Charing Cross Hospital

This year is the tenth anniversary of when I was diagnosed with Cancer. As I was underwent the chemotherapy it seemed as if I was in hospital all the time. Since then, as the threat of the Cancer reigniting has dwindled with the years, the visits to the hospital have become less and less until ten years later I only have to go once a year for a routine check up. Yesterday was such a day and I had already decided beforehand that I would ride my bike there. The Charing Cross Hospital is actually on Fulham Palace Road, not in Charing Cross at all, and I live on the other side of London in Islington. Since my bike is the sort of rickety fold-up bike that doesn't fold or change gears I gave the journey from door to door two hours to be safe.

The high point of the journey there is undoubtedly the ride through Hyde Park. This no more so than after riding up Oxford street, constantly trying to get off it, but always ending back on it, cumulating, with the Primark Store (and the scene of riots when it opened) at Marble Arch. Outside on the pavement, their shopping bags at their feet, the people who been shopping in there look exhausted. I want to shout at them: "There are no bargains to be had in here! That's just how much it costs, you paid no less or more than what you bought in there is worth. You're all fools, don't you know that you'll be dead one day? Why not buy something of nice quality but less of it?" Instead, inspired by the prospect of riding through the park, I keep on peddling.





Just around the corner from Primark, in Mayfair (where Primark is not), P.G. Woodhouse once lived.



Whilst the weather is warm there is also a light breeze, which causes the air to fill with cherry blossom every time she gently blows. This is a fantastic spectacle and I tell myself how lucky I am to have once had Cancer because ten years later I am now riding on a bike through Hyde Park secure in the knowledge that, whilst life is fleeting, I am also better. On the banks of the Serpentine I observe workmen lying on their backs as the sun warms their reddening faces. And what sort of school has Physical Education classes in Hyde Park? Never was mine that is for sure.



Outside a café over the road from the hospital a girl is reading her friend's tarot cards. I wonder what she is hoping to find out? Inside the hospital there is now a Costa Coffee alongside Amigos, the hospital shop. In here you will find a selection of magazines (they still stock Mix Mag which I remember from when I first visited here as a patient), DVD's, CD's, teddy bears, toiletries, packs of Hanes underwear, pre-packed sandwiches and sugary treats. Like in a few places I've noticed recently they don't stock cans of soda but only the slightly bigger, and more expensive, plastic bottles. Today there is a special offer on parasols.

Upstairs on the first floor there is a café, Delice De France ("Suppliers of Part-Baked Frozen bread, confectionery, pastries, desserts and savouries to the UK Foodservice market"), which has free Wi-Fi. An elderly chap is sat behind a piano but I don't know what the name of the piece he is playing. But whilst the hospital, located within such a distinguished borough, has changed to reflect the times, it is still, unrecognisably, a hospital.

The restaurant on the second floor seems more appealing but I don't know if that's just because I'm better and I don't have to eat there. Main courses are a modest £3 something and most sides are 50p but potato wedges are £1.10. I think about eating here today. Back on the ground floor and across from the vast fish tank, filled with monstrous catfish and cichlids, there is a row of vending machines.

Med Meals provides hot and cold meals. On the screen that shows customers how to operate such a vending machine there is a mouth-watering digital photograph of "potato skins with a rich cheese and ham filling."



The man from Costa Coffee eyes me suspiciously when I write in my notebook: " Two Cadbury's Cream eggs for eighty pence". Everywhere people are on their phones receiving and sending messages but no one gives them a second look. Suddenly I feel that I'm under suspicion and realising that my appointment is due I get on my way.



On the reception's desk someone had left a card for the next person to pick up. Below an illustration of two gulls atop a pebbly beach it features a quote from the Christian Evangelist/online retailer Roy Lessin.



The last line on the card is:

"Would someone who has done so much and made so much available to you, fail to take care you in every way? "



I still remember coming to this clinic when I was ill. Each week I would come in here to consult the specialist before being admitted upstairs to one of the beds. Looking around the busy waiting room, some of the people sat in here, often those accompanied by friends or loved ones, would no doubt be in here for the first time whilst others, like myself, have been coming back for years. I put the card in my pocket so that no one else will read it.



My pants and trousers around my ankles, lying on a hospital bed, the doctor asks me if I ever check my remaining testicle and does it ever feel strange. I reply sometimes I do but I don't know what it's supposed to be like because I haven't got another testicle to compare it with. He squeezes it and asks me if that hurts. I reply only as much as I think it should when he squeezes it.



Fifteen minutes later and I ride down Dawes Road. I once spent a lot of time on this road because, my friend, Oliver had lived here in a house its occupants had christened 'Mob Warfare'.

Dawes Road is one of those roads that was always lined with the sort of shops which, I could never understand how were able to remain in business. Sweet shops which never opened and when they did with nothing on sale apart from a couple of jars of boiled sweets. Many of these places have since closed to make way for galleries and restaurants but I am pleased that the portrait painter's place is still there and looking through the window so is he. It had been noted in the past that the paintings of female models had been copied from the pages of pornographic magazines.

'On Broadway' the record shop is no more. Every time I used to visit Oliver and it was a Friday, Saturday or Sunday afternoon, I would call in and flick through the oldies section. Sometimes Oliver suspected that I only visited him as an excuse to visit the record shop, which, on occasions was also true. But even though I was a regular in the record shop for many years, the middle-aged guy, who I have never been able to imagine being any other age, working in there, never once acknowledged me.



Each sale was written down in a ledger and once I bought something when the shop opened before coming back just before it was about to close to realise that I was the first and second customer that day. Still they managed to remain open for years and this was before the invention of the Internet. Once I observed a distinguished looking gentleman from Jamaica buying Country and Western records for the sound system he ran there. I know this because he was telling the same shopkeeper, who refused to acknowledge me, about his plans. Today the sign of the shop has gone but underneath where it had been there is still the jagged outline of the previous owners business: "Chinese Signs."

I fancied something cheap to eat but since I was by now riding down the Kings Road I knew that I would probably settle for a sandwich from M&S.