There will be tears before bedtime

It started out as one of those soft mornings.  I'm sure you know the sort - when the air feels damp but it's not raining.  Some people think of them as Irish mornings, I believe.  They always put me in mind of the Lake District during my first visit to that beautiful corner of England way up north.  That visit was a month of alternating torture and exhilaration.  The Outward Bound course I had been sent on by the bank I worked for was a sort of down-market commando course involving circuit training (the torture) with press-ups, pull-ups and other similar, unnatural activities.  We looked longingly at the hills the other side of Ullswater and were eventually deemed fit enough and sufficiently well instructed in map reading and sundry other manly things to be allowed onto the fells on our own.

Many of those mornings were soft with a special softness - and smell - that the Lake District seems to make its own.

Then, just as I started typing this, the rain pelted down.  But now the sun is shining!

Looking back, it seems almost impossible that so much of the country was under water at the beginning of the year.  We have had a drier than average summer, and England has seen only about 15% of the average rainfall for the month during September.  Maybe the lack of rain is the cause of our raspberries being so small this year.

I was in the doctor's surgery yesterday with an appointment with a doctor I had never seen before.  Actually, the appointment was in the name of the Old Bat as the hospital had told her to get some special "build you up" yoghurt from her GP.  It beats me why the hospital could not have sent her home with some - as the doctor had promised - just as they did with the antibiotic.  But anyway, there I was when a dishy young thing appeared and called out the OB's name.  She looked rather startled when I stood up and approached her but I soon recovered my poise and explained.

But what I intended to write about when I started off was the note I had been given by the receptionist.  This advised that, in common with other surgeries in Brighton,our doctors are to conduct an experiment for six months.  When we telephone to make an appointment, we will be given a time at which, within an hour, a doctor will telephone to conduct an examination - over the phone!  If the doctor then wishes to see the patient, an appointment will be made.

I'm not exactly a died-in-the-wool, not-approving-of-change type generally, but I don't see this as making an improvement.  But I suppose I will have no choice but to go along with it for a while.