Eeeeh, but it’s been parky here! We experienced the ‘dump’ of snow that the UK had and woke to this on Saturday morning
It’s very pretty but we were very pleased to have done our shopping on Friday so we didn’t feel the need to venture out. Unfortunately for Jon, a restful weekend turned into a rather painful one with a recurrence of his gout so this morning we rose early (for us) and once the car was defrosted I drove him up the hill to Big Village to see the doctor.
Our own GP sadly died in September and while his replacement is presumably training or doing some other important stuff, we have another replacement. The Replacement’s Replacement isn’t able to work at our surgery full time, so we were very pleased to discover that this is one of the alternative weeks that the surgery is actually open between now and the New Year when the Proper Replacement takes up his post.
Back in the ‘good old days’ when I attended our GP just off Balham High Road, we used to take our sniffles, aches and pains along to the surgery and sit and wait our turn. We were always seen at some point, he always had time for everyone and if we had to wait a while to get in through the double white doors to his inner sanctum, then so be it. (Or am I wearing the rose coloured specs here? I don’t think so.)
Our current GP practice is the same so you have to arrive fairly early. Allowing for the fact that it took rather longer to chip the iced coating from the car than we had anticipated, we still thought we had arrived at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately it was already standing room early which made for a rather cosy warm atmosphere.
There are 8 seats in the waiting room and there were at one point an additional 7 people standing. When we arrived we greeted everyone with a muttered ‘Bonjour, Monsieur-Dame’ as is the tradition and carefully clocked all the faces already in place so that we knew when it was our turn. The Replacement’s Replacement was very popular this morning, and it seemed that half of Big Village and the surrounding satellite villages had fallen ill over the weekend. Or were they just there because it was nice and warm – probably warmer than most of our houses!
During the morning other people approached the waiting room door, popped their heads in and muttered ‘Bonjour Monsieur-Dame…. Oh…. Au revoir, Monsieur-Dame’ and scurried off to nurture their germs a few more hours and take their chances at this evening’s surgery instead. Every one that left caused great hilarity in the waiting room. ‘Hou la-la! They can’t be very ill, can then? Not like us?’
The next lady going in to consult the Replacement’s Replacement was urged to ‘Talk very quickly, will you or we’ll be here until mid-afternoon!’. Then the general chat turned to whether we were going to get our lunches today or not.
‘Beh, oui’ muttered one gentleman. ‘It’s only soup, comme d’habitude! It’ll only take a few minutes to warm it through, I made it yesterday.’
Sometimes we get the feeling that everyone knows everyone else, apart from us. Old Gentleman No. 1 was asking Old Gentleman No. 2 what was new in his village which resulted in a 30 minute long discussion about who was married to who (or, well, maybe they aren’t married but that’s just a sign of the times and who really cares nowadays), and wasn’t that lady who just popped her head through the door the daughter of old What’s-Her-Name from that big chateau? ‘No, surely not, that was the niece of What’s-His-Face from the garage – which reminds me, did you hear the story of how That Old Boy lost his arm? Well, let me tell you…… ‘
And he did.
‘But that wasn’t all – Lo and behold, six months later, exactly the same thing happened to The Other Old Boy in the next village! Lost his arm! How about that? Six months apart too. Of course, that was when I was young’.
‘How old are you then?’
‘I’m 82 now. Those accidents must have been, oh, let me think. Eighteen or twenty years ago, I think’.
OK, so if he was young 18 years ago, I must still be in nappies! It’s quite a struggle keeping up with these stories in the local accent but I kept up quite well, even if I did lose who was related to who.
Finally, after a wait of two hours, we got through the door to see the Replacement’s Replacement. She was very pleasant and only too pleased to prescribe some of the medication Jon had previously for his gout. But. There’s always a ‘But’. ‘Please take this paper to the laboratory in a month to have a blood test so that we can put you on some other drugs to stop any further recurrence of the gout problem.’
Of course, by the time we left the surgery the pharmacy was already closed for lunch, so after our three and a half hour doctor’s visit this morning I had to go out again to collect the prescription. I just hope they work because next week there’ll be no doctor to see and no gossip to catch up on!
La Vie En Rose 