Finding myself falling
asleep in front of the telly at ten o'clock last night I had an early night...
and was wide awake at twenty past two. Perhaps I should go back to the
hospital's sleep clinic? Mind you the last time I went they told me to keep
going with the CPAP machine and not to drink coffee before going to bed.
Perhaps enough people do drink coffee before bed so that telling them not to
gives the sleep clinic a reasonable success rate? To be honest apart from the
CPAP machine, when I saw the sleep specialist last time he didn't tell me
anything that my grandmother didn't fifty years ago.
I
dozed on and off for a bit, but eventually gave up, got up and did my usual
morning ritual. I really should chuck a bucket of bleach over where Morgan
tiddles; I have no sense of smell, but it might be getting a tad whiffy?
As
I scoffed toast I watched more "Downton Abbey". Lady Mary's
peccadilloes are history; Lady Sybil is causing consternation and the chauffer
has gone so far as to plight his troth. At Lady Sybil. The beast(!) Mind
you, I think she’s up for a portion…
I
picked up my sandwich box and made my way to my car. As I left the house I
dodged the wheelie-bin being carelessly flung in my direction by the bin-man.
He half grunted / half mumbled an apology. I made the observation that God
forbid they should put the bins so as not to deliberately block up the entire
pavement, and the chap had the good grace to look suitably embarrassed. Back in
the day the bin men would pick the dustbins from your garden, empty them into
the lorry and put them back where they found them. These days they won't touch
them unless they are out on the pavement (as they aren't insured to step
into your garden!), and having emptied most (but not all) of what's
in the bin into the lorry, they just randomly fling them somewhere out of their
way. I've whinged about this before; I've complained to the council before but
have been told that "we must all appease the contractor".
Being
up and about ridiculously early I thought I might take the opportunity to run a
little geo-errand. A couple of years ago I put out a series of geocaches in the
back of beyond. In their first few months they proved rather popular, but
within the first year pretty much everyone who was anyone in the geo-world had
been out and done them. Over the last few months it has become very clear that
they've run their course. Bearing in mind that the area is alive with pheasants
and so a pain to walk with dogs (Treacle ran off the last time I was there -
and that *never* happens!) maintenance is an issue for me, so I had good
reasons to archive the series, and none to keep it going.
A
fellow hunter of Tupperware walked the series yesterday and gathered up all the
film pots from under the rocks, and so with a little time on my hands I drove
out to where he'd stashed them all for me.
I
drove off northwards, but after fifty yards an alarm went off on the car's
dashboard. The boot was supposedly open. I stopped the car, opened and closed
the boot, and the alarm shut up. What was that all about?
As
I drove there was a lot of talk on the radio about the missing woman Nicola Bulley. The local police have
come in for a lot of stick for releasing details about her struggles with
alcohol and the menopause. Her family have asked for an end to speculation in
the media about her. Whilst I sympathise for the family, I can't help but
wonder just what it is about this case that has caught the public's interest.
After all, on average each year over five thousand people in the UK have been
reported as having been missing for over a year.
Where
do these people all go? And why is there no public outcry about them?
There
was also an interview with the head honcho of Britain's radiologists on radio.
He (again) made the observation that the current NHS strikes aren't just
to feather the nest of those in the NHS; they are to try to make the NHS a more
attractive place to work. Yesterday there was an interview with the manager of
a GP practice who pointed out that you can't force anyone to be a health care
professional. He was saying that they have had no applicants for advertised jobs at
all, and wondered what you do when there is a clear and present need for a job
that no one is willing to do. He actually said on live radio that perhaps the
only way to recruit a GP was to kidnap one from elsewhere. It might well come
to that. All the time you earn (on average) nine hundred quid a
year more from being a dustman than you do from being a nurse, who's going to
want to go into healthcare?
I
collected my geocaches from where they had been stashed; I drove on to work.
Work was much the same as ever. As I worked I had an email from the bosses. Have a look at this.
I
try not to talk too much about work, but I will make the observation that I
work in the fifth best NHS Trust out of one hundred and twenty. I'll also make
the observation that where I used to work was once rated the best but is now in
position seventy-five.
And
then my phone beeped to tell me it was going to update my watch's software. I
wish it wouldn't do that sort of thing, but by the time I'd found out it was
already on the case. It has been my experience that any kind of IT upgrade
actually renders that which is being upgraded less able to do the job it is
intended to do. After an age my watch told me it had been updated. Apart from the
battery power level being a lot lower than it was I can't really see much
difference. So far...
“er
indoors TM” boiled up fish and chips which we scoffed whilst watching
the first episode of the new season of “Star Trek: Picard”. It reminded
me very much of a predecessor series “Star Trek: Enterprise” in that
once the show’s cancellation was announced it suddenly started getting rather
good.
Oh - and today is the second anniversary of my
mum’s passing… It rather preyed on my mind today…
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