We set the alarm for eight this morning in order that we could ring the doctor the very second that they opened, to make an appointment for Mark.
I rang them last week, but the first appointment that they had got was not until next Wednesday. This morning I insisted to the reluctant receptionist that we wanted an appointment immediately. She could not have been less enthusiastic if I had told her that he had got leprosy and was going to come and wait in her office.
In the end I told her that he had a pustulating rash, a fever and high blood pressure. I might have overdone it a bit, because in the end she became concerned that we might not be able to wait until half past ten for the first available emergency appointment, and started to wonder about ambulances.
I assured her that half past ten would be fine, and went back to bed. Unfortunately we forgot to set the alarm again, and when we woke up for a second time it was ten o’ clock. We had a bit of a rush then, not that it mattered, because when we got to the doctor’s we still had to hang about in the waiting room for half an hour.
Eventually the doctor, who turned out to be about fifteen, consented to see us, and we explained poor Mark’s weekend woes to her.
Our determined efforts with antiseptic and home made oils had improved things a bit, and he was no longer purple and swollen, but still quite bad enough for her to wonder why we had treated it ourselves instead of rushing into visit her earlier.
We were affronted, and explained that far from being hapless nature lovers with organic vegan holistic alternatives, their appointment system was bursting at the seams.
She prescribed antibiotics and a moisturiser, and told us to come back later for some blood tests.
We went home and had coffee, and then came back for the blood tests. We had to wait ages for those as well.
The whole thing took absolutely ages. Mark said that the GP service is designed to provide something to keep old age pensioners quietly busy for a couple of mornings a week, and to absolutely discourage anybody else from wanting to go anywhere near it unless they feel that their death is imminent if they don’t.
It wasn’t entirely wasted, as I did get a quiet half an hour in their waiting room to peruse a peculiar publication called Hello, which seemed to be made up entirely of pictures, mostly of people I didn’t know, who were getting married. I am not terribly interested in holiday snaps and wedding photographs of people who I do know. It was a pleasantly undemanding half an hour, but it did seem a very odd thing on which a person might spend £2.00.
When we got home Mark tried the moisturiser that the GP had prescribed. He decided that it was rubbish and he would stick with our own, but that it would come in very handily for constructing capacitors.
He took the antibiotics and we rushed off to the farm, which was what we really wanted to do. The antibiotics must have worked straight away, because after he had taken the second one he started to look quite a bit better, and to hum tunelessly whilst he worked again. I like it when he does this, because then I know that he is happy and absorbed, and he has not done it for quite a few days.
He carried on with building the dashboard whilst I painted, and we felt very happy with our world.
He took some photographs, but unfortunately accidentally dropped his phone in a bucket of water before we left, we found it floating forlornly on top of an oily rag.
The top one is one that I took, it is the new dashboard under construction, he is very clever, and probably not going to die after all now.
I am pleased about this.
I don’t think I could build the dashboard by myself.
There is a picture of it at the top.
