8202/21121
I was going to try and see a doctor today, but in a typical piece of Richard Herring foolishness I rang the wrong practice. There are (I discover) two doctors on the same street in Hitchin and I just put in the road name, got the number and an automated message said they'd ring me back. An hour or so later they did, but couldn't find anyone with my date of birth on their system and then mentioned the name of the other practice, which I recognised (now). The lady on the phone couldn't have been nicer for me wasting her time (but I felt like maybe she was just being so kind because she was dealing with such an old and confused man) and by the time I rang the right doctors they were, of course, not taking on any consultations today. I think maybe, from the outgoing message, that they were only taking medical emergencies at the moment anyway.
I suppose it's too much to hope that Labour might help sort out the NHS, when they mainly seem determined to make Reform members feel like things are going a bit too far. Starmer is going to keep out the immigrants, but also reduce the surplus population by making sure no one can get a doctor's appointment (though admittedly I can't blame Starmer for me ringing the wrong doctors, so am not yet a full on committed Starmer opponent. I still fucking hate him though).
I was well enough to go to play tennis at 1pm and I must be pretty fit as I played for about an hour in direct sunlight and it was ridiculously hot. I was coughing for the first ten minutes but then the heat and exertion seemed to cure my malady. Maybe ill people just need to get out and do exercise in a sauna to be cured. I never expected to win the Nobel Prize for Medicine (do they have one?), but I reckon I'm in with a shot.
It was a closer contest this time than it's been the last two times I've played this opponent, with a lot of games going to deuce, but I still took the loser down 6-1, 4-1 before our hour was up. I was very impressed that we played for an hour in these conditions though.
I then walked into town to do some shopping and then had to walk to the kids' school to pick them up. It was a lot of exertion and the school is 30 minutes walk from our house, so I got a huge amount of exercise in today. And that was before I had to play Phoebe at table tennis and walk the dog. At this point I was happy the NHS is so terrible, because I was ready to die.
