Secret Sanctuary

This morning, I had planned to go to yoga, but I got chatting to John for ages on end so I didn’t make it. The upshot of our conversation was, could he have more clothes if he was staying in hospital? But, hang on a bit, just in case, we’ll wait and see what the doctor says.

Regrettably, the doctor said John will be staying in hospital for a few more days. They are monitoring his kidney function which is down to 36% and they are not keen to send him home when it is not yet stable. Oh, and here you go, another drip for you, Mr Sleath. Hmmm, lovely.

So, this afternoon I toddled over to Heartlands laden with a bag of clothes and some drugs that are no longer needed and which needed to be handed in. John is now allowed to go for a little walk to the shop and buy a paper, so he decided he’d walk all the way down to the entrance and meet me there.

We slipped past the guards, having told them I was returning drugs, and made our way upstairs towards John’s ward. Of course, most of the chairs that you used to be able to sit on have been removed to prevent people lingering, so there was no chance of sitting in the corridor for a chat. John had been out in a little garden area, but you had to wait for a member of staff to let you out and let you in, and we waited a while but nothing was doing, so we couldn’t sit there.

In the end, I whispered, “Let’s go and sit on the stairs behind those doors, John. There’ll be less human traffic and we can sit down.” So that’s what we did. We had an illicit and clandestine hospital visit. The stairwell wasn’t busy – only one or two people came past – and we sat there, all cosy-like, for about forty minutes. It was lush.

Eventually, we reluctantly said our goodbyes and John went into the ward with his heavy bag of stuff and I came home in the absolute downpour of rain that was being thrown across the roads between Birmingham and Coventry.

And that, more or less, was the day. I had had a chat to Michael earlier in the day and learned that Thomas was still a poorly boy. The GP has prescribed antibiotics and steroids for him, as he is proper coughing and clearly got a throat infection of some kind. Fingers crossed that the medication does the trick quickly for him so that the Sutton Sleaths can get some sleep tonight.

I am still feeling cross about the planned lifting of restrictions willy-nilly in the middle of July, but not so cross that I can’t report the figures to you today.

28,773 new cases of the virus; 37 deaths in the community and 29 in hospitals in the last three days; 406 people admitted to hospital in the last 24 hours; 86% of the adult population having received their first inoculation and 64% having had both injections.

I am worn out with it all. How about you? Take care everyone, God bless.

Oh – and an addendum, courtesy of that wordsmith Susie Dent:

Word of the day is ‘pish-monger’, 17th century: one who treats others with scornful contempt (as if constantly uttering a dismissive ‘pish!’).