(Immediately post op)Surgeon- “There’s a tear in the back of your eye so we need a special lens, and I don’t just keep them in a drawer…”
LDW – “So I’ll have to come back? Any idea how soon?”
Surgeon – “Within the month”
(Two weeks later) Surgeon – ” It’s healing up excellently, we’ll get you back in as a matter of the highest priority”
LDW – “Any idea when?”
Surgeon – “6 weeks or so, say July”
(Today) Letter – ” We are writting a letter to tell you we will be sending you a letter with a date for your op (I’m not making this up). You get the second letter sometime in the next 12 weeks….”
I really did get a large package of old (some written with pen) Dalmally stuff, which I intend to scan in and share. I have put this time consuming job off since I was anticipating a fairly immediate return to (pre op) isolation, and following 2 weeks recovery, where I would be well placed to dismantle the – once again- non functioning old PC (this means moving furniture) and kicking it (technical term) until it decide to work. Todays letter suggests I should just stop putting it off.
These “lost files” were sent to me by ” brother Tam” currently in Nova Scotia, also know as “Smith of the South” to avoid confusion (Smith of the North lives in Paisley – go look at a map). I mention him because this particular old friend celebrates his 60th birthday, today or tomorrow (..when Its today in Canada… it’s tomorrow here….?). This is troubling only because he metaphorically leads this charge, and in this case, where he leads, I and many others around me, will soon enough follow. Where did the time go?
I am minded of a tale from days PI (pre-internet) -a period akin to the jurassic, when it was also his birthday, maybe 30th, and I had resolved to find a copy of an album he had been searching for in vain since his youth (Bob Lockhart- Lucky Lief and the Long Ships). A Prog Rock celebration by an ex Hawkwind player, exploring the would be music of an alternative USA (Vikings land and stay)- his taste was always questionable at best. Tam had long spoken of his quest for this elusive and long out of print item, this, of course, in a time when “searchng” meant putting on your shoes and going to physical shops (google still decades away).
I sallied forth, with little real hope, but much blind determination (a personal stock in trade), to discover to my utter delight I had done so on the very day when, with neither announcement nor fan fare, the album had been re released! You could buy it anywhere.
I don’t much believe in the hand of providence, but I think the universe meant that to happen. Happy Birtday Tam/Tim (theres another story…).
Next week on IaDL. Night shift?I have to work night shift?
Dalmallyfest the Asylum 