Well, I am back. Most of me, anyway.
Interesting experience though. The first shock was that the GP told me that he would refer me to an NHS hospital as it was an emergency. Straight away. I had visions of mrsa and a ward 1940s style. I was to be proven wrong though ...
After the usual wait of about 10 hours in the pre-op check area, where there were people who were rambling more then AW8, I was moved to the operating theatre where I got some free waxing and my right leg looks lovely and smooth now. Met some great people on the way (big hospital and everyone is talking to you) and one of the last discussions I had was for some reason about the Dutch football team during the world cup. Thought I would never come out of the operation at that stage
Operation over, hovered and dusted all the burst appendix away I had some free NHS wax work done on my arms where they removed the super glued tape where the intravenous drip was attached (had about 3 of those, I suppose they had to ensure that my huge brain was being nurtured). Anyway, my right arm now looks a bit like AW8 but at least I will recover from that
As I had a friendly one to one chat with the surgeon before I went in, he agreed to put me in the former bupa part of the hospital which was a world of difference to the ward I was on earlier. The staff, well, I can not praise them more over there. Without exception, they were all lovely. Some even spoke English I could understand, but joking apart - they were world class without a doubt. Food was excellent as well, no complains what so ever.
I declined pain killers as I was of course a real man, so that really impressed the nurse. Man oh man did I regret that when I got out of the bathroom. Fortunately, another nurse kindly presented me with some painkiller strong enough to kill an elephant and all was fine again. Actually, the pain was not all that bad as long as I did not move.
Whilst strolling around during the night (nothing else to do, no internet and no phone connection), I had a look at all the rubbish posted on the walls. Talk about a legacy of the former government. Who cares how many people fell over in the last month compared to the last 3 years, who cares about the number of minutes you had to wait for your medication after the promised time. What a load of time wasting there, hopefully that can all disappear again.
All in all, I have been impressed (not with the car parking charges - think it would have been cheaper to park the car on a yellow line and get a fine for that). It was an eye opening experience for me to deal with the NHS as the last hospital I saw was Mayday in Croydon on a visit, and that made me buy private insurance as it was truly like a second world war type place.
Well, as I have been sitting up now for 10 minutes and the matron (my wife) will be coming around shortly to check up on me to make sure that I am not working, I will sign off for a bit (effectively I only lost friday afternoon for work, so pretty good planning from my side
). Work tomorrow battle with Mrs PVR yet to commence ...
............look at it this way you may have suffered a little pain but at least you came out on top............unlike the dutch team.. 
(ok, that might be too much information 
)