My Blog, mmm I should have really started this the other week, but well, "if, if's and ands were pots and pans there'd be no room for tinkers"

Captains Blog, Shipdate 31-5-06

The Summer that we had all been waiting for looks as though it's finally arriving, i'ts been a long time coming this year, May was really well erm nondiscript, oh apart from the ten days of fog leaving a few hundred stranded tourists and a couple of nice days where I managed to get out on the yak properly and fish.

Well it was pretty nondescript until the morning of the 31st, like any other day off I checked the latest forecast, listened to a bit of news and got ready to go out for a day of kayaking n Fishing, I set off about 9am, got down to my local haunt Grev'e De Lecq just as the Cafe was opening, It was bit breezy, force 4 or 5 NW but I’d worked all damn week for this day I wasn’t going to let it be spoiled by a bit of wind (more tea vicar).

I decided to try the south coast instead, I finished off my coffee and started on my journey back, on my way I stopped of at the local garage (Think Deliverance, Banjo players) that also happens to stock fishing gear, well maybe not much but the essentials which was enough for me as I was looking for some more feathers, err no feathers left, in fact not much of anything, "have you ordered some more feathers" I enquired (clickity click click cough , computer says no) " any idea when" I inquired further, " well the boss isn't here and he does the ordering " at that point I felt a bit strange, i started seeing double, for a brief moment it looked as though the shop did have stock LOL, I got out of there and back into the sunlight, I couldn’t work out what was going on, I removed my glasses and rubbed my eyes, no difference, my right eye was perfectly normal but the left one was pointing upwards and off centre to the left giving me two completely different images, at this point my eyelid slowly closed and I lost all muscle control in that eye.

I wondered if I could drive home with one eye (well if Nelson can do it) I thought, being as the speed limit over here is mostly 30 mph it wouldn’t be to bad if i drove a bit slowly.

I got home eventually, phoned the missus, grabbed the camera and took a photo of myself and emailed it to her at work, within 15 minutes she was home and within the half hour I was in A+E at the General technology eh.

They all thought that I my have had a minor Stroke (unfortunately not with a paddle) so after a fair bit of following fingers, shining lights, student nurses having a gawp (apparently I was the perfect text book case of what might be Horner's Syndrome) after the blood tests they took me down for a CT Scan and an overnight stay.

They next day I went down for an MRI scan and some more tests, the days are extra long when your stuck in hospital staring out the window at a perfectly cloudless still day, it's at this point I got to talking to some of the patients in the same ward as me.

There was six of us all together the chap opposite me was the spitting image double of Peter Sallis (it's at this point you think of all the times this poor bloke has been asked the same one liners) "So when are you going back to making last of the summer wine" I spurted out , he replied "I’m not, I’m going back to drinking it" which together with the big purple nose that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a tin of quality street had me guessing it was probably the wrong question to ask, but we had a good laugh over it.

Anyway enough about me, Seadoo was coming over and I had to get out of the hospital, all that staring out the window at the clear blue skies and calm sea was driving me nuts.