Home is where your life happens, and London, where I have been cat-sitting (see last week) is no longer home. I still have more friends in London than I have in Brighton, but that’s not the definition of home. I also have considerably more family in the Great Wen; zero family here, although the residence of my youngest in Sussex for the first two years of my life here softened that particular blow. But I missed, for one thing, the view from my window: shabby beautiful. Few people are thinking about resale value, for various reasons, so I see the unprettified backs of houses, which are honest. And then the sea, which is beyond honesty.
A sea view gives one perspective, not only in that it teaches you how to learn where the horizon is (on some streets going downhill you can think the sea is above you, but not, for some reason, in the Hove-l), but in the way that you appreciate that everything south of you is subject to radical change. Imagine, say, that you could live in a high-rise in North Finchley and look south to East Finchley (yes, I know), and think, on a windy night, that the streets down there would be buckling and twisting and perilous.
The night before I left the Hove-l for London again I did a deep clean of the kitchen – maybe not your idea of a deep clean, or anyone’s, but it took me three hours of frenzied effort. And I am glad I did it, because when I got back to Brighton for my second weekend off I scarcely had time to appreciate my new relatively tidy kitchen before I felt a sudden cramp in my lower abdomen. It spread very rapidly to the place where it now resides: about halfway between shoulder-blade and hip, and it’s the most painful thing I have experienced since my frozen shoulder a couple of years ago.
It happened at 8am, which is the perfect time to call the GP surgery to ask for an appointment, and they said, “Fine, 10.30 OK?” And I said, “Perfect.” But it was not perfect, for the pain got worse, and two hours later I had only managed to get one leg of my trousers on. Not from idleness, but from extreme discomfort. I spent a little time with Dr Google and appendicitis looked promising, so I called the surgery again and said, “I think I might have to call an ambulance.” And they said, “Hell yeah, go for it.” So I did.
The ambulance people were lovely. They didn’t even mind that I hobbled out to them wearing only one shoe. I’d got the other trouser leg on but the right sock and shoe were beyond me. They strapped me on to a gurney and inserted a cannula. I made a feeble joke to myself: “Cannula (expr. coll.) – what a Scouser says to another when asking a favour.” One of the paramedics was called Nick. “One of the great names,” I said.
Then began the long wait in A&E. Now I might have said that I consider Brighton my home these days, but after a while I began to think that, while it is a lovely town for many reasons, one of its more regrettable elements is the Royal Sussex County Hospital – a vast, sprawling edifice staffed by the severely overworked. They squirted some morphine into me around 11am, which was most welcome. But they left me alone on a rudimentary cot among the non-walking wounded for another four hours before putting me through a CT scan, and it was then another six and a half hours before I was seen by anyone except the people handing out sandwiches.
Well, you know what it’s like in hospital these days, so I shall spare you the details. Ben visited me, bringing a phone charger, and I also had a book to review with me, but what with one thing and another I found it difficult to concentrate on long-form prose. I was wheeled to a spot opposite the resus cupboard. “Look,” I said on a social media platform, “I’ve found out where they keep the monkeys.” (Yes, I know the monkeys are spelled rhesus, and “resus” is short for resuscitation, but you try getting a laugh out of an A&E ward.) By about 9pm I’d had enough, and wanted to go home; by 9.30 a doctor had pulled out my cannula and I was in the car park with my friend Mat, waiting for a taxi and hoping I’d get to Waitrose before it shut.
The next day I went back for an ultrasound, and that was six hours I had to spend using my rich inner resources to keep me going. I told my friend K— that I was being held in the Surgical Assessment Unit. “WTF is that?” she asked. “Taking a wild guess,” I replied, “I think it’s a unit where they assess you for surgery.” Eventually they gave me a prescription for dihydrocodeine and I can tell you that, after the deep and pain-free sleep it gave me, if I ever have another child, it will be called Dihydrocodeine 30mg Lezard.
The pain still recurs with a vengeance if I cough, laugh, or try to clear mucus from my lower throat; blowing one’s nose is a no-no. I am having to learn a whole new hydraulics of getting in and out of bed without howling. All I can say is I’m so glad I cleaned that kitchen. Hospital again tomorrow.
[Further reading: On the front line in the Battle of Ideas]
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This article appears in the 23 Oct 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Doom Loop