Well it's been a hectic few days again. We had a call on Sunday morning to say that Orynthia's dad was being moved to another hospital in order to have an operation on his back. We had planned to visit him during the day, so decided that we would do some stuff around the house and go out to see him in the evening. So at about 6pm we called the hospital to see if he had been moved yet, the answer was no, they were still waiting for the transport to move him. When we got to the hospital it was quite a little family gathering, Orynthia's sister and her 2 kids were also there along with Orynthia's mum. Some poor old chap took a terrible crashing fall whilst on his way to the toilet, which was not a very nice thing to see. Anyway it later emerged that one of the reasons for the delay in moving Don, was that his wheelchair had to be moved at the same time and for some reason that can only be done in a certain kind of vehicle. The nurse asked how we felt about taking the wheelchair to Frenchay hospital, so that Don could follow on behind. When it was explained to us that the wheelchair would actually fold down into a very compact little unit, we realised that we could get it into our very small car, so we did, and set off on the 5 mile journey to Frenchay Hospital. This was when the fun began. Frenchay is a huge hospital set in pleasant grounds, but with hardly any signs.
So we drove round and round looking for some sort of indication of the location of ward 2. Eventually we found a building with some lights on and people moving around inside. We rang the bell on the door, and from the way the woman rushed to meet us, it looked as though they had not had any visitors it a very long time. She ushered us in, and seemed a trifle disappointed that we were only looking for directions. Anyway, she managed to give us a decent clue to help us in our quest. We drove round to the Accident centre parked up again and Orynthia went off on foot to locate the ward. Success!! Frenchay is actually the site of an old American war base from the days of world war 2, and although many millions of pounds have been spent on it over the years, the one enormous central corridor that serves all the wards still has the feeling of the sort of place where you could encounter Gary Copper, David Niven or maybe as this is Bristol, Cary Grant. Anyway we managed to find ward 2 and amazingly they did have a bed ready for Don, so we could deposit the wheelchair and finally make our way home.

Yesterday Don had the operation, Orynthia and her brother and mum spent a large part of the afternoon at the hospital, When I came home from work, they were all back at our house grabbing something to eat and a chance to relax for an hour. They went back a bit later on and Don was conscious and chatting, I guess that we will have to wait a little while to see how this will leave him in the long run, but at least something is happening now.

I played football last night and I have to say that I was laughingly inept. I just had one of those nights when I could not do anything right. The harder I tried the worse I became, so I was the target for a lot of good natured ribbing, as I blundered my way around the pitch.