I’m being kept in Cookridge because of a high temperature. (Chris is typing this for me.) The drain has just been taken out. If my temperature remains high overnight, they will probably want to keep me in tomorrow. Anyone who could visit would be most welcome, but please check if I am still here. (0113 2673411, Rutherford Ward) Visiting hours ar from 2-8 pm.

If you’ve got to be in hospital, this is th best one I have been in. The staff are very friendly and warm. There are views of trees out of the window and it is far quieter than other hospitals, with reasonable food.

Here’s a quote from “Cancer Ward” by Solzhenitsyn (pub 1968) which I’ve just enjoyed reading: “They all longed to find some miracle-doctor, or some medicine the doctors here didn’t know about. Whether they admitted as much or denied it, they all without exception in the depths of their hearts believed there was a doctor, or a herbalist, or some old witch of a woman somewhere, whom you only had to find and get that medicine from to be saved.” In the mid-1950s, Solzhenitsyn went from concentration camp to cancer ward, recovered and is still alive.