The weather has been rather wet lately, and rather than risk slipping on the wet leaves along the road I've stayed indoors, but this afternoon it brightened up so I went into Summertown, mainly to have a cup of tea in my usual café and watch the world go by. I remember when I was a child I used to like kicking the autumn leaves along the road, it's only in my old age - and a pedestrian - they have become a hazard that makes me nervous.
I've plenty to keep me occupied indoors, it seems almost every day I discover a second hand book on Amazon I decide I want, costing little more than the postage, and I now have quite a stack to get through. As I think I have already mentioned, at the moment they are mostly biographies of the late Princess of Wales. I think that reading several books about her has given me a more balanced view of what she was about, and I have softened in my hitherto rather low opinion of her, but I hasten to say that's a minority opinion, the British public generally idolised her. Also, she had an absolutely dreadful childhood, her mother walked out of the marital home when Diana was six, her father remarried someone Diana and her siblings hated, so I have more compassion for her than I ever did when she was alive.
I think Prince Phillip, Lord Mountbatten, or whoever thought it was a good idea for her to marry Prince Charles has a lot to answer for, they were completely, totally unsuited and I seem to remember thinking that at the time. In the interview they had on their engagement Prince Charles was famously asked if he was in love with her, to which he replied "yes, whatever 'in love' means" and apparently, understandably, that devastated her. And is often referred to even now. She should have bailed out there and then, but when she told her sisters she had misgivings they told her it was too late, she was on all the tea towels (and other souvenirs that are all part and parcel of a Royal Wedding).
But to get back to the car crash and the Alma tunnel - Henri Paul the driver, and Dodi Fayed were both dead when the emergency services arrived. A doctor who was in the tunnel at the time attended to her, and thought she had a chance of survival, although she was suffering a heart attack. The ambulances then crawled very slowly to the hospital so as not to risk destabilising her blood pressure further, which would prompt a second heart attack. I was somewhat surprised at that, because from where I live I hear ambulances screaming by all the time at a rate of knots.
I haven't seen Tim for a few days as he is in China and I've missed him dropping in, but I think he will be back later in the week.
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