I was planning to go full hedgehog and hibernate this January, but the jet stream – the high winds about five miles up – has been moving at full throttle to drive intense lows that have caused three successive storms to blast in from the ocean. Storms Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra have wreaked havoc on land fall and brought biblical level rains riding in on gale force winds. It’s very scary as the rain driven horizontal by the winds pound the rattling windows. All you can think about is will they hold?

But, as ever, the calm returns so the clear up can begin.

And then what? Sea foam, loads of it, and surfers, yes surfers in that icy cold sea. We need to add an extra line to the old song ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun…’

The poor seaside garden has been well watered and salt blasted. Lord knows how this delicate quince managed to hang on in the winds. But the hardy front terrace shrubs and agapanthuses took it all in their stride.

On my new book about medical politics and fraud, there is progress as the first five chapters are going in for a test read, edit and format. This will set up everything for a print-ready manuscript that the printers will need in due course. And June, the artist, is about to put brush to canvas to create the artwork for the book’s cover. 

And of Louisa’s Lament, a short article by a VIP will be published shortly in Guy’s Hospital Gazette to mark its 200^th anniversary. This tragic story is about to get some light shone on it to recognise the pioneering nurses who in 1880 stepped out of Florence Nightingale’s shadow to create one the finest Schools of Nursing now based at King’s College, London University. Hooray for the reforming but despised Matron Burt, and her acolytes: Miss Louisa Ingle, who got done in by the medics; Miss Margaret Lonsdale, who flamed the conflict with her combative style; and Miss Victoria Jones, who, with Matron Burt, picked up all the broken pieces and got Guy’s back on its feet after the Great Nursing Dispute.

Have a Happy Chinese New Year as we welcome the year of the Horse 18^th February, a most auspicious year, and please come back next month for more about the new book and its band of sociopaths who wreaked havoc in other people’s lives.