Life and art.

So, it’s been a while. All sorts of reasons why, but none to trouble the dear readers with I’m thinking. Today though, life and art have juxtaposed and that serendipitous event demands to be shared, so here I am, back again.

Les isn’t feeling too grand. The gout he had in the spring looks like it’s left a longer term arthritis which is affecting his thumb, making it hard to do stuff like cook, clean and so forth. He’s also had a cough for ages and is fed up with it. It sounds entirely innocuous but deserves some treatment so we opt for an antibiotic to go with some painkillers.

Then he mentions a bit of trouble with the waterworks, and being a gentleman of a certain age, wonders if he needs to worry about his prostate. In fact he had a test just a few months ago, requested by that nice Dr Neighbour, that he had quite forgotten, and never sought the result for, an it was normal so no real worries, but since he’d also brought “a sample” we do a dip stick test, and the only thing that shows is a bit of glucose.

“ I knew that would be up doc,” he chips in, “only the wife’s just left me and I’m fending for myself now….”

Given that catering isn’t his strong point, and he’s had a bad hand anyway I think I get the picture, but I say how sorry I am to hear it. He looks a bit teary so I ask him if he wants to talk about it. And then it happens. I’m not quite sure if I’m whisked away to a steamy bayou and the insistent strum of a blues guitar, or a gritty northern working men’s club, but life has definitely begun to swerve into lyric, or comedy as he replies,

“Oh no doc, I’m alright with it, just not used to living alone quite yet, but the thing that’s really upset me is that the dog died last week. I really miss that dog!”