Wonderful NHS - a rant - sorry, a book!

Head was reeling a bit this morning! Last night's port clearly stil swirling around the brain cavity - unusual for me! This was a most unwelcome condition as I had to be up uncustomarily early for one of my more increasingly regular check-ups at the hospital. A new hospital at that, to me anyway.

Usual pattern. When you set out in plenty of time, there's no traffic on the road and you fly through, arriving much earlier than you would hope - if only because you'd prefer to spend time in your own company and Chris Moyles within the confines of your own car, than share your personal space in a clinic waiting area, on those horrendous faux leather padded bucket seats, with the sweet but unfortunate hypochondriac loner who insists on providing a step by step blow on her medullary carcinoma and prognosis for life expectancy. And why is it I always get the one that smells of wee? Harsh I know, but I seem to attract them when really I just want to be seen and be home.

Anyhow, the car park is full! Cars crawling around in circles...waiting to pounce like some wildcat into the next potentially available parking space which turns out to be just Albert popping back to the car because "Gladys forgot her Sainsbury's bag and her nightie is in it.." mouths Albert to the expectant wildcat, who pulls over, winds down the window and shouts "Thanks, I'll make room for you.", presumably believing Albert had just mouthed "I'm just leaving.". Now he's holding up all the wildcats and Albert just walks off.

It's early morning. No-one is leaving this car park anytime soon! Near 25 mins just to park up, a snip at £1.80 an hour. The queue at reception is naturally around the corner. So now all of a sudden, we're late! You make those gestures of sneaking a peek at your imaginary watch in the vain hope that all 30 people in the queue see it, turn simultaneously and offer their place so that you're not late for your appointment, because of course, they're all early! Then you notice over half of them doing the same.

I'm actually only 5 minutes late as it turns out despite arriving over 30 minutes before my due time, a crime punishable by solitary confinement, the cold shoulder and demotion down the list of people who take their visit seriously!. Surely I can't be the ONLY person that was 5 minutes late. I count at least 15 people enter the hutch that is the consulting room of Dr WhosnameIcannotpronounce from India, all of whom arrived after me, so I wait.

Only 1 minute before I hear my name called, my blip for today is the corridor you see leading to my den of confinement (which clearly demonstrates how manically busy they were) and the very moment i realised that today, I was that loner and that this had to be my blip rather than the plan I had of popping down to the River Thames. [God I hope I don't smell of wee!?]

My wife's a nurse, so I do love the NHS...really I do.

PS - for anyone interested - what was started last night was finished last night....hence the head!