I'm writing this sitting in my car waiting for a friend of mine to come out of A and E at Covilha hospital.
She'd somehow managed to fall off her motorbike and thinks she's broken her finger, maybe fractured her wrist along with a few other minor scrapes.
It's kind of a reminder about how relatively isolated we are out here - she stacked her bike right outside her land, literally a five minute walk down the road, managed to get it out of the ditch and back there with help from another friend and then called me to drive her to the hospital.
The problem is I don't get a reception on my land where I was at the time and didn't pick up the call until 2.5 hours after she sent it (when I hit reception I had five missed calls!).
I guess the injuries aren't life threatening, but I don't imagine it was pleasant sitting around in pain for 2.5 hours either, and then it's a 30 minute drive to the nearest A and E department as the local one doesn't have such a thing!
I'm not sure how long she's going to take to get her finger and wrist sorted, the car park is pretty empty and I know the Portugues health service is pretty efficient, and i'm quite happy sitting in my car hot-spotted doing what I'd be doing this evening anyway!
And there's a few other people sitting around in cars waiting to pick people up too, enjoying that weird kind of solidarity-in-other-people-suffering kind of way!
I've just got to remember NOT to have a life threatening accident, I'd probably have just as much trouble sourcing someone to take me to A and E and I don't think the 30 minute drive would help my survival chances either!
It's just a shame I don't have a means to chill the beers in the back of car for when we get home!