Frozen Chalk

The temperature got down to minus 3.6 even on the Kent coast last night.

The freeze draws the water out of the chalk stones and encases them in ice - like this one.

The day went suddenly awry. A phone call came in telling me John had suffered a mini-stroke. Then another twenty minutes later that he was suffering a more major stroke. I rushed over to his residential home. Paramedics, an ambulance crew and staff all crowded in his room.

I ended up chasing the ambulance to the QEQM hosp in Margate and spent a long afternoon into the evening with no money for a drink. Lots of tests and a bed in the Stroke ward. All very professional. He is stable and talking. The next few days will probably be critical.

As I left he said to, 'But Fergie [ for some reason he decided that is how he'd know me from the outset] but I'm not the sort of person to have strokes.' At 94!

(By the way, chasing ambulances is a waste of time. They'd lost me by the second junction. Oh for one of those flashing blue lights that stick on the roof.)