Bumping back to Earth

You will have noticed a lack of postings recently due to Mrs T and me being in Tanzania doing safaris and generally lazing around. There's not a lot for wargamers to get out of the trip (although we saw the grave of Captain Selous who was killed during the "Ice Cream War") and I may have further things to say about African terrain and the use of 4 x 4 vehicles that may be of interest to AK47 Republic players.

This post was going to be about what I read on holiday as I ploughed through 5 books of various types (2 x 9 hour flights, plus a 5 night extension at a beach hotel in Zanzibar gives a lot of reading time) but events as ever overtook me.

When we got off the plane I got a phone call from my father saying he'd been trying for a couple of hours to get hold of my mother but had been unable to do so. Stuck in an airport car park there honestly isn't a lot you can do, so I directed him to my brother. When I finally caught up with him (my brother, not my father) I discovered that my mother had been taken into hospital by paramedics as she was having breathing problems due to a chest infection. From that I could quickly see that my plan to use the weekend putting away holiday things and making a dent into sorting out my 1,000+ holiday pictures, and catching up on some sleep as we've been on the go for over 18 hours was going to need revision.

The following day (Saturday) I'm back on the phone to my brother to sort out who is going to see our mother and when, but he has to go out to deal with something. 15 minutes later my sister-in-law is back on the phone in hysterics, - my brother has been hit by a car outside his house and run over. Luckily a neighbour is on hand to tell me what has happened, so we take a quick lunch and get in the car up to the hospital near where he lives (an hour or so's drive away, - delayed by Saturday afternoon football traffic and sat nav issues).

Then we're in casualty looking at my brother who is conscious but looks a hell of a mess, - and also in various restraints to stop him moving as he may have spine injury and he has got a nasty head wound. They're x-raying and CT scanning fit to make him glow in the dark. But as I say, he's conscious and coherent and telling my sister-in-law to phone his boss, and he has feeling in his extremities and can move hands and feet. but he's in a lot of pain. The medical staff are great but the NHS has an elastic definition of "soon". As in "He's going to the orthopaedic ward soon". We're told this at 5pm. At 5:40 I point out that soon clearly means more than 40 minutes. Soon actually finally means 4 1/2 hours. Luckily I made the call to go and get something to eat at 6pm, rather than just wait around. The problem is that you want to be there but there's little good you can do, and all my brother wants is to be knocked out with more morphine.

So finally back home at nearly 11pm, having agreed I need to go and see our parents and tell them what has happened in a way that doesn't precipitate a heart attack or anymore fretting than is absolutely needed.

And that's what we did on Sunday. And listen to my mother being cross with Age Concern as she doesn't want to be in hospital and her home help ratted her out to the doctor. Of course as it's the weekend it's not easy to find out how long she's going to be in (at least until Wednesday we finally learn). Which means as they took her in in nothing but her night cloths we have another hour long round trip to her house to pick up things such as her hearing aid and so on. As for my brother, - well he;'s got 4 - 6 weeks recuperation once he gets out.

Can't see me getting much time to finish that Byzantine Army at the moment.