We had a weekend of sunshine and I was able to spend two evenings in my hammock.  That may be it for the summer.  We’ll see.

The whole season is ahead of us.  Bliss. 

I thought I might be drying up on subjects for more books.  I’m not.

The A23 goes to Brighton.  The A3 goes to Guildford.  There are disadvantages in going to sleep in the passenger seat. 

Yet again I have been accused of shouting.  This is very odd.  I don’t shout.  But addicts sometimes hear me as shouting when I disagree with them gently or firmly. 

“If you talk to my family, I’m certainly leaving.”

Ah:  that’s his game.  He wants to tell his parents that he left with our approval after just two weeks – and he threatens me with loss of income.  His chances of getting well – on either count – are not good. 

In order to prevent further kidney stones, I have to take a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate twice a day.   It tastes pretty foul but there is one side effect about which I should warn everybody else.

One man has the power to influence President Mugabe in Zimbabwe, to challenge the murderous xenophobia in his own country and also do something about the terrible scourge of HIV in his own population.  But he doesn’t use it.  Shame on him.   Nelson Mandela was a hard act to follow but he might at least have tried.

My left shoulder has filled up with chalk again.  It did that twenty years ago but it got completely better after a couple of months and has given me no trouble from then until now.  On that experience, I don’t intend having any form of treatment.  I’ll wait.  I can live with it.  The radiologist was surprised by my decision.  He said that he had rarely seen so much chalk in any shoulder joint – but that’s his viewpoint.  It’s my shoulder – and for the most part, I don’t acknowledge pain other than kidney stones when they turn up.  I’m too busy.  But maybe I am falling apart without realising it.

More patients need more space, which means that there is less space for the staff.  But more patients also mean more staff.   We have a problem here.