Monthly Archives: August 2006

For the last week I’ve been king of my own castle, with Fliss and Elisha up in Scotland visiting the relatives. Much like all the previous times I’ve been left to my own devices, I haven’t really taken advantage of it, save for a bit of a night out on Friday and a quiet day spent working on the new version of WipeoutZone on Monday.

What really irks me is that, as usual, I haven’t taken the chance to get some extra sleep. I think I managed to go to bed early for the first couple of nights, but since then I’ve found something to distract me until the midnight oil has been burning before I’ve hit the sack. That and the long day I spent on Monday working on WipeoutZone has left me just as jaded as ever.

Still, it’ll be nice to have them back with me later on this evening. Apparently Elisha is teething again, but even if she is a bit miserable it’ll be good to see her wee face around the house again. It’s been kind of cold at night this past week, too, so I’m looking forward to having Fliss back to snuggle up to during the night for some warmth.

Next time they go away I’ll really need to take advantage of the freedom. Oh, and cut the grass… and tidy the house properly… and do lots of other odds and ends that I probably should get round to while they’re away.

Next time. Promise.

A couple of weeks back I went to Broadgreen Hospital for the results of the MRI scan on my left knee. The appointment was at 8:30 on a Monday morning, which conjured up images of heavy rush hour traffic that would make the journey from my house to the hospital a bit of a grueling affair.

On the day it was a pretty straight forward trip. The traffic wasn’t bad, and I was in the area in good time. I asked someone in the car beside me for a pointer in the right direction at one junction, and pulled over for confirmation from a pedestrian when I was sure I was close by the hospital grounds. Finding my way to the main reception area for the Orthopaedic unit at just after 8:20, I discovered that there was no parking there and I had to double back to the main car park. Even though it was a good five minute walk from where my appointment was, I managed to get back and report myself to the desk staff with seconds to spare.

Before I could even say who I was, a very gruff middle aged man spat “take a seat” without even looking up at me. Slightly taken aback by his blunt approach, I went and took a seat near a table with some ragged looking newspapers and magazines on it. I chose a car mag from the selection and began flicking through, but it turned out that it was quite dated.

As I sat I overheard the gruff man dish out his instructions to each and every patient that arrived. I’ve always wondered why people that should clearly not be in public facing jobs end up being so. Like when I was a taxi driver, there were other drivers who just hated picking up passengers – that could have explained why they were so bloody miserable all the time.

Anyhow, I sat in the waiting room thumbing through my dated car magazine until captain gruff asked for people to come to the desk with their appointment detials. This created a queue of people who were either limping or on crutches, making said people stand and wait to be attended to by captain gruff. For fucks sake, this is an orthopaedic unit – it seemed pretty obvious to me that people were there because they have knee, hip, foot, or whatever problems that are causing them pain. So why scowl at them when they first arrive and tell them to take a seat, then make them stand waiting on you ten minutes later. Honestly, I have a lot of patience for the NHS because it’s never let me down when I’ve needed treatment, but this kind of shit is why it gets a bad name. I hope captain gruff ends up on the other side of the counter one day, because he was a genuine asshole.