Thank you every body for your thoughts, wishes and prayers.
I am still metabolically active, awaiting a due date for admission, following many disrupts such as a common cold (not advisable to chemically strip away all my natural immunity with one of those, last time I bought pneumonia with the coin of a mere cough), a diagnosis of diabetes due to steroids administered last year to combat pneumonia, and my desire to stay free just "one more day" (Which I have now stretched to my consultants patient limit)
I fear that tomorrow they will finally catch up to me and if I fail to show willing, may even resort to a straight jacket approach. Nevertheless I have been busy netting bucket list items such as humping ruck, hammocking in the woods, setting fire to things and strumming a guitar by frozen moonlight with my chums in the wilds of remote Dartmoor whilst feeding a bush craft woodburner that we carried in, and choking on the beautifully redolent peat smoke issuing like so many of our dreams from its blackened stack.
I also tried a little more inadvertent bog trotting owing to overestimating my powers of perception and stepping on a non existent rock which wasn't quite where it shouldn't have been. Luckily I was able to borrow a pair of 40 inch waist gentlemens trousers which wrapped about me four times and enabled me to take twelve paces before they started to follow me, as opposed to restarting in the morning with my own sorry and somewhat heavier crag hoppers. To give an idea of the average depth of a Dartmoor bog, I was once crossing Foxtor Mire (the inspiration for Conan Doyles "Grimpen Mire" in the Hound of the Baskervilles) when I came across a top hat in front of me. Naturally I gave it a swift kick, only to be tooken aback by a cry of "OI!". Looking down, I spied a balding head, and a very cross man remonstrating with his eyes that I had just dispossessed him of his hat.
I asked what on earth he was doing there, deep in the bog, to which he replied "Oi be sittin' on me 'oss"
I also took the opportunity funnily enough, to visit the home of the real Baskerville family, and view the graves of the real Baskerville hounds, which are up some 60 steps behind Baskerville Hall, in a simply delicious and edifying little nook of Wales, close to a tiny hamlet known as Clyro. It was to here that Conan Doyle would retreat with his friends, the Baskervilles, to seek the peace to pen his many masterpieces, and also where he found inspiration for the book of the hounds, drawn from the legend of black dog, on nearby Hergest Ridge (immortalised too, by Mike Oldfield, while Black Dog of Led Zepp fame was inspired by the, well, black dog)
The Baskervilles, fearing an onrush of sightseers eager to sample some of their hero authors experiences, begged Conan Doyle to set the novel in a place far removed from their home, hence Dartmoor was chosen as the setting. The Hall is now a marvelously quaint example of real eccentric British hospitality and one can sup the finest of ales after a relaxing swim and an hour or two of undisturbed peace in the sauna. One must however hold the handle quite tight, and make scary faces through the door port, in order to deter numerous and diligent small children from joining one, with their snotty little noses, in the sauna. I quite rightly blame the parents. For not putting them in the public school system and sending them away for a goodly time.
Now whilst I may indeed fade away somewhat, what with having such things as marrow and stem cells depleted, I do rather hope to continue such nonsense as above and beyond, well into my elder years, by which I mean 31 and beyond...
For now,
Lizzie xx