November 2

The heel of my hand pressed firmly on the window frame, fixed closed with fresh white paint. The smell of ozone, real fresh air - the lowing of cows in the meadows that run abreast of the River Churn over the road and the allotments below. The leaves whisked away from the branches, yellowed and expired. Strained engines, racing at the force of trainered feet on the accelerators of hatchback cars.
Tonight I visited my dad in hospital for the first time. Cheltenham General Acute Ward C. Admitted last night, he was thin, the blue of his eyes startling against the line of his black lashes. I had not noticed that before. We are waiting for a diagnosis though none of us have said as much in his presence. It feels like the end of a wasted life, a lonely pointless life. There was something childlike about his face tonight. A man who lives alone, dines alone, drinks alone, works alone, thrust into the official world of the hospital with its ECGs, saline drips, busy bedsides, privacy curtains and nurses occupied with drugs and charts and the manhandling of equipment to life preserve. All this sudden activity in a life so permanently quiet.