Boats in the Gloom

I don't often take one of my big cameras with me to work but today I thought I'd pop out in my lunch hour and see if I could grab a few shots. Fate had other plans for me and I spent my lunch hour writing referral letters and trying to phone a patient who had left a message for me to contact him.

The last time I received a message to phone this gentleman the conversation went as follows:

Me: Hello, is that Mr. L?
Him: Yes...who is it...what do you want?
Me: It's Mrs. G. here. You wanted me to phone you.
Him: No I didn't.
Me: Erm...I have a message asking me to ring you.
Him: Well I didn't ask them to give you that message.
Me: Erm...ok...perhaps it was about your referral to the eye department...<stoney silence>...erm...about you cataracts?
Him: No I don't think so.

And he put the phone down.

So today I could be forgiven for not pinning a great deal of hope to the phone call I was tasked to make.

His wife answered.

Me: Hello, could I speak to Mr. L. please. It's Mrs. G and I have a message to ring him.
Her: No, you can't.
Me: The message said to contact him between 12:00 and 1:00pm.
Her: He's not available.
Me: Ok I'll try again later.

Half an hour later a message is left at reception by an irritated Mr. L. who had been promised a phone call between 12:00pm and 1:00pm, which I had clearly failed to provide (even though I had).

I did eventually manage to track him down right at the end of the day. He then bent my ear for what seemed like "infinity plus 1 hours" (as H would say ;-) about being kept waiting for ages at the hospital, and they hadn't even even looked at his arm...or his wife's gall bladder. I sympathised and explained several hundred times that I had referred him for his cataracts and perhaps he might like to contact his GP about his arm and his wife's gall-bladder as I was pretty sure they were outside my own particular area of expertise. I did manage to get out of him that he was on the waiting list for his cataract...I think, but who knows... At one point I had visions of the rest of the staff turning up for work tomorrow to find me, phone still attached to my ear, eyes glazed over, with 'KILL ME...PLEASE' written across my forehead.

Anyway...no lunch-time photo, but a rather gloomy floaty boaty photo from the marina on the edge of the village, which I drive past on my way to work, and which in a flash of premonition about the day ahead, I had the presence of mind to pause and snap this morning.