Way back in time I went to school with a Marcos daughter. We loved her bodyguards. They bought us fish and chips on the school camp night. That is a long other story.

But the subsequent politics of the Philippines,  that echoed Argentina and musical Evita have always meant a lot of connections for me personally.
Suitcases, then, Another suitcase in another hall. I sing in my head. I used to on the way back to school as we boarded yet another plane from some far country to return to the gloom of a chilly UK.  Another suitcase also pings to brain every hospital I stay in. But to cap it all the tiny little bag my parents pack for their hospitals is an old B.O.A.C little airline bag. Its pathetically old and I hate it .

Yesterday there was no such bag just a sad plastic bag of horribly blood soaked clothes…. Dad had a fall. It’s a long story involving an orange, a stanley knife and an obstinate old bugger. Dad. He basically impaled himself (neck) on the knife. My mother returned from volunteering at CAB to a murder type scene. She promptly passed out. Managed to come to and get 999 and me. So ambulances.So another hospital. Another ward. Another long wait in A and E resus bit. Transfer to another hospital and another wait by ambulance. Yes the trolleys really were stacked up in the corridor. Drunks kept mum and I, amused and eventually at midnight he was off to theatre, still refusing painkillers, still cracking jokes and telling the story of the orange and the stanley knife. Anesthetist was none other than wonderful darling SH. She was H’s friend at school. Oh my days. I felt old. I used to drive her to hockey matches and concerts and her amazingly awesome mother always thanked us in bucketfuls…literally of awesome madras chicken or similar. So there she was tending to Dad, I hugged her she coped with that well!
Dad? Registrar rang me in the night. Op went well. Just missed the vital ‘structures’. Phew.

Now I better down a coffee and go back. More laters. ‘Please stop the world for a minute…’ said my Canadian sister in law: ‘Eventful day for you over in the UK. We need to stop those I prefer the boring.’ I so agree. This time next week is the WEDDING …more then…reckon a glass of fizz might just be the tonic we need.