Oct. 18/44

Dear Mom

Well once again I'm sitting back and taking life easy. Much to my great disappointment I won't be able to work again for quite a while. I was in Northallerton hospital for a week, just sitting around, while they took the odd x-ray of my knee. Then the Doc told me they would have to operate again and take a piece of flak out that was in the joint. There are two other pieces in there but have wedged themselves n the bone. I really blew my top at this but decided it would be better to have it done now than have it bother me when back in civvy street. The hairs were once again shaved off my leg and really dolled up nice for the big op. I crawled on to the operating table, given the anesthetic, woke up an hour later and found they hadn't done a thing. The Doc comes in and says they've decided to send me to a rehabilitation centre were they dish out physical training plus, and if my leg really starts to give some trouble, it will have to operated on.

Well I'm at this muscle-building school now and it's very comfortable indeed. It's a place called "Loughborough", in the midlands. We are billeted in what used to be a college in peace time. The only trouble is that there are only a few Canucks out of 160 so the "pip-pip old man" business is really thrown around. My roommate is an R.A.F. guy of about 45-the type who wants to stay in every night but very sociable just the same.

I'll give you an idea of what I do around here. Breakfast is at 08:30 and then from 09:30 till 11:00 I do leg exercises and P.T. in general, with a few breaks. Then at 11:00 I go for a swim which is very nice indeed. All this is in the gym of course. I do some more exercises from 2:00 till 3:00 and then ride around on a bike till 3:30. We have tea at 4:15 and then am off for the rest of the day. There are also different days when I can do link trainer, skeet shooting, revolver shooting and a few bursts with a machine gun which all appeal to me very much. There is an officers dance tonight but seeing as I only arrived last night will have to scrounge something in the way of a partner.

Love to all,
George