a little Liverpool puzzle

I was a little puzzled that I was in Liverpool, nobody had told me I would be taken there, but it didn’t really matter all was well. My husband was with me, glowing with love and pride in our new born son, only a day and a half old. The sleeping son was beautiful and we couldn’t take our eyes off him. I was particularly in wonder because on the night after our second date, I had dreamt that the man who became said husband was standing beside me with a tiny dark haired infant in his arms, and now the dream had literally come true!

We lived in Oldham so it was quite perplexing that here we were in a hospital in Liverpool, and I had no recollection of being brought here, either by my husband in the car or perhaps by ambulance. I thought my husband had driven me to Oldham Royal the night before, and I dozed on a ward with other pregnant women, not properly able to sleep, and then husband had arrived at eight o’clock, ready for my operation which would produce our child. He’d been given a hospital gown and one of those paper bonnets, and he should have worn white hospital clogs but his feet were too big so the nurses fashioned him some slippers from paper bonnets and he’d shuffled along to the operating theatre with me. So when did I – how did I arrive in Liverpool?

It was a complete mystery, which I would solve later, meanwhile I was delighted that some friends had arrived with flowers and a big card and warm congratulations. I thanked them for coming all the way over fro Oldham to Liverpool – so kind of them, so nice! I didn’t actually know them that well, they were friends of my husband which made it doubly nice and kind of them! Visiting time was over and everyone departed and I was able to settle down for a little snooze, husband would return later in the early evening, and all was well.

So how did I come to be in Liverpool? What was the mystery? In actual fact I never was in Liverpool!! The night before, my little baby in a cot beside me, the nurses had asked if I needed any pain killers. Well, no; I was a little achy and saw, but even after the operation, I felt fine. However, they almost insisted I should have something as no doubt it would all become very painful in the night. I thought they knew best and they gave me morphine… So the only trip I’d taken was a morphine trip! I’d stayed in Oldham and not moved anywhere!

Funnily enough, when my dad was in hospital after a chest operation, he had a similar morphine induced hallucination. There was a young man in the bed opposite, and his pretty, blond young wife visited every time she was able. One evening to dad’s surprise and shocked disapproval, there was another woman, leaning over him, her long red hair almost touching his shoulder and she was stroking his face! In actual fact, the man had been given oxygen and the cylinder and tubes is what what dad’s mind had jumbled into another woman!!