Wonderful well for the state we’re in

“…independent for shopping etc. if I have to give up the car – I can’t really quite decide if I ought to stop because of eyes but in the meantime go on.”

Two years ago I slipped and broke both bones in an ankle and was in a wheelchair and incapacitated for almost a year. Though I recovered completely in the physical sense I think that I have not entirely recovered in the psychological sense!”

“So glad to hear that your eyes were ‘better’ with the different man – it is a completely hit and miss game as far as I understand it and one just has to trust them.”

She does have to have radiotherapy… and I am trying to say that the reaction won’t be nearly as bad as it used to be in my day when we centred the beam in a very haphazard way compared to modern techniques.”

“I cured myself eventually by announcing to the consultant that his precious blood pressure pills were killing me and I was getting lower and lower in spirits – so had tried without them on my own and found myself feeling better. So we abandoned them and I revived at once and am now full of beans – still short of puff but that is now put down to smoking all my life, until a year ago, instead of ‘heart’ which it was first thought to be… The greatest joy is to feel alive instead of permanently half dead and blacking out at the thought of doing anything! …thank goodness this nice consultant is amenable to being told that I don’t want too many of his pills – still having 3 different things to take each day despite knocking the worst one off: what would Maggie [Thatcher] think? I am sure they all cost the earth, and being ancient I get them for free.”

“Did I tell you that the eye-man had another go at me? I think with some improvement. This time he did it under a local anaesthetic. I must say it is not natural to allow someone to poke a needle into your eyeball!”

Man’s estate

The rich man in his castle

a man leaves his hospital bed for the hereafter
Through the stratosphere to wherever

“I have two short trips to hospital this autumn, and find it hard to escape the feeling that I am getting old… My wife’s death, however sad and unexpected, had seemed for a moment to give me the opportunity to travel but, no sooner had I made a provisional booking, than I learnt that my doctor would not sign the certificate for medical insurance – and without that, any such thing is unthinkable – rich as I am!!

“He says we’ll think again about it next year, but by next year my only travel will probably be through the stratosphere to wherever…”

and the poor man [not] at his gate

“Sorry to hear you’ve been unwell but I think I can do better, having had three more operations this year, with the prospect of more to come. I do get better, more or less, in between but there never seems to be time to restore normal life before I’m hauled in again. So that’s my excuse.

“I treat your alleged financial woes with the usual contempt. Don’t you know that people from my humble background are perfectly aware that you middle class folk never actually go short? It’s the system. All I can say is I hope you’re rooting for Mrs. Thatcher…”