My Bloggettes!
(Why-aye pet….Fog on the Tyne (‘s all mine, ‘s all mine), canny, Brooon Ale etc)
On Monday I got up early to go on a cycle as it was to be a busy, busy, day of a day for your favourite bloggedear, (note to self: Freezing cold is not a good thing!)
I had a ‘group’ session at The Vic hospital in Lichfield - which is the hospital I was born in….but there’s no plaque to commemorate this marvellous event – damn them (as someone once said)
It was a speech therapy thing to try and sort out my voice, which is still croaky after all the tubes inserted through my larynx over the last few weeks.
There was the obligatory hypo woman, telling everyone about all her problems. The silly woman was so old she deserved to have ailments and seemed to revel in them!
Why is it the older we get the more we enjoy bring everyone with their problems. At least you guys have the choice whether to read my blog or not. I’m afraid the rest of is in this ‘group’ were a captive audience.
Everyone else seemed pretty normal. Although there were too many coughers and sniffer to make me feel comfortable. I suppose a group session is cheap – as is talk.
They got us to speak into a dictophone, pretend to be lions and do some strange things in the name of science as well as give us impossible tasks, like avoid caffeine and alcohol! No doubt I will thanks them for it at some point….
I got to Burton (smells of Marmite) to catch the train to Newcastle, where I arrived three hours later and checked into the flat, which was overheated, overcramped, but not overpriced!
Why they waste heating making them so hot is beyond me….it must create an atmosphere of disease.
We got to a pub in Gosforth (?) which advertised food until 8.30pm. But nobody told me I had to order before 8pm…
So I ended up at ‘spit and sawdust’ place. I had chilli and choked on the smoke…..at least had the exercise of uphill walk back.
Arrived in outpatients at 7.30am and had all the prods and pokes. My lung capacity had risen from 65% of a ‘normal’ to 72% (the best I have had this millennium.)
In the afternoon went shopping in the GreenMarket area and then to mum’s hotel room to get changed. She was in the Royal Railway Hotel, right next to the station.
We went to the hotel café and saw RICKY GERVAIS (comedy bloke from The Office – having a serious conversation with a girl with a laptop)
There were also some men negotiating buying ‘tipping’ rail stock for Virgin. (That’s the Richard Branson company…not the Mother of Jesus…Gosh.)
All this in the faded splendour of a hotel which must have seen so may people of note, even before I cam along! lol
I met Sarah in the lobby – I hadn’t seen Sarah for 5 years and we had travelled together for weeks across the top and down the east coast of Australia in 2000.
We went to the Quayside and hit the Piano and Pitcher before eating at ZiZi’s (Italian, lovely olives) and finding an expensive bar on Grey Street called Apartment.
She left her bag at ZiZi’s and a waitress called Gemma ran after us and returned it. How cool was that? Whay-aye!
We ended up at Mr Lynch’s….which played Kaiser Chiefs and Killers and served Baileys. It was very student and indie and took me back to 1993!
We befriended a taxi driver who gave us his number and let a bouncer look after my overnight bag while we lounged inside (I am too trusting when ‘with alcohol’)
The taxi man ‘Jed’ is married to a French girl and told us what ‘ZiZi’ means in Francais! Ooops. Someone has a sense of humour.
A soft bed is a wonderful thing after a night in a hospital flat. Thanks you Miss S. You are a top chick and I will repay the favour.
The next day we did brunch and Starbucks – the perfect way to start a Wednesday – looking at old pictures from our travels, before I met mum at the station – she had been making free use of the hotels spa facilities.
The train was full of so many conversations I could have written a book on them – and probably will. But we were sitting by Dr Raj (from TV’s Richard and Judy and This Morning) – the famous phychiatrist.
No rest for the wicked as when I got home I had to start working on an application I am doing as I have a meeting about it later today (Thursday.) Oh the joy!
Its now Thursday PM and had an active day. I went cycling, went to my meeting in Cannock, went to the gym, rang up Newcastle about changes in medication (I am back on MMF - boooo!) and spending most of evneing on an application form. I just notices I have loads of e-mails so I apologise in advance for not answering them yet.
I am going on a course next Tuesday on'being self-employed' - only downer is I have to run the gauntlet of the A38 at rush hour as its in Burton-upon-Trent....
I ahven't checked the local papers yet but believe I have a review of the new Sparks album in The Post this week as well as my usual village stuff. The Mercury are/is also interested in using a feature I wrote about Nunswell Park. So things are ticking over.
I will put pictures up from my night out in Newcastle asap! Please be patient with me (and give me a hug if you see me!)
Music: Nine Inch Nails: Hurt, Johhny Cash: The Mercy Seat, Madonna: Sorry, Panic At The Disco: Nails
