Mum came home today following a pantomime of NHS buffoonery. I love the NHS, I owe it my life and on more than one occasion too but their admin side couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. No clothes for her to go home in so I had to take them in first thing this morning. The medical equipment meant to assist her (commode, walking frame, special shower seat) were delivered to her bungalow without notification and without anyone being there only for the whole shebang to be taken back again. A note was left stating no one was there when the delivery attempt was made. Of course no one was there…Mum lives alone and she was in hospital at the time. Jamie has fitted the secure key box outside Mum’s front door. Jasmine has bought enough food stuff to last Mum a week or more. Grace can’t get there at the moment as she still has a cold. Personally, as much as I hate sitting with other sick people in a ward full of moaning Monty’s, I think the boredom and loneliness will get to Mum. Last time I was in hospital I used to sneak out either to the restaurant or to the local Tesco which was about a mile from the hospital ground. Mum won’t be able to BUT it may just give her enough of an impetus to get out of her bedroom and walk to the kitchen or the living room.




I dropped the clothes off to the ward front desk this morning leaving them with a nurse. I then shot off down the A13 but at the arse end near Benfleet only to sit in traffic for one hour and ten minutes. To sit for that length of time over a distance of four miles is unbelievably frustrating. At one time an ambulance, lights flashing and siren screaming, came from behind me. I moved to one side. Cars in front didn’t. I really don’t have panic attacks as I used to anymore. No more stupid concerns over drinking a glass of water but today, as the dull witted imbeciles sat stony still in their cars I felt the same incredible sweats break out as if a furnace had been lit within me. I shouted out all manner of profanities and opened the car door to have a go at the lot of them but seeing the look on the driver to one side of me returned to my car weeping like a fool. I composed myself and then had the embarrassment of having to poodle along beside the same driver for miles. It has got better but moments like that, or even the death of someone of my parents’ generation makes me cry. Weird and scary how fragile the human mind is.

No longer part of my daily routine as it once was but today I was taken out to lunch by a supplier. When I say the ‘Royal I’ what I mean is Chris, Brian and me the peasant from Essex. We went to a local Surrey pub. I have eaten there before and have to say the cuisine is fantastic. We all had a laugh which makes such a pleasant change after all the crap we normally get.

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all words and art are copyright © of Russell 'C.J' Duffy. For another side of CJ go here: sOMeThiNg For tHE wEeKeND, SiR?