A PAIN IN THE ARSE

Antonio Canova, Reclining Naiad, 1819–24. (c) Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dear Readers,

I kindly ask that if you have the means, it would mean a great deal if you could support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber, and keep this show on the road.

Your loving writer, Hanif.

Isabella suggested that I shouldn’t write a blog if it was going be too miserable and morbid. But this is how it is.

I left the previous hospital a few days ago. It was such a relief. It was a general hospital and a mad house. I might have said already that I was on a dementia and stroke ward which was noisy if not tragic. I was taken in an ambulance to a hospital fifteen minutes down the road, to a new neurological ward, where they are used to patients like me with spinal injuries.

The room is small, grey and grim. There’s a TV on the wall opposite me which doesn’t work, despite Sachin’s efforts. The view to my left is of the sky and every two minutes a plane passes across the window, on it’s way to Heathrow. I think of the passengers packing up their things and getting ready to disembark. I wonder if I’ll ever go on an airplane again.