Budapest day 1

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Well they always say you should set off on the right foot, but unfortunately my right foot decided yesterday to have a particularly painful attack of gout! This was not good news the day before we needed to trudge miles through Dublin airport, carrying our cabin bags!



Feeling a fraud I dusted off the crutches from my 1996 hang gliding accident (still had them in the wardrobe!), and phoned Air Lingus to arrange a wheelchair for the long trek to the boarding gate, just in case.



Then off to the doctor, who offered me an injection of Difene.

" I'll take my shoe and sock off then" I said cooperatively. "by all means" she said, "but the injection is going in your bum". My next line would have been "but my bum isn't hurting", but I sensed that her reply might have been "well it soon will be!". She sent me on my way with a prescription for some strong pills to try to knock it on the head before travelling the next day.



Round to the pharmacist to pick them up along with some precautionary penicillin prescribed by my dentist in case a recent tooth abscess of mine flared up whilst we are away.



Started the course of strong gout pills and sure enough after a while the pain was easing considerably. Phoned the doctor, as requested, this morning to report progress. "that Calvepen is working brilliantly" I said - "Good Lord" she said "do you realize you've been taking penicillin by mistake!". "Crikey" I said. "Well whatever it was the pain is gone now!" Ah the power of the placebo! (OK Brian and Kieran - penicillin can't strictly speaking be a placebo, but you know what I mean!) Thanks to the DENTIST we strutted (much relieved) through the airport and caught a plane to Budapest. Thanks to the DOCTOR, the special painkillers she had given me last week got me through the 3 hour flight with very little back pain.



Carole says she's fine :-)



We were picked up at Budapest airport at dusk by a fine looking courtesy bus from the Airport Hotel (see photo gallery). The hotel is a palatial edifice, with 24 hour restaurant, and only cost €75 for our well appointed double room



Tomorrow we go in search of a boat - or is it a ship?



Photo Gallery

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