And then three come along at once.

The proverbial London Bus, that music hall cliche of reliability and punctuality, has evolved somewhat from the halcyon days when I was in residence there. From iconic familiarity, much derided and adored, to replacement by clunky enclosed vehicular boxes without a free verandah. really no verandah? The designers went out of their way to alienate half the capital, both the reliant commuter and every other road user.
But hark changes are afoot.

Replete with a stonkingly huge shiny new platform, to waft your bags and gesticulate at tourists and parking wardens alike. Or was that just my morning carriage to work?

Alas gone are the days of the travelcard, the grumpy looks of fellow passengers, the snarls and suspicion as bags are heaved on board, loud stereos that are anything but personal...
Instead I drive my road hogging, single person (with three seats to spare), filled with shopping, bluetooth stereo, handsfree GTi to work every day, to park in my capacious free space.

Heathwise, just like the cliche, things have arrived in threes..... hospital appointments that is.

A visit to the renal team for a three monthly checkup and WOF/MOT, a visit for some more cardiological testing (presumably to see if I'm still alive), and best news of all, a stay overnight for a"procedure", to clear the blocked chalky arteries I mentioned last week.

I will be a freshly reinvented model, a few dings to my paintwork, but on the whole a remarkable much loved survivor from the sixties..... Just the ticket.

Well stone the crows!

Poor birds in all in a flap. This most British of exclamation of surprise or slight annoyance, was used by Jim Broadbent at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002 as he climbed the podium to collect his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "Iris"
It was also used by yours truly as I listened to the arterial doctor on the 6th floor of Auckland Hospital.

Had I been offered an Oscar for leading actor in a n medical drama? Perhaps I had been offered the prestigious task of chief stoning official at a crow stoning ceremony(rubber stones only, papier mache crows of course)?

No I had just been informed by said doctor chappie that my main arterial vein in my upper left leg (near the groin)

No not that type of groin.......had been partially "occluded" by calcification.

Basically my left leg veins have become clogged by calcium deposits from all the chalky rejection tablets I have to take every day. Over time (at least two years now and counting) my daily pill-popping has caused the main arterial leg vein to collect calcium as the blood flows past. This in turn has slowed the flow of blood and my circulation has been affected, especially in the left foot. Looks like I shall be putting my right foot forward in future then.

What a petrifying thought.

(No crows were harmed in the making of this post)

So, a needle pulling thread....?

I am getting increasingly frustrated with the appearance of the word "So" at the beginning of a sentence, and I believe I am not alone in this aversion.

It began a few years ago on American TV shows, with reality cooking shows such as "Top Chef"...

Hello Andrew, what have you made for us?

"So, I've prepared a ......"
"So what we have here is.."
"So I took a few shallots...."

Now it has spread like a plague into common usage; a literal plague.
Not literally a plague you understand (for that annoys me sooooo much, as does stretching out the vowels in a word to stress it's importance in the sentence, or the writer's sense of humour).

It all seems to have began, like a lot of nonsense, on the internet, in forums and chatrooms, discussions and dialogues, as a way of grabbing attention to a particular post or opinion. From here alas it slipped into US reality shows, like a previously unknown but eagerly embraced guest on a talkshow. Given the prolific nature of US programming and sales distribution, it made a swift hop from digital output to full on invasion of the human host. No wonder the French have L'Academie Francaise, a crusty old bastion in defence of their language.

The user of this twaddle invites the listener into their own special clique, where cliche and jargon are liberally used and abused. To not understand the use of the ill placed conjunctive, or to frown at the use of an inappropriate preposition is to exclude yourself from this club and therefore remain unfashionable.

The inevitable acceptance of this blight on the language hangs heavy with me, and I shall be resigned to a life full of interjection and correction.

So there, it's enough to make you hit your head with a sledgehammer and scream.

Now thats what I call......

An anniversary...2.

Yes, 2 years ago this very weekend, my life changed forever as I was prepped and poked, spliced and diced by a surgical team for 8 hours. Two years or 730 days have elapsed since I gained my two magnificent organs..

As time progresses and my post transplant life becomes the new normal, it sometimes slips the mind exactly how much of a drag diabetes and renal failure were.

 As George Michel, the lyrical equivalent of Shakespeare puts it;

"Every day I hear a different story, People tell me that you're no good for me" 

He also asked to be "waked before you go go",  an excellent premise, and worthy of the Ivor Novello award on its own.

For diabetes  is not all fun fun fun. Yes you can get sick notes to excuse you from PE (apparently frowned upon on now, but standard practice in the 1970's. I dont recall ever having done a "cross country" lesson in PE, and having my sick note laminated certainly saved my parents the chore of having to write one week after week....

In an early morning HR meeting a few years ago, I recall slipping in and out of consciousness thanks to a lack of sugar. After a few minutes of babbling (quite normal in HR meetings), my boss leaned across and asked if I needed to take some sugar. I sort of burbled and waved at her, and managed to extract myself from the room and back to my desk, where informed colleagues laced me with sweet orange juice. 

These signs of variable sugar levels appeared more regularly: in interviews, in shops, and once whilst at the wheel of my MX5.

These episodes were the final signs of complete renal failure, as the rate of insulin absorption became irregular and were a clear sign that dialysis or a transplant were needed.

This culminated. in the operation two years ago.

And the rest is history