18.8.69 [handwritten]
Back at Bethune Rd
Came home today to a bonanza of letters from you, and also
Korea, and the Home Office (I’m now free to stay here, apparently for an
unspecified length of time) and a long overdue postcard from Michael T in Rome
˗ I’d seen him back in London before I
left! I’m very pleased to hear that you’re doing so well, and I was quite delighted with the slightly ‘droopy’
letter of the 12th! Sorry that you weren’t sure what to do with the mail ˗ I did
get two letters (I think that was
all) in Hastings, via the flat, but the others might have all arrived here
after the date when I said not to send anymore on. It’s great that, as usual,
you’re making so many friends and
seeing all those others you haven’t seen for years. Have you had that race down
the Ward yet? Or are you leaving such trivial things to those who are fairly
new to this hospital business?
The flat here has started to look quite lived in ˗ I was
quite glad not to have had to go through the transition period of getting
everything into place once the others moved in.
My foot, I’m afraid, is misbehaving somewhat though it can
hardly be expected not to be upset
after what I did to it yesterday. As it was the last day, I went in twice (in
the water, sorry) and almost ran on
it. The result was, naturally, that I could barely walk on it when we finally
got home and it’s been feeling fairly tired all day today.
Mrs S fell flat on her face going to work the other morning
(she works three days a week in a typing office) and has a chin slowly going
purple. She's really very sweet and we get on very well. I was quite sorry to
leave this morning in fact, though I had thought, up till then, how nice it
would be to get back to London again. I’ve been invited back again anytime ˗
which seems a fair enough criterion, doesn’t it? [More to the point it was extremely generous, since I doubt that I contributed anything to my board while I stayed there!]
If my foot clears up sufficiently to be able to walk
comfortably before the end of the week I’ll try and get a job. I don’t know if I’ve
already said I’m thinking of trying a job working front-of-house in some
theatre ˗ that way I should have
quite a bit of the day free to study in. It seems to be full of disadvantages ˗
there’s so much I won’t be able to see, but I can’t see any other way of
working. If I get thoroughly fed up I’ll just have to try something else.
Keep getting well, Love, Mike.
