"YOU DRIVE ME NUTS!" ...

... texted The Old Girl to me this evening.

It was about a quarter to six as I was preparing my dinner and wondering why she hadn't rung (she calls me via FaceTime every day when she's away).

I picked up my phone and saw the text and then saw a half dozen missed calls on FaceTime and phone calls plus a couple of other texts. I realised that I had the phone on silent since going to the doctors this morning and had my Apple Watch on the charger (it usually silently 'buzzes' my wrist to alert me to phone calls, messages and emails).

I quickly called her via FaceTime and she told me off and recounted how she had called her cousin (in Wellington) to tell her that I was incommunicado and whether she should check hospitals (her cousin is a senior ward sister in Critical Care units). I got a 'bollocking' that's for sure but beneath that I know that she worries about me. It's not obsessive but it's because she knows that I've had this swollen and painful foot that, if it wasn't gout, might be something like a blood clot and given my stroke and AF history might have meant that after my doctor's appointment I'd been whisked off to hospital. I profusely apologised and promised not to do it again. "Yeah right" she said.

I did feel guilty as it has been on my mind that, with her away and me on my own with medical issues, if I did have a fall, a seizure or got struck by lightning after writing a blasphemous comment on Robert's blog, I might be left incapacitated and - incommunicado thereby worrying her. I usually for this reason keep the phone handy (and turned on) but today the doctor's visit buggered up that plan.

Mea Culpa!

I love Gahan Wilson cartoons having discovered them via reading National Lampoon magazine in the 1970s. The 'NUTS' series which focussed on childhood and the terrors and misunderstandings of a child living in an adult world were of special interest.