Healthy attitude

I have gone off the NHS.

They keep ringing me up to deal with the mess they have made of Oliver’s bat-flu records.

Once I answer the phone they refuse to talk to me because Oliver is sixteen so they need to talk to him. I explain that he is not in, because obviously he never is, and offer to give them his phone number. They explain that they can’t accept this from me in case it is a fib and somebody else answers who is merely pretending to be Oliver, and will regretfully be obliged to call him again on my telephone number.

I explain that I in any case we think we have sorted the problem out and so they don’t need to call again, and they explain that unless Oliver tells them this in person, his very own self, they won’t believe it.

I start getting shirty with them and tell them that nobody said any of this when I first called them with the query and they start getting snooty and telling me that they intend to carry on telephoning me until they can speak to Oliver. I tell them they are a waste of taxpayers’ money and they tell me that they are performing a vital public service, and one or other of us hangs up.

We have had this conversation three times now.

No wonder the country is on its knees.

Just to add to my frustrations, we have had a threatening letter from our GP. This tells us that when Mark went for his recent blood test, his blood sugar level was slightly raised, and although it is of no cause for concern, it means that one day he might conceivably get Type Two Diabetes. Hence the GP’s surgery Strongly Recommends that he attends a course about Healthy Living.

GP surgeries get paid bonuses for these. They are not running them out of a spirit of generosity and good health. They are paid by the head count of people they can shoehorn into the surgery to be instructed not to consume fizzy drinks, the sort of NHS equivalent of a Speed Awareness course.

We don’t consume fizzy drinks anyway, except Prosecco when we are feeling flush.

On this occasion, they assure us, they will not refuse to treat Mark in the future if he does not attend, but they want us to realise that it is Very Important, and that his fragile wellbeing might depend upon it.

We were in agreement that they could get lost, and put the letter in the bin.

Mark confessed that the blood test, which the GP had rearranged to a time and place more convenient to themselves, had taken place at lunchtime. He had been driving over there when he realised he had forgotten to have breakfast and was absolutely starving, at which moment he had eaten half a pound of fudge to stave off malnutrition.

I thought it was a miracle that there had been any blood in the sugar at all. The home-made fudge is solidly sweet, and we generally save it for very late night desperate sleepy emergencies whilst we are driving taxis.

Neither of us is going to go on a Healthy Living course to be preached at by either the GP or a practice nurse, both of whom are considerably more portly than we are.

Hurrah for the NHS.

On a more cheerful note, some nice things have been happening. Mark brought me some lilies home that he has grown at the farm. There are not many because the sheep broke in and ate the others. Lilies are not good for dogs, I jolly well hope they have the same effect on the sheep, because the surviving ones are utterly gorgeous, quite the biggest and most vivid I have ever seen. They are so creamy coloured that they are yellow in the centres, and I like them very much.

Even better than that, I have a new jersey, which arrived yesterday afternoon, as a late birthday present.

It is possibly one of the loveliest jerseys I have ever owned, because it has been hand-knitted for me in beautiful soft merino wool, by Mrs. Number Two Daughter. It is a splendid maroon colour, with a big letter S in the middle of it, to remind me who I am when I start to become senile, and I like it so much that I can’t bear to wear it for work. It is going to be worn for smarter occasions, if ever I have one. If ever I get presented to the Queen you can look out for it.

Even in the Lake District it is not cold enough for thick woolly jerseys in almost-August.

Another couple of weeks.