Citizen Science

3rd swim of the week, only 7 of us in the pool today and by the end I had the slow lane to myself.

Another beautiful morning but I had 4 hours of meetings facing me and prep time in advance to read the papers. Luckily for my sanity the 5 o'clock friends' call was called off.

Before I got stuck in to 'work' there was an empathetic call about flu jabs with a frustrated pharmacist at Boots Cameron Toll. Some Health Boards are sending out letters with appointments. Lothian are setting up drive through, walk through and community pharmacies to administer in Edinburgh. But their Comms are behind. Despite the NHS letter and practice websites saying all the info is available on the NHS website (digital poverty!!) it isn't. The walk through clinics info for some practices was added half way through the week and the pharmacy info still isn't there. The poor guy at Boots who is trying to get clarification from the NHS as folk are calling them says they've been told more info will be added next week. Despite not having any vaccines yet they are fully booked till end October. First rule of Comms, esp when you are asking people to use websites get all the info on the site before you tell people about it. I want to go to one site for mum and me which as we are different practices is a pharmacy. She can't walk to the end of W Princes St Gdns,her walk in site, and driving 2 drive in sites and sitting in queues is bio bad. So far there is no walk in site for my practice. My poor pharmacist thinks a simpler way would have been to have the letter ask everyone to make an appointment at their local pharmacy. This new scheme starts in 8 days and we still don't have the info and how would my 95 year old mother, with no internet access, have navigated this on her own esp as the messages on GP phones say don't call about flu vaccine. Rant over.

My meetings went relatively well though as usual Teams was a liability and then I had to move room in mid flow as the internet reception want good. It had been perfect for Zoom 15 mins earlier. And my hand function didn't work which is another problem with Teams. Grrr!

After all of that I identified my wasps for the Big Wasp Survey. This year you have to identify your own captures and they've been in the fridge all week. Citizen Science! Then had a walk to Margiotta for some unlovely food. Luckily the cat herding went well but me, I was exhausted. I think it's the swimming.

My baby is 33 today. We messaged but didn't speak. He doesn't like phone.