Scrambled lyrics

I was trying to think of some variation on a Cure song (no surprise there). Something like "I don't care if Monday's gray, Tuesday is no heart attack...." but it doesn't scan. At all.

Monday started in the ffffffreezing cold and found me cycling to give blood in Tooting. My fingers hurt and felt brittle by the time I got there. I can't make the Wednesday sessions at my local place (church hall opposite the miniwombles' house) between now and Xmas so Tooting it was. I've spent many many hours there in years gone by. It used to be a centre that extracted blood from you, retained the plasma (and on special occasions platelets) and returned the red stuff. Now it still takes platelets but otherwise has been described, apparently, as the business class of blood donation centres! It's changed a bit but great to go somewhere that's a permanent set-up and not staffed by people who've got up early wondering which church hall they're going to be in today. After my Tuc biccies (oh I love 'em - full of fat and salt!) and coffee, I pedalled home without the usual "You're not cycling now are you?" cry in my ear.

Working at home was fun, especially as it wasn't me doing it. I managed some filing though, finally. At lunchtime, we sneaked over to West Molesey by bus and drooled over and finally bought a fretless bass. It's some sort of guitar..... Nice green colour, not frog-shade at all. We took the scenic, ie. slow-route, home including an instructional "this is how you find the house if you've caught a Surbiton train" guide. Lunch, more working then off to r*n club in the still perishing cold. We plodded up there, plodded around and plodded back, 7-and-a-bit miles in all. Plodding was the operative word and only near the end of the club r*n bit did I remember about the blood-letting session. Oops.

Up early again, it was another day at t'mill. All going fine, nearly finished my homemade (defrosted) carrot soup and a bagel when this guy stands in the middle of the office, demanding our attention in a loud voice. "Is anyone a first aider? Someone is having chest pains." So, up I get and go to find 'Fred', frantically rehearsing CPR in my head. He was on the phone, standing when I found him. I introduced myself and asked how he was. There was a momentary "Oh gulp, bugger, sh1t, f*ck" feeling and then I got on with it. All my questions, observations etc made it look like stress-related severe stomach pains (and he admitted to a hiatus hernia later once he'd remembered the name). We were ok to go down to the ground floor to await the ambulance guys. They turned up in numbers and in orange! Later it turned out that we had the HEMS team (the helicopter chaps minus the chopper) as they were grounded for the day and nearby. So, expert check-up from the doctor but 'Fred' asked if I could accompany him to A&E. Off we went in the ambulance, not far as the Royal London is only down the road.

A&E is a strange place. All life is there before you. In this case, most of it was Bengali reflecting the local population. We hung around for a bit and were finally parked to wait to be seen and for 'Fred' to get more tests done. He had been getting ready to go home so after a while he rang the Mrs and his end of the conversation was, of course, full of "Don't worry, don't worry" noises. We sat waiting, chatting, wondering at the scenes around us. A lady in a cubicle would seem to have been given laughing gas as there was much hilarity coming from behind the curtain. Someone else was accompanied by about four boys and girls in blue. There seemed to be many staff walking about all the time. It almost seemed worth suggesting a time and motion study to see if the department layout was optimal or whether they could save a few staff-miles per day. Then the lady sitting on the other side of me to 'Fred' burst into tears, she was on her own. Husband away overseas on business, she 5 weeks pregnant and fearing a miscarriage. Poor thing. More talking, cups of water, I was getting quite good at all this. Finally, Mrs 'Fred' arrived and after a little reassurance, I went back to the office. Far more interesting than a couple of hours reading a BT consultation paper.