Grounded

Stupidly I decided to go to an exercise class with a bunch of Chinese teenagers at a local gym a week ago.  The inevitable result of trying to compete with them in the depth of my squats is a knackered knee, which I'm now limping along on with the help of ice, ibuprofen and an elastic bandage.

I'm so used to taking regular exercise that I'm like a drug addict deprived of their fix, pacing Sue's apartment restlessly and willing my knee to get better.  Still I've had enough good sense to cancel an impending trip to Mulu National Park and rest up.

Then, this morning I got an email from Dad's friend Bernie.  Dad's been taken to hospital, but he doesn't think it's anything to worry about.  I live my life waiting for a message like this.  It probably is nothing, but because of the eight-hour time difference I must wait until this afternoon before putting in the inevitable calls to Bernie, the homecare company that looks after Dad and the hospital.  These occasions are either the real thing or a rehearsal for it in which one thinks through the options and makes plans for a possible rapid return to the UK.

When my Mum was dying, over twenty years ago now, I remember waiting at home in my little house on the Kent coast expecting the call from the County Hospital in Lincoln that I should hurry up there.  It was sunny weather and my love of history and the setting had me thinking of the Battle of Britain pilots waiting for the alarm bell calling them to scramble into the Kentish skies.

Dad is in the same hospital.  It's probably nothing, though my stomach tells me it might be.