Rough seas were promised!

Even on the south coast, the weatherman said.  But this wasn't rough - it just looks dramatic because the wind was blowing back the wave tops.  It was very cold and windy.  I wouldn't normally have gone to the beach today BUT ........

............... When I first lived here the town had FIVE separate GP surgeries.  Then the Govt allowed (or forced?) GP surgeries to operate as businesses and one of them went bankrupt.  Due to, I think, some of the best doctors being promoted to Managers, and their business skills didn't match their medical skills.  Stupid idea!  Like excellent class teachers in schools being promoted to Headteacher and finding they are pushing paper and managing budgets and never getting near the children, which is what they were best at.

Anyway, one GP surgery 'took over' the failed practice.  It seemed to like doing that and gradually amalgamated all the surgeries in town, and is now St Austell Healthcare. They had 35 thousand patients and an automated phone queue - one phone number for everything. 'You are 17th in the queue'.

More recently, another practice out at Mevagissey decided it must close.  St Austell Healthcare decided to take over that one too!  So now there are a total of 42 thousand patients and not enough doctors.  (And there are THREE new housing estates in and around St Austell  currently being built and occupied).  I needed an appointment to review an X-ray and make a diagnosis,  I was told the only appointment available in the next 10 days was at Mevagissey, with a doctor I had never met.  (My own doctor was running the amalgamated practices because he was an excellent doctor and seemed to be a good manager as well. He then went off sick and has retired, though is under 50.  It was too much for him.  What a waste).

So today I drove the 9 miles to Mevagissey and had to pay to park too!  I saw the doctor and then decided to make the trip more worthwhile by stopping off at the beach, which is on the road to Mevagissey. I got really cold but I'm glad I went today - that road has lots of trees each side of it.  Today workmen were chopping off lots of branches that usually overhang the road - being proactive ahead of tomorrow's promised high winds!