The old explorer is returning to the land of the lucid

‘There is a giant python slithering across the foot of my hospital bed. It’s at least eight feet long and it’s looking right at me.’ My father, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, is recovering from Covid-19 at Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital so it’s highly unlikely that there are any giant reptiles in his acute ward. He’s been there for over six weeks now and has been conscious for the last two and able to speak with his family on video calls.

At first, this was just the occasional rasped sentence as he struggled to push words out through his tracheotomy and the nurses held the telephone for him, but we have watched with joy and relief as he has gained in strength with every day that passes. Now he is almost in full control of his body and mind. The tracheotomy has gone, he can call us rather than us having to call the nurses station and he’s back to his old verbosity where it’s hard to get a word in edgeways.