On My Bike

It was the perfect weather to cycle to work this morning as it was a little cooler and the wind had dropped.  I left later than planned though so I didn't have much time to stop to take photos, but I couldn't resist stopping at the marina because the reflections were great.  I always love seeing the properties there with the boats moored up outside.

When I got to work, I locked my bike up and as I was about to go into work a taxi turned up and a young girl got out.  She was looking at the building, but looked a little confused so I asked if she was ok.  She asked if it was the doctor's and I said yes so she went in ahead of me.  What I didn't realise was that Steve (the GP) wasn't due in until this afternoon and it turned out she was a Belgian student staying here with a language school.  The school had given her our details but not bothered to contact us to make an appointment and she burst into tears when we said there wasn't anyone here that could see her.  My colleague Joan who was on reception telephoned the language school who were completely useless and she couldn't speak to anyone English.  Xena (the young girl) was extremely upset and on talking to us said that she'd paid £3,500 to come here to study English, she'd had three host families - the first was Arabic and didn't speak English, the second were never at home and the third were Indian, also not speaking great English.  She's now living in the language school residence and last week was robbed of £500 from her room.  She said the school have CCTV cameras but won't allow her to see the footage which all sounds rather strange.

She returns to Belgium on 14th July and just wants to go home.  I felt so sorry for her that I gave her my phone number and offered to have her to stay, but she said she's ok and will stay where she is, but I said that if things get worse, she should call me - I doubt she will, but at least she has my number.  

I met Elif with Luca and Galia at lunch time - poor Elif is struggling at the moment as she's just been back to Turkey for the first time since her dad died and it's all more real now :-(

I really enjoyed my cycle home and tonight Alan's been to his shooting club and Chrissy came round and brought her swimming costume so she could go in the hot tub  We've had a really lovely night and actually spent two hours in the hot tub, chatting with a glass of wine.  We didn't have the bubbles on for the full two hours but it was nice and warm and very relaxing.  We then got changed and had a drink in the Palace before Alan got home and Chrissy's husband Stephen came to pick her up.