It is approaching 10pm and I nip outside to hang the washing. After the days of rain and cold that have been providing a convinving simulation of a UK autumn, summer has returned. For the first time in two weeks the air is warm on my arms as I step out and a hot dry wind blows past me as I walk to the lines. Above, the sky is completely clear, stars brilliant and bright. Orion - tonight the only recognisable constellatory friend from the North - hangs low in the sky, upside down as far as I am concerned with his sword projecting up. The cicadas have cheered up considerably with the warmth and their chirruping joins the nocturnal frog chorus. I peg my sheets and then stand in the darkness savouring the heat, the stars and the noise for a few moments before reluctantly returning to my flat and bed.
The phone rings. I am lying on the sofa in the dark squinting at the laptop screen: someone has lent me series 1 of Spooks. I struggle up and bump across the room to the phone. “Hello?” “Moran!?” “Yebo.” “How are you?” “I am fine.” “I am fine too.” And then those four dreaded words. “Please hold for maternity.” The line goes dead for a second and then a midwife comes on the line. “Moran?” “Yes.” “How are you?” “I am fine. “I am fine too. I have a 22 year old primip. She is in labour but I cannot do a PV. She has a Bartholin’s abscess.” I ask a few intelligent questions and then, pausing only check what exactly a Bartholin’s abscess is (an abscess of the Bartholin’s gland apparently) I head for maternity. On arriving I am taken to the woman concerned and, yes, sure enough there is a large abscess in the position that I imagine a Bartholin’s gland might sit if I knew exactly what it was. “I cannot do a PV to check the cervix because it is too painful.” The abscess blocks the way. “Right.
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