Feeling shite - In the name of Thiago - Day 93

Fear not, I’ve not been putting an ungloved hand down the khazi. Nope instead I was kept up through the night with a painful bladder. Nasty.

And as the day has gone on, it’s not really felt much better despite my best interests to flush it out drinking lots and lots of water. I have been advised to get some cranberry juice down me from a couple of sources – thank you Claire and Jamie – but the truth of it is that I couldn’t face going out, which thinking about it now seems strange. I think we’re all a bit all over the place though to be honest, including poor old Boris.

Angelica is on another long day today. I’d forgotten what life was like before Thiago but I’m being reminded now. It is a little like ships passing at night. As Angelica is involved in such a highly intense job, we keep conversations to a minimum. If she’s working back to back days it would be ridiculous to try to exist any other way is what experience has eventually taught me.

I saw this when I came down this morning at around 7. And my initial thought was, shit the bed I don’t remember seeing that last night, she hasn’t smashed one down her before going to work has she? Angelica leaves the house at 6.30am and comes home at around 8.30pm. 

It’s brutally tough, horrendously underpaid, especially when you consider that she is currently putting her life at risk every time she goes to work on the specialist Covid-19 ward. She does it uncomplainingly in spite of everything. I’m incredibly proud of her.

On a brighter note, I’ve managed to get through the day, I’m about to get a good dose of veg inside me and then it’s an early night.

  

To promote the virtues of companionship I guess, work have encouraged us all to take photos with our pets today for an internal news feature. It’s harmless enough and if it cheers people up why not I say. Unfortunately, our cat Jack never lets me anywhere near him as he’s a little shit so I’ve pictured myself here with Bill the fish.

Bill used to have a mate called Tony. The pair were named after the former Australian opening batsman Bill Lawry and South African born England captain Tony Greig, who made a tremendous commentary team in later life. They – the fish not the men, Christ they couldn’t have looked more different – looked very similar and when my Mum once asked me how I could tell which was which, I explained that Tony was the one with the broad South African accent!

I’ve just realised that this time next week I’ll be writing my hundredth consecutive blog, which is something I’m very proud of. The fundraising for Birmingham Children’sHospital and Royal Stoke University Hospital goes on and I urge you to join in if you haven’t done so already. Yes, it has slowed a little with all the uncertainty flying around at the moment but this walk will go ahead whether it’s this summer or later in the year. So please don’t think for a minute that I’m going to back down from my 300-mile walk because that ain’t happening. That is a very solemn promise.

Right that’s enough today, time to plate up and wait for my gorgeous wife to return, no doubt completely exhausted. I salute her and her NHS colleagues as I hope you do too.