Another couple of quiet days at home resting, tending my wound, almost willing the body to finish healing this abscess. It's a slow process, yet day by day the period of painful inflammation gets just slightly less. Finally, I was able to put my mind to dealing with the medical insurance claim. I had to do it twice, because the first time, I made mistakes on the form. I'll be lucky to recover half the cost partly because of the policy excess and partly because the outlay on-over-the-counter medication and dressings was more than double what these would have cost here in Britain, and not easy to justify for the period after the doctor had signed me off.
Anyway, the claim for £500 was mailed, recorded delivery on Saturday morning. It was raining hard and as I was determined to post it, so that it would arrive on Monday, I had to don my old waterproof mountain jacket and trousers, the first time I've used them in years, but still good to use, as long as they can be dried out in between soakings. It's been a dull damp week, and I begin to long for some blue sky and sun.
In the evening, we watched an Australian crime drama series 'Mystery Road' on BBC Four, labelled 'Aussie Noir' by the media commentariat. It's set in the blazing sunshine of the Australian outback, and the characters wear shades and big hats, so I think the hype is a bit silly. It's slow moving and it portrays a cattle ranching environment where aboriginal and immigrant communities live uneasily alongside each other, and racism is a casual and everyday occurrence.
As is so often the case, crime writing is a medium in which all kinds of social and cultural issues get examined, in the context that produces a crime, or even crimes that are part of the mystery to be solved. I guess that's what I find engages my attention, as I try to figure out what on earth is happening in the world I inhabit, world which changes so rapidly that it's something of an effort to keep up recognising it.
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