The talk last night went well, as far as we could judge. It was held in the local Methodist church, where people enjoyed a jacket potato meal in the hall, before coming in to the church.
As they came in I had the timelapse playing; when the washers uppers had come in we started. Jan had had the good idea of beginning with a short (one minute) reenactment of how we might have decided to do the Thames; and then we got into the illustrated talk proper.
"... so I got into the water ...
... it came up to here ...
... wading around, feeling for the prop with my feet ..."
Most of the 55 to 60 audience stayed awake.
The event raised £170 for the churches (no, we didn't charge; people put in a donation for the jacket potato supper).
(Gruesome alert - skip the next paragraph if you're squeamish (no pictures though!))
When it was all over, Adrian joined us at home for a mug of hot chocolate. Perhaps I should have had the same, and not a bottled Abbot. At about midnight, shortly after Adrian had left, I suddenly felt unwell with a severe stomach ache. Then I was sick ... and fainted in the hall while throwing up. Jan was there and tried to rouse me, but I didn't respond. She grabbed the phone to call an ambulance - but there was no dialling tone! Her mobile phone was upstairs, so she rushed to the kitchen phone and dialled 999 from there. While Jan was giving details of our address etc. I started to show signs of life. I came to, aware that Jan was talking to someone on the phone, and asked what was going on. When I'd convinced her that I was actually alive, and unlikely to die in the near future, we stood the emergency callout down. We worked out afterwards that I'd been unconscious for between 30 seconds and a minute. As you might imagine, Jan was very worried, thinking I was dead! When I fainted I slumped forward from my kneeling position and hit the floor head first. Checking my injuries, I found a bad cut on my chin; a bruised chest, probably from a radiator valve; and a broken tooth. I felt a lot better, though, not feeling sick!
I think it was a combination of late nights (preparing the talk!), an early start for work yesterday, and possibly a sickness bug. Oh, and that's why there was no blog post last night!
5 comments:
Nah. It was the Abbot. I had five pints of that once and I was sick.
I thought it tasted funny at the time, but I think that was because I was already sickening. The consequences were certainly not funny.
Fainting aside, I can see some benefits of doing your talk in a Baptist Church - the re-enactment would be so much more life like!
Andy
Hope your feeling ok Halfie, poor Jan must have got a fright. Don't tell anyone you chipped your tooth and banged your head after an Abbot, say they are your war wounds after fishing your prop out! I won't tell anyone if you don't ha ha. Take Care.
Much better now, thanks Debbie. I seem to have become rather accident-prone since the summer.
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