HELLO, I'M A GUEST AT A WEDDING AND THE MAGICIAN HAS JUST KEELED OVER....

These are not the words you want to hear on a voicemail when you listen to your messages just after finishing a gig beyond deepest, darkest Chelmsford! It was an incredibly hot day, 31+ degrees, and I'd been working with another magician in a walled garden with no trees! We'd done a two hour reception out there before close up at the tables - in a marquee where the air-con wasn't at all effective!

And now this....

Yesterday we'd worked - him on a boat for five hours in Oxford (where he got a very red face from the sun), then on to an evening gig in Cambridge. I, meanwhile worked at a corporate event in Cheltenham.

Rob had a particularly large workload as a colleague, Phil Perry, had gone to visit his daughter in the US, got dehydrated and collapsed, hitting his head on concrete and had just had an operation for a blood clot. Rob had been given two of the jobs Phil couldn't cover. One was the wedding today.....

My mind went blank - I couldn't remember where he was working and when I did I couldn't even remember which county he was in! The guy who called me was very helpful when I got back to him and eventually told me an ambulance had taken Rob to Lister Hospital, Stevenage which is easy to find as I'd done shows there.

It seems that the heat had aggravated Rob's heart condition and they can't get his heart rate down. It's no longer zooming up and down the scale as it has in the past but is sticking between 130 and 145 which is higher than a normal 70/75. So they have kept him in Coronary Care Unit - they say overnight but I can't believe they'lll let him home tomorrow. I think it's more likely to be Monday at the earliest... and here I sit.... alone and petrified....