Yesterday - my afternoon in London.... feeling provincial ....but loving the bright lights, the familiar sights of the big city....remembering all the times I've visited before.... as a schoolgirl when my father made a protest fast in Westminster Abbey for a week....he stayed the nights in the Crypt in St Martin's in the Field in 1960 something..... and in March 2012 when we came up to his Memorial Service at Wesley Chapel.
And all the hundreds of times between... I used to work in Fetter Lane, riding in on my blue bicycle from Putney.....before there was ever a London Eye and the taxis were aways black, not yellow....and there were pigeons in Trafalgar Square. But the changes didn't matter yesterday which was a little pocket of pleasure out of my ordinary life.
When I arrive at the hospital today Robin's drip machine is beeping, the red light flashing. His IV treatment is over for the day but I can see he's exhausted. He hasn't had a shave or a shower and he looks rough. He sleeps on for a while and I sit in the cafe with a bottle of water and answer emails on my phone.
I buy him a box of mini flapjacks at the hospital shop and when he wakes up he tries to go to the loo but I have to get the nurse to help him and I take away his pyjamas in a plastic bag for washing. I tell the doctor on duty he has a headache. She says it's a normal reaction to the treatment and the staff nurse should give him paracetamol. We go for a little walk up and down the corridor.
Later, the lady with the tea trolly stops by his room and says to me,
He's such a sweetie I could take him home with me.
Robin introduces me as his lovely wife and says to her,
You are lovely too...and I'm not trying to seduce you.
She laughs and says,
He says nicer things to me than my husband does.
Still spreading joy even from his hospital bed.....
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