to do a hearing test hadn’t, so I had to wait until 2pm, which meant that he was running late. Then it came to the consent form. Then it came to him telling me all of the things that could possibly go wrong requiring drilling of bone, skin grafts, pierced eardrums, deafness, hearing aids and the like, if I every survived the anaesthetic and post-operative infection. Help! At this point I was all for going home with an “actually, I feel much better, thank you”.

But, I needn’t have worried. I went in. I went to sleep. I woke up – no erection, phew. I went back to my room – C fussed and looked please to see me. Within quarter of an hour I had had a drink and a sandwich. Within the hour I had had a wee (hospitals are obsessed with the need to urinate). The, now much happier Consultant, turned up to tell me all had gone well and, despite the fact that they had had to drill bone and do skin grafts, he was happy for me to go home.

And at home I am. I have a huge dressing on my ear which makes me look not unlike Van Gogh following his self-harming incident. I am not allowed to drive or operate mechanical equipment for 72 hours which means that I am under a strict regime as laid out by she who should be obeyed.

And, my advice to you all – don’t broddle*, if you get an infection go to the doctor straight away, and, if you can, go private.

* Broddle = to insert an alien object such as a cotton bud or finger or pencil end for the purposes of scratching or cleaning your ear.

Related Posts:

Girls in Uniform

Man Flu

I think I may be coming down with a sniffle. A cold. I have been sneezing and my nose is a little redder than normal due to the number of times that I have blown my nose. I say a “little redder” because being “reddish” is, unfortunately, my normal state of affairs. My face is often pink. It is probably genetic. But, unlike my total colour-blindness (red-green and  blue-violet) which was clearly my grandma’s fault (it is passed down the female genetic line), this seems to be my dad’s fault…. 

My reddishness is not because I blush easily (but I do) or because I am easily embarrassed (but I often am). Nor is it because I have spent too long under a sunbed (but I do). Nor is it related to any blood pressure problems. As far as I am aware, I don’t have any. No, but I do have Rosacea, which, according to the NHS Direct is “a common inflammatory condition of the skin of the face that causes redness that looks like a flush or blush”. It is made worse when it is hot, at times of stress, and after spicy food, etc. It can be embarrassing. I can’t count the number of times that I get asked if I have been away on holiday and the like. Fortunately, my Rosacea manifests itself as a whole head blush. I think that this is slightly better than it being blotchy or patchy. My poor dad looks as if he has a rash sometimes. 

Anyhow, it is not surprising that I have a cold. I have spent the last couple of days outside in the rain a lot. The great British summer. Flooding everywhere. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. I have been living in my wellies, desperately trying to stop water flooding into the hallway. It has rained pretty solidly in Cheshire for the last couple of weeks. Fortunately, we are not near a river or a stream and do not have the same flood risk as those poor people in Hull and South Yorkshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire and elsewhere. But, the fields around home are sodden. Water is pouring off the fields onto the roads, and, the poor soak-away drain that we have in the front drive could not cope with the rainfall. It was even worse than in my earlier posting “It Rains Up North”.  

Fortunately my rudimentary barricade of bricks, a couple of pieces of wood, and, compost bags were not quite tested. But, it was close. And, so, yesterday, I went and purchased 15 bags of Cheshire Pink gravel (it is a planning requirement!) and piled it outside of the front door in an attempt to divert future inundations away from the house. Fingers crossed. The joys of climate change! 

So, I seem to have a cold. And it probably didn’t help that we were without central heating and hot water from Saturday until Tuesday, because we ran out of oil. My fault. I should have ordered earlier. But, this wet weather combined with a cold-water stand up wash in the morning is not the best start to the day. But, I will not succumb. I do not do “man flus”. You know, when men exaggerate their illnesses so that when they have a cold they claim they have the flu, etc.  

Fortunately, I have been ill very infrequently in my forty or so years. So far.  Touch wood. Fingers crossed. When I was a kid I had the annual bout of tonsillitis. Spookily it would always come during the Christmas holidays so I didn’t even get the benefit of time off school. And, one Christmas I remember a hurried last-minute scramble for Christmas dinner ingredients because I was too ill to travel to our Auntie Jane’s as scheduled. 

In the twenty years that I have been working, I have had just two days off work through illness. That was due to a chest infection which required me to take anti-biotics for the first time in my life. Which I hated. I hated it because a) it meant that I had to curtail my alcohol intake for a couple for days and b) because I find it really hard to swallow pills, tablets and capsules. They make me gag. I can’t swallow them. Normally, I end up chewing the damn things, which is not nice because most medicines taste bloody awful. 

The only time that I have been really ill was when I was at university. I developed a form of herpes of the mouth. Nice. I caught this from kissing my girlfriend when she had a cold sore on her lip. Nice. I was ill. The whole of the inside of my mouth and tongue were coated in painful ulcers.  I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. I lost about two stone in weight in about a week and a half. This was extreme dieting. I also had blood poisoning which caused hallucinations including a really, really scary dream about being chased by nuns. This was a result of falling asleep in the Junior Common Room while watching the Sound of Music one Bank Holiday Monday. She can be damn scary that Mary Poppins (sic!).  

The college doctor shipped me off to the John Radcliffe Teaching Hospital in Oxford, where I became a bit of a spectacle. Apparently, what I had was very rare. Which meant that every doctor and every student-doctor in the place (of which there were many) felt it necessary to come and have a look, and take a swab, and have a poke. It was not nice. It hurt. It only lasted a couple of weeks or so. Fortunately.

Unfortunately, a much longer-term problem, thankfully now cured, was the “eating disorder” it left me with. When I finally made it back into “normal” college life (which must be an oxymoron) I looked bloody awful because of the weight I had lost.  I was put on a “special” diet.  Special food. It was like being a baby again. Mostly mushy stuff like scrambled egg, custards and the like. The special diet meant that I was served my meals in formal hall after everyone else had been served the normal meal that was available that night. My food was paraded in by my very own waitress, who I happened to have been on a couple of dates with (which was totally against college rules). It was very embarrassing. I became very self-conscious. I thought everyone was staring at me. This was because everyone was staring at me. And, it left me with a bit of a phobia about eating in public, which stuck with me until my mid-Thirties. It was worse when I was feeling a bit stressed. I was stressed a lot until my mid-Thirties. Lunches with customers, romantic meals with girlfriends (or girls I wanted to be girlfriends) were an absolute joy. Not. You don’t want to know how many restaurant toilets I have thrown up in. 

If you just think how often you actually have to eat in the company of others then you may get a sense for how big a problem it could be. Normally I would just push the food around on my plate to make it look as if I had eaten something. I would hide the meat under my potatoes and I would hide my leftovers under my napkin. And then I would wait until I was back in the comfort of my own home before eating. Mostly mushy stuff like scrambled egg, custards and the like.  To this day, my best friends from university vie for the strategic place next to me at the table so that they can scavenge my leftovers. I am still not a big eater when in the company of others. 

So, take my advice. No matter how gorgeous your girlfriend. If she is need of Zovarax, leave her alone. Cold sores are to be avoided!

Middle-Aged Spread

Middle Aged Spread

 

I am feeling much better about myself today. Recently I have been a little perturbed about the onset of “middle aged spread”. Love handles. My wife tells me that I am doing very well for my age. But, we are soon to embark on a holiday to Thailand, which will require me to expose my pink and less-than-perfectly toned body to the scrutiny of fellow globe trotters. To be honest, I could do with losing a pound or two. Or three. Or four. But, thankfully, on the way into work yesterday morning, while I was sat frustrated in a queue of traffic for fifty minutes due to the failure of traffic lights at roadworks, I was listening to an illuminating report on the Radio 5 Today Programme. It was discussing the link between obesity and exercise. Or more accurately, the link between obesity and the lack of exercise. And, do you know what? There isn’t one!

That’s great news. It makes me feel far less guilty about my current lack of exercise. According to some recent scientific study the amount of exercise that children undertake is genetically set. It has nothing to do with access to sports facilities. The implication is that your body knows how much exercise you need. It is self-regulating. Yeah right….

All I know is that kids today get less exercise than kids twenty years ago. Is that evolution? I suspect not.

I used to walk to Infant and Junior School. A four-mile round trip. I used to walk to the bus stop en route to Grammar School. A mile or so. I played football, or cricket, or murder ball, or had a fight, every school break. We had two hour-long PE sessions each week. We had an afternoon of Games (football, cricket, athletics, or cross-country depending upon the season and the weather). And these were competitive games! It was never just good enough “to take part” for my generation. I played football and cricket for the school, and competed in athletics, gymnastics, basketball and table tennis in House Competitions. I played in the national schoolboy’s cricket final (and lost) at the age of 16. I played badminton and lifted weights in lunchtimes.

Away from school, I roamed my ‘hood on my bike. I would cycle for miles. My cousin, Vince and I would cycle from Birmingham to Warrington to visit a great aunt, at least once a year. We went to the park. We played ball. We walked everywhere. And, when it rained we ran.

It doesn’t seem to be the same today. Kids are delivered to and collected from the school gate by parents in Chelsea Tractors. F*ck the environment! Convenience rules. Me, me, me. Kids are not allowed to play out due to concerns about their personal security, or, to stop them getting access to drink, drugs or sex. School games are largely no longer competitive. Schools are paranoid about getting sued if a child is injured or as a result of the psychological trauma of being labelled a failure. Whatever happened to fun? Whatever happened to winning?

To be honest, I have let my fitness regime slip since school. I did play football at University. I rowed, and I played the occasional game of squash. But, to be honest, my recreation time at Oxford did become more sedentary – croquet, darts, and drinking! After Uni, I played an occasional game of squash and for a couple of years, I played five-a-side football and participated in an indoor cricket league. But, I also discovered, whisky, red wine, and my sofa.

There have been only sporadic attempts at a fitness regime in recent years. I frequently hide behind the fact that most of my sporting prowess of yester-years was in the field of team sports. Occasionally, however, I have been cajoled into the odd game of squash, the odd mile or two of running (I don’t jog! I used to do cross-country at school after all), and even Tai Chi. The Tai Chi lasted only the one week actually. It was something that C and I were trying out as a common interest but the timing was inconvenient, the venue less than salubrious and the rest of the group looked as if they had just come straight from A&E or the geriatrics ward. So now, my athletic life consists of one regular weekend of torture/hiking with the lads from Oxford and, more typically, a regular weekly forced march across Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam!

My best mates and C pooled together last year to buy me a bike for my 40th birthday. My mates all have young families which keep them fit. I think they were worried about me. I will dig it out of the garage after I get back from my hols. The annual Lads Walk is planned at the end of April, so I’ll have to get some miles in.

In the meantime, it’s lunchtime! 

 

 

 

 

Grumpy Old Man Part 4

The Power Of Recovery

 

I am not as young as I was. My powers of recovery are not what they were.Twenty odd years ago, when I was at university, I used to be up late on a Friday night, having sunk ten pints of watered beer at the Sweaty Bop only be up again at 6am, to jog down to the Boat House on the River Isis (which is what the Thames is known as it meanders its way through the Dreaming Spires of Oxford), throw up behind the Boat House, before taking an hour and a half training session as stoke of a sporting eight, being a racing eight crewed by people who cannot row very effectively but claim to be good at other, non-public school sports such as football.

The stroke is the one who sits at the front facing the cox and attempts to beat out the rhythm for the rest of the boat to follow. The cox is the little one with the big mouth and bigger attitude who steers the ship, and who in my case, would belch last night’s chilli kebab and Guinness into my face every time I came forward.

Having rowed, I would jog back to college in time for breakfast only to spend the afternoon captaining the Animals football team, being a team made up of blokes, well, lacking the finesse of Christiano Ronaldo, before returning to College in time for a quick shower and back to the Beer Cellar for another heavy bout of watered down Marstons.

These days it takes a little longer to recover. It has taken me the best part of a week to recover from last weekend’s walking weekend with the lads. Admittedly, I was cheered a little bit when super fit P (he of the 300k cycling event in the Alps) phoned to check how I was and admitted that he was suffering big time too. Myself, I have been limping and wincing all week and avoiding stairs whenever possible. I had no idea how much you used the muscles at the front of the shin. Ouch.

Nevertheless, I am proud of myself today. As promised, I went out on my bike. It was forty five minutes of sheer agony. The Cheshire plains felt like the Massive Central today. And, I am saddle saw! Is it my imagination or have saddles got much, much narrower over the years? And not for the better if the state of my bum is anything to go by. Now where did I leave that jar of Vaseline. It helps with the chafing……

Indeed, bike technology has moved on alarmingly too. When I was in my teens and early twenties I used to do a lot of cycling and would do all of my own maintenance and repairs, although I was not so big on cleaning. I have to admit, reluctantly, that when my mates and C clubbed together to buy my new cycle, I had to resort to reading the instruction manual before I could operate the gears. An instruction manual for heaven’s sake. I thought they existed just for the benefit of women and the incredibly stupid.

So it would seem that I am descending into middle age. I am becoming a grumpy old man. This has been hammered home none too subtlely of late – being made redundant, with conversations with my mates focusing far too much on how to combat nasal and ear hair, gardening and growing your own vegetables (apparently purple sprouting broccoli is to be recommended). And, only this week I joined in a conversation with a colleague, J, which was essentially a tirade about the arrogance of the Germans. All of them. Every last one of them. Clarkson for President.

Well, I might be getting older and I might be getting grumpier. But, I have no intention of going gracefully, quietly, or soberly. Bring it on!

 

 

Grumpy Old Man Part 3

Five Grumpy Old Men

 I am in pain. I ache all over. I particularly ache in my shins, my knees, and my groin. Why? This weekend was the annual reunion of my best mates from university, plus another masochist who joins us on our annual pilgrimage to pain. The Lads’ walking weekend.Morecambe and Wise used to do, but this time at least they had twin rooms. There were no sunken mattresses resulting in a shock coming together in the middle of the night. Nevertheless, the morning conversations often referenced competitive farting (especially after the Friday night curry) and snoring. Even Oxford-educated forty-something males regress quite easily! If they weren’t discussing bodily excretions they were complaining about the other’s untidiness or similar misdemeanour. 

This year we were in the Malverns. We all arrived on Friday night and checked into the Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern. I would recommend the hotel. It is ideally located and the rooms are modern, clean and comfortable. Despite the fact that the hotel was full on both the nights that we stayed there it was quiet, but the total exhaustion and the last couple of brandies may well have contributed to that. The hotel has quite a heritage. The Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (and the black Christ of Rastafarianism) stayed there during his exile, which followed Mussolini’s invasion. My neighbour, J, is also a regular but for somewhat different reasons.

There were five of us. There were three rooms. As much as I love these guys, I love my privacy more. So, I had opted for a room on my own, at great expense, while the other four shared. In the past there have been times when they have been forced to share a double bed, much like

We started our Saturday walk at about 09.30 having bought provisions of fresh fruit and water in the local shops. We finished the walk around 18.30 having taken in such places as St Anne’s Well, the Worcestershire Beacon, the British Camp (Herefordshire Beacon), the obelisk on the Eastnor Estate, the Wyche Cutting and Midsummer Hill. In reality, M and I finished about 18.30. The three others finished somewhat earlier.

It is quite a hard lesson to learn that I am not as fit as I once was. Indeed, I was never a great fan of training, keep fit, or the gym. I liked to consider myself a kind of natural athlete, with a sort of genetic tendency to a level of fitness that meant I could cope with most physical challenges that came my way. Well no longer. Today I feel my age. Indeed, this morning I feel considerably older than my forty one years. I now accept that a couple of quick spins around the flats of Cheshire on my bike is inadequate training for a fifteen to eighteen mile ridge walk.

It was the steep climb and sharp descent over Midsummer Hill that did for me. My left groin began to feel the strain, and my left knee. And both shins. Midsummer Hill was, of course, the furthest point from the sanctuary of the hotel bar. The return trip was somewhat agonising. Especially the down bits. And the up bits. To be honest, there weren’t many flat bits. Just down bits and up bits. Up bits and down bits. It hurt. At points, I felt quite nauseous with the pain.

I was very grateful of M’s company. He was suffering a little with his knees too and the fact that his thousand mile socks (google them) kept falling down and his boots squeaked. Our hardier, fitter, uncaring adventurers abandoned us around the lower part of the British Camp to go in search of higher peaks and ice cream, while we limped back. Despite the pain I kept going. I kept going because there was no option but to. I focused on the prospect of the first cool pint and of killing my mate, P.

P is somewhat fitter than the rest of us. He is in training for a 300k cycling event in the Pyrenees this summer, having completed something similar in the Italian Alps last year. He is also somewhat unsympathetic towards those of us with more sedentary lifestyles. It was P who decided that climbing Midsummer Hill would be a good idea. P would never make a good member of the SAS though. He is not exactly a team player and he has a Darwinian view of most things, which also includes leaving stragglers to their own devices. I only jest. He is a top bloke and I am only jealous of his fitness. And, it is my own fault. These were the mates that clubbed together (with my wife, C) to buy me a bike for my fortieth to encourage me to keep fit. Guys, I promise to do so from now on.

Despite the pain, the tears, and the gritted teeth I actually really enjoyed the walk. The weather was beautiful and sunny if a tad windy. The views from the ridge of Herefordshire to the west and Worcestershire to the East were stunning. The forested areas were carpeted with blue bells and wild garlic. Beautiful.

As we walked we talked. We put the world to rights. Boy, have we turned into Grumpy Old Men. Sports Utility Vehicles and Chelsea Tractors of all kinds came under attack. Or, more precisely their owners did. It was concluded that unless you were a farmer, you had to be inconsiderate to own such a vehicle. You see we are all very aware of our carbon footprint these days. They walk nowhere. They drive like morons. They take up two parking spaces. Their sexuality is questionable. My mate, E, can get quite a good rant on if you wind him up well enough. And, over the twenty three years that we have known each other, we have become expert at winding each other up. We know the buttons to push. So, E was encouraged to rant about owners Chelsea tractors and owners of small dogs and later, over dinner, P was hurling abuse at N (our resident champagne socialist) about Labour’s foreign policy and strategy towards Iraq and why we weren’t doing the same in Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Israel, Somalia, Sudan, Darfur, Rwanda, etc. etc. etc. But we all kissed and made up (metaphorically speaking only of course) over a pint or two and a brandy.

As an interesting aside, we also discussed books which had had most impact upon us. The Lord of The Rings got two votes, including one of mine (Holy Blood and Holy Grail got my second vote). There were also votes for The Wind in the Willows, and, for A Dragon in a Wagon (M doesn’t read much, but he does have a young family).

Top weekend Lads. See you next year. Hopefully somewhere nice and flat like Norfolk. Now, where did I put those cycling shorts…….