Diwali

Today marks the beginning of Diwali, a Hindu festival that lasts five days. Having just found out about it, I’m a bit peeved that, because of my wrist, I’m unable to make the irresistible sweet treats required. So, this afternoon, I made it my business to find something sweet I could bake with only one hand.

Speaking of my wrist…in the excitement of yesterday’s football game, I forgot to report my latest hospital visit. It could have been a disaster being the same day as the big game and, as it turned out, I just made it. Though I started with plenty of time.

In fact, the first bus was late, which ate into my second bus buffer. I left the first and sprinted for the second, making it with moments to spare. After a lovely drive through the countryside, I managed to arrive at the Fracture Clinic ten minutes early. I was sent straight to the x-ray place.

This has a look of the anonymous decks of the starship Enterprise in the Next Generation. A long white reception desk, a waiting area in a small pen and so much white. Around the central hub are many sets of big double doors with red lit signs angrily proclaiming they are ‘IN USE’.

After handing a cryptic message to the (possibly) robot at reception, you are sent to the waiting area. This feels a bit like waiting for a Sandman in Logan’s Run! Eventually a man in white calls your name and you follow him at a distance. You feel concerned that he may vanish at any moment, leaving you lost forever.

The guy I had must have been a hairdresser once. All the way through getting two x-ray angles, he chatted. I half expected him to start clipping away with a pair of scissors.

Once your x-rays have been taken, you are sent back to the waiting pen, to make sure the pictures came out all right. You enter the maze of corridors, all white, all mysterious and wonder how you’ll ever get out and whether you’ll get to see any of your family ever again. It takes a while but eventually you find the pen only to find that the radiologist has beaten you back. He smiles condescendingly then says all is fine and you can return to the Fracture Clinic. You happily leave through the airlock.

Back in the Fracture Clinic I then waited an hour as one after another, the 150 people in the waiting room were gradually seen before me. Last time there was a delay of 45 minutes; this week they went one better.

Finally I was seen – the wrist is coming along fine, it will stop hurting next week and I have to return in three weeks – and was back outside, waiting for the bus in a matter of moments! Then, as I said, I just made it back to Aldershot for the game.

But enough of that…here’s a Diwali cow. Actually it’s just a cow from the park but it looked quite sacred to me.

Beef on four legs