Just back from hospital

Hospitals are strange places - sealed worlds, in which nothing happens for hours, and then someone comes along, flicks through some notes and nonchalantly announces the Last Day of Judgement, or that there's nothing wrong with you and you can go home. "Hello," says someone who you've never met before, "oh look, you're going to go to hell today," or "Hello," says someone who you vaguely recognise from a previous "Hello," "I'm afraid yesterday's registrar got it wrong - you're not going to hell, but heaven, i.e. out of here."

It is all a bit too much like St. Peter at the gates of heaven: they flick through your paperwork, through files of test results, notes from other Recording Angels, scribbles by cross nurses - all of which you're not allowed to see - and then pronounce your Doom: hell or heaven, up or down, ward 1 or 101, bed rest or operating theatre, should I stay or should I go?

Thankfully, Final Judgement was postponed today (though it was threatened by an over-enthusiastic-locum-St. Peter), and I'm back at home now, still in Limbo and very tired. Doom is postponed - like the late trains I caught - and is probably rather annoyed. I see him (I'm sure Doom is a him) staring out of a train window into the rain, tutting furiously. For once I hope the train is very, very late. Heaven or hell - they can both wait for now.