Both of the wards that I called home were in a recently developed part of the hospital.  They were both clean and well maintained, housing state of the art technology.  Being cardiac wards, there was activity at all hours of the day and night – I could hardly complain given the time of my own admission!

It did appear however that while a lot of care and attention had been paid to the medical aspects of the facility, some of the finer details of the joinery had been overlooked.  As a result, the doors were noisy.

Very noisy!

So noisy in fact, that I could have sworn that they had been specifically designed to be entered into the European Door Slamming Championships.

Given the doors were in use to provide access and / or privacy during normal waking hours, practice for the Championships appeared to be restricted to the early hours of the morning.

Practice makes perfect I guess.  I have high hopes of a medal for Scotland!

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One of the few benefits of being hooked up to a heart monitor is that you can be monitored from afar.  As I was now “free”, it was necessary to “physically observe” me during the night to make sure I was still breathing.

Given the shock caused by the door banging, this sounded like a prudent approach to me.  The routine was a simple one… as soon as I had drifted off, a nurse would shine a small torch, three times brighter than the sun into my face.  I would jump, sitting upright in my bed. “What the #*%£!!!”.  And the nurse would leave, satisfied.

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Let me sleep!  PLEASE!