BLADDER PACKS: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

Many kind folk have been inquiring after my health, which has not been good, but is improving quickly. I am one very lucky unit.

After forty-plus years of criticising bladder packs and their contents, I grew one of my own: Due to a complicated series of spontaneous warps in the dark gizzard, culminating in edema of the bowel blocking my bladder valve, the latter organ nearly burst, leading to a great deal of complication, some rather ornate extraneous rubber plumbing, which is all gone now, and vicious pain, which hasn't quite, which in turn led George Grainger Aldridge to make this deadly accurate joke about me clutching at tubes all night for a full week after they'd been removed, much like amputees complain of pain in the phantom limb.

I can always count on George for acute  observation. It woulda been a lot funnier had I not been filling my own  bag with this particular vintage of Nouveau:

What I do for my work, eh? All back in working order now, like Sauvignon blanc, thankyou, if ginger. I must say the tap on this peculiar appendage was a vast technological improvement on any I've encountered on a wine bag. Just so's you know.

I owe my life to one very fast cabbie, the amazing people at the Flinders Intensive Care Unit, and the remarkable home attendance of the Royal District Nursing Service. Lifelong respect and thanks to you all!

And special gratitude to the local angels of mercy who kept my stove covered in beautiful broths and comfort food. I am in awe. Merci!

When I can, I'll get out and about and have a proper look at vintage. Word in the better camps says it's progressing very smoothly and well. Good luck you vendageurs! 

Now, back to the royal cot.