Greetings from Scotland.

We are here to try to put some logical order to my late parents-in-law’s house.

In the absence of adequate Wi-fi or Vodafone connectivity I’ll post this when I get back.

I cannot be arsed to explain the bladderations. . I’m pouring in everything I’ve got. I’ll ask Jerome when I return. Give him a break.

Before we left, Saintly GP even rang to let me know he’s going off on 2 weeks annual leave. ‘What did I need whilst he was away’? Wow. He took my list. Even the stuff the CCG , they who-know-better-than-my-consultants(?), have banned.

I wished him a great holiday. Poor doctors must need every break they can get. How the hell they cope I do not know. The managers telling them to go faster go quicker, get those patients out the door. Treat us like cattle . Woe betide you if your patient has more than one than one condition to talk about . AS IF. it’s getting ridiculous. I’m an expert now. I can operate my secret code for a longer GP appointment just to update my drugs. Yes I have different drugs for different conditions. Am I meant to make one appointment for each of …Kidney…Bladder…spine…let alone asthma, blood pressure, chest infection?

The online booking system specifically requests only one condition per appointment. In addition no double appointments. Failure to comply risks extermination. Bloody hell what sort of dystopian system have we built. Have you seen the horrific BBC Hospital documentary? Tuesdays I think. Cancelled operations. Wonderful staff. Poor elderly stuck with nowhere to be moved to….. But paper..paper everywhere never heard of technology? I guess the managers haven’t got a form for that.

NHS was great. It is now lumbering to a complete shut down. It’s broken. Please let’s rescue the health care professionals…they really are awesome . we must sort this out. ….the system is headed to an irreversible oblivion. Broken failed derailed. Post apocalyptic, I think, means a society being strictly controlled in the chaos of disaster. We need to have courage to fight this out. But I’m not sure where to start.

And I’m an expert. I know some tricks.

Blood test clinic this week….I got there before my dentist appointment. I got my ticket from the ‘My Turn’ dispenser….#89…the LED says they are on #22…got to dentist…wandered back….they’d got to #82….I waited only minutes . Grinning at the ever lengthy queue with no seats. I’m was in and out shook it all about in seconds. Incidentally dentist is rarely late. Different model . Managers?

Next day it was the eye clinic . Moorfields. The best. I arrived on time. I sat for hours . Observed my fellow customers peering through yellow tear drop eyes. Bloody tv was on. NO ONE can see it. We are all blinded. Every so often we shuffled from seat to scan to seat to field test to seat….eventually I fell asleep and joined all the other aged snorers! Hours later I was with a consultant. I’d never peered at this one before. He looked exhausted. He apologised for the wait. No problem (I lied), he was lovely. He explained.He showed me images. He looked into my head!.He gave the impression he had stacks of time he had energy and most of all empathy. How does he do that? I stumbled myopically back home.

Good job I don’t have full time work any more. How would I fit it in? I was asked this week if I plan my life around appointments and hospital stays. No I don’t. I plan my life on the assumption I will have no appointments no admissions. none. Nuffink. Maybe that’s weird maybe that’s denial but actually I just cannot do it any other way.

As for Scotland…

It’s actually sunny. Never been known here before.

As you know leaky bladder has opened up the possibilities for fantastic new adventures. Public swimming is awkward. Open air is fabulous discrete and injects an exhilarating measure of dopamine type stuff into the body. In a rush of enthusiasm and desperate attempt to get out of the asthma exacerbating house, Son#2 and I found a waterfall. We swam. FAST. We laughed. ALOT. Good job we’d watched the sea rescue film ‘Guardian’ the night before. 2.5 minutes for hypothermia we knew THAT

“I think I’ve developed ovaries” Son#2 yelled as he swam even faster !

Jerome always did say ‘I can’t cure you butI can make you laugh’. With any luck I can make others laugh. He’s gone very quiet, maybe he’s on holiday or just maybe he’s tearing his hair out….his clinics and form filling and managers and trainees and hoop jumping and brain freezing. Oh and errr patients buggering up the paper work.