2007 — 26 September: cool and clear Wednesday, too

Time now (07:10) and the earliest daily radiation session of the whole course coming up — let's hope they've oiled the starter coil this morning and warmed up those high-energy electrons. They had indeed. It was straight in, and on to the couch. And out again. So quickly, in fact, that we caught the consultant on the hop and had to hang around a little — sadly, he has no shortage of patients to see, it seems.

Junior warned me last night that he's still under the weather, so we've suggested he'd better not visit this weekend, even though it will mean missing our 33rd wedding anniversary¹ this Friday. C'est la vie as they say across the water. That's what email is for, I guess.

Pro-active NHS

While we were out, one of the District Nurses rang just to check that everything was tickety-boo following the adventure of last week's new fitting (it is, thank you). And while we were munching on today's "Lamb Cobbler" (to be exact, somewhere between said cobbler and an apple pie) our GP rang for her weekly check on the state of things in the Mounce household (fine, thank you, but can I pester you for the next batch of repeat prescriptions please? No worries). For our next excitement, we have a visit later this afternoon from a member of the palliative care team who wants to assure herself (regularly) that pain is under control (it is, thank you).

If this is a broken Health Service, I'm not sure I could cope with a fully-functioning² one!

Now that all the business is concluded

There's time for a gentle toddle round the neighbourhood, admiring what looked remarkably like a cloud heavy with snow. Followed by a pear from our tree, and a spot of weed redeployment in the back garden. Click the pic:

Good grief! NPR is reminding me that John Coltrane died 40 years ago! By contrast, it's a mere 33 years since I bought my copy of EM Forster's A room with a view which is our choice of viewing (on DVD, of course) for tonight. Lovely performances, particularly from Denholm Elliott and Simon Callow. And now, just when I need some more sleep, I discover Stephen Fry's blog, dammit!

Footnotes

¹ A fact which reminded my sister-in-law in far off New Zealandland that her "baby girl" (that is, our niece #1) will therefore necessarily be 33 on this coming Sunday! (I assume "OMG" means oh my gawd, or some such phrase. Lis is a lot more adept at text speak than I am after raising four daughters [with, I assume, an equal number of mobile phones] — I host a somewhat related quotation here from Louann Brizendine.)
² I initially typed "filly-functioning". As all three are indeed members of what I generally like to think of as the fairer sex, my subconscious is obviously up to speed even though I could make good use of some sleep right now.