Gunnera

I have this in a pot in my garden. It looks good with the sun on it. The frost cuts it down in winter and then it struggles back to life in spring and summer. It needs a lot of water!

I mentioned that on Saturday I had a letter giving me a biopsy appointment, when my consultant told me I didn’t need one. Their phone lines are closed at weekends so I phoned them this morning. I was in a 25 minute queue. I explained the problem to them and they said they had no notes or information from the consultant who had said I didn’t need a biopsy. I suggested that they should talk to him. Unbelievably they said they couldn’t do that. They told me that I must contact my kidney consultant and ask him to talk to them!!! I said it wasn’t possible to just talk to my kidney consultant and I thought they were better placed to do that than I was. They said they could put me through to the consultant’s secretary (why couldn’t they just phone the secretary themselves?) They put me through and I just got an answering machine saying I could leave a message and they would respond in 48 hours.

So then I phoned the ‘patient experience team’ - that’s ‘Complaints Department’ in disguise. They also had an answer machine! I left a message saying, among other things, that I had no confidence in this hospital! But, living in Cornwall I can’t vote with my feet because there’s no other hospital I can go to!

I’ve always felt pleased what despite mg age my hair hasn’t gone grey. Today I noticed that it suddenly looked grey! I can’t think why!