Good Cheer

Relieved to get through on the usual number to chat with John this evening. I was baffled as to what was wrong with the line the last few times I've tried to ring him. The thing is, getting through on our landline means the calls are reasonably cheap, whereas using the mobile entails the cost of an arm and a leg and I hated the fact that I'd rushed the previous call after all he's been through.

Actually my niece Cheryl was visiting him, which is also very good news given the occasional strains between them. She'd just shown him a recently taken picture of Maureen and he reckoned my sister looked a lot better - even more good news. In the course of our last rushed conversation he'd told me that she was due for a detox on the day after the call, but this doesn't seem to have taken place. Today he was talking about a possible detox around May - and the real possibility of her then being allowed to go back home from the place she's now in, which is somewhere in Dukinfield. Since John hasn't had a drink himself for some three months, and doesn't care about drinking anymore, it sounds as if there's a possible future in this.

It's clear that John is lucky to be alive. His daughter Louise was told he might not make it in his first month of unconsciousness and surviving both septicaemia of the liver (I think that's what he said) and bleeding on the brain (definitely) clearly couldn't have been a picnic, especially for someone already missing a leg. I reckon he has the constitution of an ox, and I'm talking about a super-fit, genetically superior ox here. Long may he continue.

Noi reckons that, since he's stopped drinking, now would be a good time to get him to convert and give him a chance of communing with the angels. Not a bad idea, I suppose, but I'm not sure what the angels would make of him, though I reckon he'd provide them plenty of entertainment.