The cave

I went back to work today. I still have a cough, but am otherwise pretty ok. Worked at the town surgery in the afternoon. My client stood me up for the third time. Ah well, obviously the health service does not do enough for her. 

Hit my stride about 5pm. Realized I had my travel vaccinations for India at 5.40. Took my laptop back to the mother ship, then walked to my own surgery, to the third floor waiting room, which had the air of the Marie Celeste. Their clinical rooms are larger than ours, but I think I'd be spooked to work in such an empty place (the building used to be a Woolworths store). 

Had DPT, Tetanus, Hep A, and MMR for good measure. Have to have another MMR in a months' time. I don't think I had it as a teenager in Scotland, because my mother was against that sort of combivax. I certainly wouldn't have had it as a baby. 

Anyway, I won't be able to lift either arm tomorrow, but I'd just as soon not get sick. My grandmother was once bitten by a rabid dog in India, and had to have daily injections in her stomach for ten days. 

As I walked home, I noticed that Stroud's Christmas lights are up already. So soon! Nothing for me beats Dublin at Christmas, and seeing Father Christmas in a department store (!), being given a green tissue-wrapped present containing a 'magic slate' and tiny jewelled beads on a string .

But this is 2023, and I am not three years old. I have always loved the displays in the upmarket shop, Cornflower and Calico. Their lighting only serves to enhance the sense of being poised, enthralled, at the entrance to a cave.