Made in Dublin

The Lovely Rita did her thing again this morning. Instead of coffee, I ended up with two pots of tea and no milk. I called her to point this out, but all that registered were the teapots, she said she'd take one away, and I never saw her again. Then, whadya know! Lunch was lovely! I had turkey escallope for main, and I have to say I'd be happy to get it anywhere. And The Lovely Rita was all smiles and full of helpfulness.

The team doctor came around at some stage or other, just to confirm that 'everything' had been 'sent over', and that now it was just a case of being given a date. She said they'd be phoning the surgeon this afternoon to discuss things with him, and would let me know as soon as they had anything further to report. She was very apologetic about not letting me out of the hospital in the mean time, but I reassured her about that.

Niall/Neil (Mr High & Mighty) was waiting all day for his follow-up angio/stents op and now they've decided to send him home and to bring him back in again for an overnight stay to finish the procedure. It's strange. Despite getting off to such a bad start and despite his insisting on not using his earplugs when listening to the radio, I'll actually miss him. Very strange! We'd already found out that he's a member of the Magicians Circle, and as a parting shot he entertained us with card tricks down his end of the ward. We were all given an invite to come along to the Magic night in Morrison's hotel in Parnell Square on the first Tuesday of the month. Let's see if any of us actually follow up on this promise.

If only I had a tape recorder, the 'conversation' between Jim and Seamus from side to side of the ward is the most amazing thing imaginable. The point, of course, is that Jim's hearing is really bad, and he answers what he thinks he's heard, which in turn Séamus actually thinks is a response to what he'd said. Of course, any connection between both sides of the conversation is tenuous at best and accidental in general. Séamus is obsessed with 'the old times' and his 'd'ya remember, Jim' conversational ploys more often than not are music-connected, and mainly concerned with singers. The multilayered misunderstandings would do credit to Sam -- indeed, I wonder if Samuel Beckett might have got at least some of his inspiration from just such an old-Dublin chat. I've already heard Jim say to other people (visitors of his, perhaps) that Séamus was renowned around the local pub circle as 'a really good singer', and certainly this evening's toing and froing bears out his fascination with the old singers and the old times and variety and The Queens and The Theatre Royal and all the rest of it.

Barney, meanwhile, adds his own special contribution to the mix, with his dry, deadpan wit. Poor Barney, though, was nearly dropped into it (purely unintentionally) by Jim. Barney pulled on his dressing gown to go on a little wander, which if he had his way would always involve a cigarette. Up to this he's insisted that he could only get his nicotine fix if a visitor came in and took him to the main entrance and out to the open air in a wheelchair. But now John happened to suggest that there was a bit of jiggery-pokery going on and that Barney might be breaking a rule or two by puffing smoke out a window or whatever. So, when Barney came back from his seemingly innocent 'wander', Jim drew the nurses' attention to his naughtiness not short of the top of his voice. Fortunately, the nurses weren't up to speed and didn't suss anything, but Barney was fit to strangle Jim all the same. I must admit that the whole sneaky-puff business totally flew under my own radar.