I hadn't gone more than 2 metres up the alley when I fell flat on my face. This crazy paving isn't all it's cracked up to be. It felt as though my wrist was broken but I decided to eat first before I went to the local hospital for a check up.
The restaurant was almost empty and the menu was unchanged from my last visit. I've had artichoke hearts before but I've never had a real one.
"Is this still your landmark salad?", I asked the waiter as he approached my table; I think his name was Eric, I sort of recognised him from my last visit, but he was hard to identify because he was wearing a hair wig.
"Oui!", replied the waiter.
"OK!, I'll have one, thanks", I said, "and I wanted some coffee too, but I see the decapitator is broken so just bring me some of that Spanish shangrila as well, please."
After being fed and watered I took a taxi to the local hospital. I hate hospitals, probably because I spent the first three weeks of my life in a incinerator.
"Excuse me", said a middle-aged man as I stepped out of the cab, "Do you know where the hospital's expensive care unit is? My wife's on the radioactive ward there. She was knocked down when a driver pulled out of a congealed entrance!".
I had to declare my ignorance of the local amenities, but I narrowed it down to a two square mile radius. I was about as much use as gills on a fish.
The casualty doctor looked at my wrist with a bargepole. She looked really tired and must have been squatting for her exams all night; but at least she can take her children to work and leave them in the quiche. She had a photograph of them on her desk.
"Are these three twins?", I asked.
"It's fatally obvious, I would have thought", she replied in a snooty manner. "You've come here on a false goose leg", she added. "I'm already galloping around like a blue-arsed chicken so I couldn't give a monkey's coot about your wrist!"
I went as white as a beetroot, made my apologies and left but, hey, no one's inflammable.
It was still a bit too early to return to the UK and see how the team were getting on so I decided to wander around for a little while longer. I saw a poster for a local dog show, especially for rare breeds like the Lhasa Arsehole and the Nigerian Hatchback. I decided against that because my dog hasn't barked a word all week. However, as they say back in the old country, it's a dog's world, and I'm wearing dogbone underwear.
I sat by the river for a while soaking up the sun which, according to one local woman, sets over that hill every morning. I was amused by a sign saying 'Dinosaurs from China use Cathedral and Quay car park'. I didn't know about that but, in the UK scientists have just confirmed that many years ago sable-tooth tigers did indeed roam the earth. I, myself, personally think they're barking up a wild goose!
Anyhow, enough of this lolly-gaggling about ......
