Unrepresentative dahlia

Odd day. Woke up at 2am with a very dramatic nose bleed. Having had a small one on Saturday afternoon, I was familiar with the drill: sit down, pinch nose firmly for 15 mins, then it will stop. Reader, it did not stop. By 5.30 am, after some fainting and the bathroom turning into a scene from a horror movie, I discovered the French have a pre-emergency phone number like the UK does. But this one you get straight through to a GP. Hearing my tale he politely, and in a very firm voice asked me if there was anyone who could drive me straight away to the hospital.

Mr B was awakened, and did the necessary. The ER in Lavaur is always quiet - tonight they had to turn the lights on for me! But I had a couple of nurses and a doctor all to myself. When even they couldn’t stop the bleeding after an hour or so, there were a series of alarming sounding phone calls about specialists (clearly my standard of French while pinching my nose tight is not good, so I imagine they thought I couldn’t understand). When I made clear my desire not to go to the Clinique (big hospital in Toulouse) they agreed to have another go, and after another 30 minutes of extra-firm pinching, it had largely stopped. We deemed that good enough, and off I went home with my nose full of special bandage.

The rest of the day was a series of snatched naps, paracetamol, sips of Ribena, research on how to ‘unpack’ my nose tomorrow, and what to eat to replenish red blood cells. (None of which I can eat just now unless Mr B gets handy with the liquidiser.) A very uncomfortable day. Managed to mostly clean the bathroom and bedroom and - hurrah - my fancy silk pillowcase survived a hot wash!