Thanks for help from everyone

I wonder just how many, like myself, fell prey to the terrible icy footpaths before Christmas. December: thousands according to a Nuneaton paper? Therefore my two hour plus wait for an ambulance meets with no criticism whatsoever, rather relief.

I met with disaster along St. Margaret Road, Stoke Golding, whilst on my may to exercise my black Labrador, Murphy, at the recreation ground.

Feet suddenly shot up in the air leaving me to come crashing down on the right hand side of the back though at least managing to hold on to the dogs lead.

He incidentally, spent the next eight minutes frantically licking my face and neck until two extremely kind people appeared on the scene, not only to offer reassurance in providing blankets but also in making provision for an ambulance. And though I know they would be reluctant for me to mention them by name, so much am I indebted that I feel I have to: Molly and Ross who live virtually opposite the The White Swan Inn.

Also, in similar vein I must mention two students, Nancy and Martin, who not only like the others spent all the time with me prior to the arrival of the ambulance, but took care of Murphy by taking him home and visiting at various intervals to take him for a walk as I spent the rest of the day at The George Eliot hospital undergoing X-Rays and so forth. All came to visit me at home within the next couple of days.

Most certainly I’ve been on the receiving end of the Christmas message in terms of “peace and goodwill to all men” though the former will only come about finally when the resultant pain finally subsides. Indeed by Christmas Eve the bruising tended to come out with a vengeance and so I contacted A&E at The Eliot only to find it was inundated with a minimum waiting time of two and half hours.

However, to my amazement there was only three persons present on my arrival at 9am on Christmas Day and so it wasn’t long before I was granted my wish; the doctor not exactly prescribing morphine, but perhaps the next best medication in terms of tramadol.

Sadly though, two a day proved inadequate though a quick visit to the Pine Close surgery in Stoke Golding, and the usual five star treatment, soon rectified this state of affairs.

All told it has been a most memorable Christmas and, though some time since the fall, a brief period of intense pain kicking in yet again meant that venturing out on New Year’s Eve proved to be impractical.

The beauty, however, of eventually coming out of any severe pain, as so many can testify, is that one tends to value the simple aspects of life far more than previous. David Abbott, Stoke

Golding