Last Thursday, the 4th August, I say the date because time has been shaken up into a new and more watery condition. I like water… the place I am most held… anyway, on that day, I fell very hard on my head, quite simply mis-stepping in my garden off a very low wall. I thought I would find ground, but instead I found space and I fell like a sandbag, hitting my head on a cast iron bench.

Concussion.

Very, very strange, new country.

After managing to find someone to cancel my line of work, I called 111. Not nice… has no-one thought about how to deliver this service to people, all in one way or another in distress? (Rhetorical question, obviously) 

Eventually, a person, questions = ambulance.

It felt excessive.

I felt embarrassed.

I had thought, with dread in my bones, I’d be told to go to A&E, but apparently I sounded like I had/could have a brain injury, so A&E came to me.

2 incredibly relational, kind men arrive in my bedroom, and I am really seen, heard, and got.

I wept with gratitude.

They said I should really go to hospital with them for 6-10 hours of monitoring.

I said, I’d like to self/friend monitor here.

They said, absolutely. It’s lovely here… can we stay here.

We agreed that I was stable, and hadn’t escalated, that I understood the red flags that could happen, and would call 999 asap if I started un-ravelling, that a friend would call every 45 minutes to make sure I still knew what day it was.

Did I say how kind they were?

I felt fathered and brothered… 1 young Aussie, and 1 older dad/bloke kind of chap.

I had to not work last week (what is a week?)

I’m working gently this week… a precious person is landing in my zoom room soon.

This is a little impulse to check in, to say, oh here I am, I’ve been somewhere, and I’m still coming back. Like going any somewhere, we come back a little bit different… I’m just tasting the different, like the space where a tooth came out. I lost something, though I couldn’t tell you what… and it feels like a blessing, not something I need to get back.