A Robe Day

                                                   

...is what they call this sort of day in New Orleans, if I remember correctly. Of course my last trip to that lovely city was some time ago, before Catrina wreaked its deadly havoc.

A  Robe Day  is the sort of day when one doesn't ever really get up properly, normally because of some over indulgence the night before. In my case that is perhaps true, but this need for a Robe Day was not ONLY caused by the double- ok- triple Campari Sprizas consumed here on the balcony last night with my theatre group friends before our customary wine flowing dinner.  It was also induced by a couple of weeks living under some persistent curse- as if all the most tedious gremlins had decided to hold their annual meeting and had chose ME as their meeting place, to try out new methods with which  to annoy people most efficiently: 

Important DHL documents went missing, bank transfers did not arrive; bank accounts with well tried and tested IBANS suddenly became unreachable.

Some gangster called Johnny Rizzo (a good gangster name) who had been entrusted with bringing a sofa to me from Carlo Forte in Sardinia, and to whom I had paid 750E up front for this job (I did not know he was a gangster then) never brought the sofa and pocketed the 750E. When I, finally, having written increasingly irate emails asking for my money back without response, arranged for my lawyer to write a letter to him, he countered with a letter from HIS lawyer to me, saying that I owed HIM 4500 E! He had, according to this letter, been backwards and forwards to Sardinia three times, had never been able to meet up with my friends because 'they were not there'! He wanted compensation and damages!!!

Meanwhile my friends  were able to come up with plenty of evidence - Whatsapp messages, audio messages etc- and I also provided plenty, which was all duly sent off with another letter from my lawyer, telling them to get stuffed- in appropriate legal language of course. So, this was some ten days ago and we have heard nothing back so we are beginning to hope it MAY be the end of the story...

AND there is more in this tedious saga of the gremlins' general meeting: I was supposed to have something called an Ablation, which is a procedure to get one's heart ticking in the proper rythm, and I was in need of this operation. I had waited months for this, and last Wednesday I finally went to the hospital and the procedure was due on the Thursday morning. I have already had this operation, eight years ago, in London, and that time I was given general anaestetic, and thankfully slept through the whole thing.  But this time, when they had already wheeled my trolley to the operation theatre, and were about to start the procedure- which involves making holes in one's groin, threading electrodes up through the body to the heart, and then somehow burning our certain areas to jolt the heart into proper action again- I realized that I was not going to be given general anaethetic but had to remain awake during the procedure! 

I am afraid I panicked. I am normally far too brave for my own good but this really rattled me. In floods of tears, I was unable to remain absolutely still, and they had to abandon the procedure. Instead they performed an electro chock, which I have also had before but which is not so invasive but

also not so efficient. As I write this I am still feeling my heart beeting normally, though... who knows?