It's a blank.

We’ve all heard that saying, “If you remember the ‘60s, you weren’t there”. I would dispute that. I lived through nine years of the 1960’s, but was of course too young to be smoking illegal substances. I just remember my birthday parties with paper hats, balloons and cute little cakes.

In the future, if you ask me the question, “What were you doing on 29th December 2008?” I won’t be able to recall part of it. This morning at 4.45am I woke up in tears, the pain in my throat was so awful. I have been experiencing the feeling of swallowing thumb tacks for the last two days, but just put it down to a bad sore throat and have been taking pain killers. I could take it no longer. My better half took me to the local “out of hours” clinic at 5am and the doctor diagnosed a bad case of tonsillitis.

“Don’t worry, we’ll soon have you fixed up and feeling great”. I think I looked at him as if he had lost the plot, but I my head, ears and throat were screaming so hard, I suspect the muscles in my face weren’t terribly coordinated.

The doctor prescribed an IV to re-hydrate me and a cocktail of no fewer than 7 drugs, one of which was opiate based. He was right, the pain vanished and aside from the discomfort of a needle in the back of my hand, I felt suddenly as fit as a flea. The relief of finally being able to swallow was gargantuan. This lasted approximately two seconds.

I won’t try to convey what happened when I stood up to go home. “Stoned” really doesn’t cover it. For me, normally half the dosage of the average painkiller is enough to get rid of a migraine. I had just imbibed enough drugs to knock out a Shire Horse.

So, no I really don’t remember much between 5.30am and 11am this morning; December 29th will remain a drug induced enigma