Christmas and hospitals

First, Ray is still with us - at 9.30 p.m. UK time - and I am still here, and am wedged onto a chair and mini-bench at his side, and will be here for the foreseeable future. It's impossible, of course, to gauge any time scale.  He had a few flickers of recognition, or something, early today, but the pain relievers and muscle relaxants are doing their job, and he seems very comfortable.  I talk to him; played him music - Duke Ellington's "Creole Love Call" (his favorite); Aida - in which he once sang in an amateur production at Covent Garden [I missed that vocal gene, even if I got the stubbornness one]; the Messiah, because it seemed seasonal ...

but seasonality was nearly my emotional downfall when - as of course they would in a British hospital - the carol singers came round the wards.  I think "The First Nowell" will need to have a trigger warning slapped on it for me in future.  I can cope with the festive lighting, and the ward Christmas tree, and even the illuminated polar bear on the front desk, but carols just about did felled me.  Luckily wonderful Nurse Pauline bustled and bossed me out for a walk and some fresh air, and made me some coffee when I came back.  They are the kindest crew, here.