Ad Infinitum

Dear All, here’s some of my American travels.
Shlepping around my lap top was a great idea in my head BUT the heat and the travelling meant I hardly unpacked it.
The journey out was an early start, 6.30 a.m. arriving in New Orleans in the dark. We had a taxi driver – we being Ollie and me – who talked Southern for us, he said he put the accent on for tourists.
I had already had the misfortune of shoegate so arrived in ur fancy hotel wearing slippers.
My old comfortable sandals had crumbled underfoot. The rubber had rotted, so I was flopping through the airport in First Class blue slippers that the first class travellers get along with their first class pyjamas. Ollie and I were in club class, one down. No pjs but champers on tap and stewards and stewardesses who bent over backwards to make sure we were comfortable. The poor crew were in cattle class.
Eight of us travelled together, picking up three runners in different locations. Two camera men, one sound man, a director a producer and a PA. Ollie and I made up the octet.
The thing about club class is the intimacy of strangers. You get the bed, the stretching out, you get the napkins and condiments, but there is only a thin plastic screen between you and the other travellers. The air hostesses pressed the button to let down the screen to hand over tea, coffee, lunch and breakfast but it fell to me to press the button to put the screen up again. I felt rude doing it.
I’d met up with Olly in the club lounge. My cardigan zip had beeped through security.
Fast tracked through, although the big security dame nearly pulled down my trousers as she searched me for anthrax, heroine and oversized bottles of feminine wash….

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22 days ago I went head over teakettle.
The morning had gone spankingly well. I had meditated the sun was sining on the white, white, frost and I got dressed early to go for a solo walk .
Down the hill, round the bend. The grass crisp and hard beneath my trainers. Down the avenue a quick tree kiss and then I reversed. Round through the farm, the fields laid out frostily before me. The white met the green met the brown met the sharp blue sky. I walked through my field, and decided that instead of going through the kissing gate, in case the little slope was too slippery, I would slide through the two gate posts.
One right foot down, up went my heel, down went my hand and the jolt to my my body was so sharp that I sat like a rag doll, wondering how life could turn on a sixpence.
I could feel my arm swelling as I walked down the hill, through the rocks and back through the avenue. There wasn’t so much pain as discomfort.
I woke the old git. Who slid out of bed and tried to help me move the arm.
Into the car and to the local Cottage Hospital. I had called to make sure they were awake.
Ther man on reception told me they were open until 8.00 that night.
Five minutes later I was sitting in the waiting room.
There was me, the ‘oosbind, a little boy and his mother and two nurses. One I knew, one I didn’t.
I was put into a cubicle, Ally asked me questions, then looked at me, threw several faces of concern and empathy and said she was sure it was just soft tissue damage. That’s what they call a sprain now. She picked up the telephone and called Uckfield cottage Hospital.
The Xray opened at 12.00. That was when the appointment had been made for.
After breakfast, my arm hanging painfully, we set off. Twenty minutes later we were sitting in the Uckfield waiting room. Three nurses, Radio 2 and the offer of tea. I declined.

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