under another sun

Had breakfast and chatted with Mum, who was asking me about Maureen. Then Lorraine and I drove off to Ashford to visit Maureen in hospital. An enjoyable drive across country listening to Radio 6. Pat and Maureen's home first for a cup of tea, and to pick up Pat, and off we went to the William Harvey hospital.  Delighted to find Maureen looking a good deal better than I had seen her on screen lately, and sitting up in bed with her eyes twinkling again. They are gradually getting her meds right -- and she has responded. She was very chatty and we all sat about talking for a while. Hoping for the doctor to come to get an idea of what was going on. However Maureen in good spirits, enjoying watching me feel sick as she recounted a tale about seeing the clean white bones of her father's legs, and another one about how she had bandaged up a boy's hand whose finger was hanging on by a string.  Back to Pat's house, where Ken had cooked a roast chicken with all the fixings, inclu...

Off in the car listening to Laura Mvula to Kent to celebrate Maureen's 75th birthday in a pub called The Windmill, which had an all you can eat carvery. A challenge if ever I heard one. Hearty fare with Pat and Maureen, Maureen's old friend Cindy and Pete, who is Lorraine's nephew. Pat bumped into an old friend, whose wife kissed and squeezed Maureen with protracted gusto. Maureen makes me laugh, and has a funny way of saying things. She told me the food she was unable to eat when pregnant, a story now condensed to: 'Lorraine was fish, Derek and Ken were tinned tomatoes'. Then back across the rec that Lorraine and her brothers played in when they were kids. The sun actually out and it was a pleasant, if still cool day.  A pleasant afternoon.  We walked past the Sir William Harvey pub, which Pat said is where the great man lived. I only learnt about Sir William Harvey this week, funnily enough, at work. He is the man who in 1628 first established that the circulato...