9 December 2024 (Monday) - Rainy Day

After a rather good night’s kip I opened my Lego Advent Calendar and pondered.
After I’d shaved I saw that everyone else had got up. I say “got up” – the dogs had gone from sleeping on the bed to sleeping on the sofa and dog beds.
 
I made toast and had my usual rummage round the Internet. It was the same as ever. Fewer and fewer people seem to be posting on social media (or if they are, I don’t see it), but one of the posts I saw made me think. There’s been an episode in America where the head honcho of a healthcare insurance scheme was recently killed. Healthcare in America is different to here in the UK. In the UK we have (for the most part) one organization which provides healthcare as is needed. That healthcare being given on the grounds of independently generated guidelines being applied to each case. In America it seems that healthcare is provided in the basis of how much money you’ve paid the insurance company, and the insurance companies are getting more and more picky about what they will pay for in order to maximise their profits. Not that they will pay out the full amount anyway. And healthcare ain’t cheap. I can remember thirty years ago my boss at the time priced up the cost of a standard treatment for anyone presenting with a particular form of blood cancer. Back then the treatment cost one hundred and ten thousand pounds. I can remember a friend spending a couple of weeks in an ITU bed and an American friend telling me that even with insurance, in the USA you’d have to sell your house to make up the money not covered by the insurance.
Healthcare ain’t cheap.
But so many Americans feel the state-provided healthcare offered by pretty much the rest of the world is fundamentally a bad thing. I wish I knew why.
 
I decided against going to the woods this morning. The weather was alternating between glorious sunshine ant torrential rain showers every fifteen minutes, and the dogs were asleep anyway. They seem to know when we are going out (when they get very over-excited) and when we aren’t (when they carry on sleeping).
Instead I drove up to the post office to post a couple of cards and to collect a parcel. Apparently Royal Mail had tried to deliver a parcel on Saturday; I only found out when I looked at my Amazon account and saw that it said “Held for pickup at carrier location”. The chap at the parcel office wasn’t impressed that I had no delivery slip. He didn’t actually call me a liar when I said that one hadn’t been left but wasn’t keen on typing the tracking number into his system. Particularly when on the second attempt he wondered if it might have been on the other system. It was on the second system after all. Sadly being on the second system meant that the parcel had just been chucked on a huge pile out the back of the sorting office on Saturday evening and the staff would deal with it when they has people in. Apparently this chap was working on his own.
I was told they will send me an email if and when they find it, but ironically the parcel arrived at home a couple of hours later.
I went on to Tesco where again there were dozens (if not hundreds) of people blundering around completely unaware that there were dozens (if not hundreds) of other people in the shop as well.
 
I’d arrived at Tesco in sunshine; I left in torrential rain. By the time I’d made us both a cuppa the sunshine was back again.
I did have plans to repair the poggered cupboard in the bedroom today, but “er indoors TM said that it wasn’t a job I could do on my own. I think that was more “not allowed to” rather than “not capable of”, but that left me at something of a loose end.
I wrote up some CPD then had a little look at my bank account. Every month I’ve been giving money to the Kent Wildlife Trust. I have no idea who or what they are, and I only set up the payments on account of the impressive chest being brandished by the young lady on their fundraising stall at the County show a few years ago.
In all honesty I’d rather give a bung to the goat sanctuary.
 
When at a loose end I usually spend my time watching telly. I started off with episodes of “Four in a Bed”. Today’s episodes followed the standard format of three rather good bed and breakfast establishments being criticized for every piddling detail by someone who considered themselves to be a “big businessman” who in fact was running a rather piss-poor dive.
I followed this with an episode of “Downton Abbey” in which it transpired that Lady Edith’s paramour has vanished leaving her tubbed, and once “er indoors TM had set off bowling I watched more of “The Empress”. She too was tubbed, but seemed more chuffed about it than Lady Edith was.
 
As I watched telly the torrential rain continually alternated with clear spells…
And the Normal People have arrived in my Lego Advent story

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