THE BRICK WALL

Tomorrow Rob is going into hospital for doctors to repeat a very uncomfortable procedure which he had already undertaken back in July. He is having an ablation - thin wires are passed through his groin into his heart to clear away, via progressively stronger electric shocks, any gunk that has accumulated in his arteries or veins (I forget which).

Rob has barely mentioned this; he just gets on with things as do I - but for me this is one of those Brick Walls in life. You must know of them. There are certain events which loom large and, however you try, you can't see through them or over them to the time beyond. You have to live through them, these solid Brick Walls, until they are done and the rest of time can continue uninterrupted. We've all lived through brick walls but there is nothing one can do to overcome them except the obvious.

When I was pregnant with my son - that was a dreadful Brick Wall. Everyone talked of the pain of childbirth and how 'once they put the baby in your arms you'll forget all the rest'. Yes, but that was the Brick Wall, the thing I had to live through, the actuality of producing this child, and I dreaded it. In the end I had a Caesarean - oh the bliss of being put to sleep and waking up to find I had a son! No labour pains, no undignified and unmentionable events, just the job done whilst I wasn't there and then left to doze through the next few days in a state of morphia induced wonderland!

Going to have dental treatment - that's another of my Brick Walls. Or any form of medical mayhem whilst I'm not completely unconscious.

Even driving long distances to and from gigs - they can be Brick Walls of a kind. Or performing new material in front of an audience at The Magic Circle, a foam brick wall but I still can't see over or through it till the job is done....

On Saturday there is a YMC workshop. It is our annual auction and I'm sitting at my computer, supposedly completing all the lists of lots and printing them off for use on the day. I can't get the work done - the seems too remote with the Brick
Wall in front of me. I need to put all the registered members' names into my notebook and make up the sticky labels that they wear in the hope that, at some time, I will remember who they are. I can't even think about doing this tomorrow night, I can't even see twenty four hours ahead! I don't know if Rob will come home tomorrow or the next day - I can't think about anything else.

He tells me he is calm - I doubt it. At the moment he is sitting in front of Question Time unseeingly as his heart is racing and fluttering - the very condition that should have been cleared in July when they first performed the ablation! Over 99% of these procedures are successful - have you met Mr One per Cent??? Well he's in the other room facing his own Brick Wall and assuring me he can see over it without any doubt. Well, he's a 'Real Man' as my mother said when she first met him!

But I can't think beyond presenting him at St. Mary's at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning - the Brick Wall is there and it won't go away.