I've gone off...

the blogging boil.

All of a sudden my posts seem...

well not to put too fine a point on it...

trite!

This week has been a strange one,

Tuesday, I took a much loved elderly neighbour

to have his eye injection.

The 'specialist' I use the term loosely,

was so busy telling the nurse about her wonderful

holiday that she without a care just

wanged the injection into his eye...

'Owwww!'

'How many fingers am I holding up?'

'I can't even see your hand, let alone fingers!

he replied.

More drops went into his eye...

'Now how many?'

'Ditto!!!'

She then proceeded to put her finger

over the eye and rub it in a circular motion.

To disperse the fluid into the place it was

intended for?

What do I know?  I'm just an ordinary woman,

not one swathed head to toe in fabric

with only my face showing!

Isn't Assad an eye specialist as well?

Of dozens and dozens of eye injections this

was by far the most painful.

My lovely man is a sprightly eighty three

with a seriously ill wife at home.

Then on Wednesday it was my birthday.

Yesterday I went up to Kings College

Hospital with a friend whose husband had just had

an operation to drain a bleed in his head.

Kings College Hospital is where 

Simon was given the news that he only had

months to live.

So for me it was going to be a toughy.

No worries...

I'm a big toughy- teflon-toffo!

On the train a young woman half a carriage away

answered her phone,

as I looked, all the while thinking

bloody phones!

I watched as she dissoved into tears.

Leaving my friend, I set off down the carriage

where people sat reading their papers,

completely unconcerned.

Touching her lightly on the shoulder

I asked if she needed some help.

She said through the tears that

the call had been from the hospital to

say get there as quick as you can

your husband is dying.

We were on a train with eight stops to go!

I hugged her as she told me about his brain tumour,

which she said was a secondary cancer.

The words poured out as she talked me through the ghastly tale.

Her one year old son had the day before been running a high

temperature and she wanted to get home to him.

'If only they'd told me my husband was dying, I would have stayed!'

Still our fellow travellers carried on trying it seemed, not to notice.

'As soon as we reach the station, give me your coffee and run.'

That was the last I saw of her.

That beautiful young woman with her whole life

in front of her, has been on my mind ever since...

was she on time to be with him when he died?

As my friend and I walked out of the station,

both of us wondering what to expect with her husband:

I got a tap on the shoulder.

'You were meant to be in that carriage today

for that lovely young woman!'

That lady was also going to see her husband in neuro-critical care.

Four women,

four different ages and times.