Well, it’s finally over. Our company, represented by yours truly, completed our final shift with Luis at eight o’clock this morning (I’ve posted about this already here http://francishunt.blogspot.com/2010/08/completely-unplanned-and-fully.html). It finished as I was more than half afraid it would, in an atmosphere of icy, almost completely silent hostility, accompanied – if it’s not just my paranoid fantasy working overtime – by a few small, subtle attempts at half-hearted, insignificant sabotage (suction pump not plugged in, material not in its usual place, that sort of thing). The parents demonstratively did not say goodbye this morning. Oh well …
It didn’t really worry me. I hadn’t let myself be provoked, it was Saturday morning, the sun was shining and I was out. And I have the next four days free, my first shift with my new patient is on Wednesday. So, with a light heart, I drove home, stopping on the way to buy fresh breakfast rolls. Breakfast, check my mails, have a look at a few of the papers on-line and then to bed.
When I come off the night-shift I try not to sleep for too long, three to four hours at most. If a bit brutal, it’s the best way I’ve found to kick my body and brain back to a normal day/night pattern. Admittedly, I’m not at my scintillating best after such an action but I’ve got nothing planned for today so I figured I could spend it just pottering around, hanging out, chilling … call it what you will. Besides, it’s just a shame to spend too much of such a beautiful late summer/early autumn Saturday in bed.
Ninety minutes after falling asleep, I was wakened by the angry buzzing of a fucking chain-saw only a couple of metres from my bedroom window. All right, I didn’t want to sleep for too long, but I had planned for a bit more sleep than this! One of my neighbours had decided to use the fine weather to trim a tree in his garden. Although “trim” is a harmless description of what he’s actually done; he’s cut the thing back to within an inch of its life. I liked that tree! To be fair, it stands at the edge of a traffic junction, very close to his house and it probably had to be cut back for safety reasons. Oh well …
I got up.
The most weird and wonderful thing this week was what happened with the last essay I posted here, the one about Salvador Allende and September 11th. It was picked up by a friend of mine, Chris Jenkins, in Florida, a friend whom I have never met. The internet is truly amazing. Chris and I have known each other for a couple of years now and have in the course of this time discussed all sorts of issues, agreed and disagreed about any number of things. He’s an important member of the small group of people I’ve got to know online who I would truly describe as friends, even in a world in which – due to facebook and other social networks – the word has been the victim of colossal inflation. If you want to pimp your website, or, more seriously, generally improve your online presence, Chris is your man; just let me know and I’ll put you in touch with him.
Chris liked my essay and posted links on a couple of networks in which he is involved. As a result, in the past 48 hours, this blog has been clicked around 6,500 times. As I said, the internet is truly amazing. It’s almost certainly a one-off thing, having to do with the topicality of the subject, but it’s still very flattering while it lasts (and I will admit that there’s a tiny part of me that’s still waiting for the e-mail from The Huffington Post, inviting me to blog for them J…). Oh well ...
That chain-saw is still buzzing outside. Cherish the picture here, folks, that last bit of leafy crown is now gone and it looks like that tree has been sentenced to death. Oh well …
If you find this post somewhat strange, put it down to acute sleep-deprivation. Here’s Fleetwood Mac in their original formation with the legendary Peter Green and … what else … “Oh Well” …
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