A few residual chores sorted as I passed my GP and handed on the request for a blood test 72 hours before the chemo starts. Down through the west end and Young St.
This week is a quiet one relatively speaking. I've got the mask, CT scan and consent today.
Tomorrow is the inserting of the feeding tube RIG and an overnight stay at the albergue western. I've never stayed in a hospital albergue but I've visited a few people who have. They remind me of a few I've stayed at in the past. For fellow pellegrinos, I'm thinking Hornillos del Camino near Burgos. The albergue next to the church. There were people in the church praying for it to smell better but alas, that's pilgrims for you.
So fingers crossed I get a lower bunk near the toilet. News just in, it's all single deck at the western so lower bunk assured. Fantastic news in an era of media misrepresentation. A single bed is an absolute godsend.
I remember when I was a student returning to WoodMac I'd done a job of work during Easter in the Young St basement. It was my first true understanding of myself. I had to arrange all the filing which had just been launched, into a damp basement, from the stairwell above. I sat smoking a roll up having created a bit of space by refilling and stacking some boxes on the empty cabinet shelves. I went away to the pub and thought about it. I'll finish the story later as I need to get to the Western.
I'm here for my mask fitting, CT scan and consent to treatment. Who should I bump into, fellow TSB sweep member Alex. A full four weeks further down the trail and like me feeling lucky as that lucky things as the professionals here are so phenomenal.
The mask was tough but it's done, I said. Great treatment from the team framing the mask. They knew from my trembling I was big on my twin pals claustrophobia and vertigo. Before we could finish chuntering away I was called for the scan.
The scan that followed likewise caused issues but again the radiographic team were superb with me. My veins must be getting tired of all this panic by me as they all had a shot at it until 6th time lucky. I think I get myself so wound up that the veins just tighten and shrivel up meaning canualas need to go around corners. Please don't send Uri Geller I mumbled.
It's been either straight in or I've done a double shift of the staff. Bloods are usually fine but I can't help thinking I usually go once a year, not daily.
I tried to think of my walk down the road today once the mask was on and the stuff going through the veins. At times as they adjusted my shoulders and arms I couldn't help laughing that Scott Clark the outstanding professional and coach at Prestonfield would encourage me to stand up and as usual one shoulder would rise or fall, or collapse in a Ramsay way. That's the funny thing about practice swings sharing no resemblance with the real one. Luckily the professionals here take the swing. Top tip for Scott, hit our shot.
Erskine house, now a hotel and then Kintore, next door, were huge entry points into the adult world. As I say, when I returned, as a student, during the holidays I was often in Young St but it all began for me as a 15 year old. It was amazing working in the post room. We got paid £4.65 a week for our 4:30-7pm shift3 days a week plus overtime delivering the research notes internally on whisky or north sea oil or going to the GPO loading bay in lower Carlton road. I even remember getting the overnight bus to London with a datapost bag and turning up at London office with them asking if my mum knew I was away. When I went off to St Andrews I was only 17 but I'd been there for nearly 3 years.
I'd be 19 when I went to the Oxford Bar that day and it was one of my crazy ways of looking at things. I thought these are filing boxes rarely looked at. They need to be catalogued but they don't need every year or every type of document to be together, I'll do that in a plan, a list of where to find things. 20 different types of document and so e were part, some were full years. I wrote up where everything was. Typed it in three different ways and then rolled another fag and went back to the pub. It was 3pm on my first day of a 3 week job. I knew I would have to stress test it. That would take the rest of the 3 weeks. I'd turn up at 10:30 smoke a few fags then go to the pub at 12. Go back via Erskine house and say it would all be completed in less than the 3 weeks then head back to Young St for 5 mins, then the pub. I was a proper wee smug git.
Unfortunately this ambition for the pub is perhaps what has got me in trouble now as I've noticed my pals vertigo and claustrophobia are clearly not as powerful as they were before I started on my modified behaviour. This is week 6 and I can't say I enjoy drinking a fifth of what I used to, but there are benefits.
Consent is done and I'm off for a walk. Down the Telford path to Roseburn. I see it's now getting redesignated as a potential team route. I can see why a few people wast to save the path. With all due respect to trams we don't have the wit of a city like Vitoria-Gasteiz and our trams or cycle policies are hugely politicised. It's a journey we refuse to travel together. Equally it's a journey that requires a knowledge of what is under the city as much as above the ground. The tram going along Princes Street, for the money shot of the castle, was being one of many ill conceived route choices. You can study other public transport systems around the world but if you're solely looking for examples to back up your case you've wasted everyone's time and money.
On the plus side, it's a joy to see the electric buses back after they were removed 20 years ago.
I'm a walking fan and in a city like Edinburgh why not. So many green places to walk through and the Telford path to Roseburn via the water of Leith was superb.
Meeting Simon and Scott Miller on the way to Miller Row proved inspirational. We all like a row.
We walked passed a few popular sites not least woody Guthrie, I mean Willie Nelson of course.
Willie's grandfather William, famously donated the well to the people of Edinburgh. Nobody was going to row about that in the 19th century.
On we went through Stockbridge taking the st Bernards Crescent bypass to get back on the water of Leith before a stop at the Orchard.
