Anyone who Had a Heart!

Thud-ub ... thud-ub .... thud - u...b

No - not quite gone 60s ga-ga: Just had 'one of those weeks'! (and I'll allow myself that exclamation mark - I am on an exclamation mark diet - noticed a tendency to exclaim a lot - so restrictions apply.)

First the medical bits - did a run around on Thursday and Friday after several weeks of really under-performing - dizziness, low energy and breath shortage.

Went to the Doc - she twiddled a bit, sent me to the Doc next door, a heart specialist - beauty of being with a clinic - he twiddled a bit and sent me off to another, bigger specialist - and she charged me a lot of money to put a sonic thingamajig (technical English for something or other) on me, after making me lie on my LEFT side - seems sort of ritualistic to me.

Pretty pictures made - just like having a baby I suppose - and the result (apart from sclerosis of the aorterial (?) valve - nothing to worry about - and the expected, considering I'm English and have that awful English breakfast at least three times a day - talk about stereotyping! (allowed) fatty deposits on the tubes - how is your cholesterol level by the way?) ... is Pericarditis - instant reference to every medical source on line.

Not going to die today. Might in a week or two if the damn thing doesn't go away - so, what is the fantastic treatment - nurofen.

I ask you (deleted !)

Nurofen (Another deleted two !)

For those who don't realise, nurofen is the sort of thing you take for a headache the morning after. How degrading - I've a hangover of an illness.

Not impressed either with my body, or with the Doctor's obvious lack of theatrical sense - how can a Farrar only have nurofen?

She did throw in a need for an x-ray (in case of TB) but that was poor compensation for the damage done with such a piddling treatment.

And, NO, I didn't even show anything wrong with the x-ray.

Overall, a most unsatisfactory encounter - to be repeated in two weeks when this Daughter of Dracula extracts another wapping great fee to see if the waters have departed.

(Actually she was brilliant but that is nowhere near good copy.)

Shortly before the Doc I met up with Sebastian - who is a modern man and has changed his totally unreasonable Romanian surname into a really, really, totally unreasonable Romanian surname by adding his wife's to his own.

He's also got a baby - and talks about it.

And sends pictures over the internet - of the baby.

(Notice - not an exclamation mark in sight! - damn, delete that.)

Anyway, he paid for the strong coffee I had just before going off to have my heart examined (one has to help along the diagnosis some how).

He also mentioned his wife had been chatting away to Tudor Cretu - an old Shakespearian (as in former pupil of Shakespeare High School, Timisoara). His wife does something in television. Tudor Cretu?

Why? - Tall kid, went to be a teacher (deserved all he got in that line) bit 'head in the clouds' - journalist?).

OOOOhhhhhh - apparently he's turned poet and novelist! (! allowed.)

Instantly I remembered what a sensitive and civilised child he was - and then readjusted and re-remembered I'd have kicked him quite happily on several occasions.

If the child is father to the man - he has just the right personality to make a good novelist - it's never the really nice ones who make it - you need to have been a bit of a pain in the first place.

Good luck to him - especially if he can write.

(And he mentions me in his television interview - so can't be all bad, can he?)