I was forced to take up temporary residence these past few days in hospital. In case you’re wondering, I wasn’t the patient, the Beautiful Dreamer, true to form, jumped off a pier in the Maldives into the water and broke her leg. No, it wasn’t a suicide attempt!

Everyone in the Emergency Room kept asking her, "Ah, a diving accident?" So we had to explain that the nutcase had actually deliberately jumped in. The mysterious reason being "to pose for a photo!"

So the doctor came and carefully studied the x-ray and asked us if he could do a cast straight away. After the procedure was complete, she drowsily asked the nurse if they were just starting! Her last memory was of the anaesthetist saying he was going to give her a gin and lime!

Since her leg was almost totally covered with this stiff plaster cast, she couldn’t wear her customary garb of shorts and tee shirt. The Dancing Doll and I decided to go back home and bring her some dresses, and she opened her eyes and groggily said, "I want some nice dresses, okay?"

So we adorned her in one of them. So sooner was she ready, when her glamorous cousin sashayed in, saying she had read the text message I sent her only a short while ago. She ruefully admitted that she was heavily hung over from the night before.

She had gone for the Hen Party of one of her friends. Just a handful of females had consumed about a dozen bottles of champagne! Wow! I was impressed. After a super dinner, they boarded a bus that had been hired for the occasion. The back of the bus sported a blown up picture of the intended bride, in a very relaxed mood! So they drove around generally having a hilarious time, and the various members of the armed forces manning the checkpoints were shocked out of their wits!

From there, they went to a nightclub, where luckily, her husband decided to join her. He had attended the Stag Party of the groom. He was after alcohol too, so she laughingly said they went home in a trishaw, handily parked right there. These young females nowadays, buses and trishaws, whatever next!

When they had been stopped at a checkpoint, she was holding her head in her hands and they had asked if she was ill. "No," replied her husband," She’s quite drunk, so I’m taking her home." They had looked pityingly at him. She warned us not to come near her with cigarettes etc. as her breath would ignite! She breezed off after that.

Hot on her heels entered B.D.’s "gang" of friends. They were very amused by what had happened and recalled the several times B.D. had literally fallen over her own feet, apparently once at the feet of the principal. Then they spied the Hello magazines brought along by the hung-over Glamourette, and started leafing through them, exclaiming, "Oooh! He’s hot!" and "Mmmm! Isn’t she sexy?"

B.D. kept interrupting them asking plaintively, "Did you come to see me or read my magazines?" and "Hallo! I’ve got a broken leg!" One of them is the Sri Lankan version of Paris Hilton. Her conversation is quite hilarious! I caught up with a lot of gossip by generally eavesdropping. A roomful of noisy, giggly females!

Then came D.D’s friends, and once again, we had to explain the action of the Family Lunatic. One of them is an actual Genius and diffidently admitted to getting his examination results. He reluctantly revealed that he had got First Classes in all his modules.

The next to come was my good friends, one bearing a "proper" sponge to "sponge this child with instead of one suitable to wash a car!" Her son, the young doctor asked the standard questions, and if she had fallen off the pier. Hearing the truth, he gravely said, "Ah! A deliberate accident!"

Next on the scene swept my theatrical Big Sis, dramatically flourishing a large box of glittery bon-bons, and insisted they immediately pull them apart, and read the jokes and riddles concealed inside. B.D. was adorned with a crown from one of them. She had also brought along a range of beauty products for B.D., so she could literally have a private spa in her room.

Loads of goodies have been consumed, and a lot of cookery programmes have been watched, since there were a limited number of channels available. Well, my life is most certainly never dull!

— Honky Tonk Woman