Wet and Miserable

Just when we thought the weather was going to improve, we wake up to rain lashing the windows and generally cold and miserable. Well, we're days away from April and Easter's almost upon us. It always seems to creep up on us seemingly from nowhere. I suppose because it's always a different Sunday every year, unlike Christmas, which is a fixed festival. The shops get filled up with fluffy bunnies, cute cuddly lambs, bright yellow chicks, chocolate eggs and bunches of daffodils, hot cross buns and all manner of indulgent cakes and chocolate delights.

Carol was due to run out of her sleeping tablets. Her prescription has only been for no more than three week's worth.  Why can't they allow her to have a larger quantity? We needed to get a repeat prescription done in time to be ready before the Bank Holiday (the surgery will be closed on Monday.) It was no use ringing to make a request, because you have to ring after 11 a.m. Then it can take at least 25 minutes to get through to a human to speak to. So we decided to drive to Beanhill and request the repeat. It's stressful enough having to deal with cancer without the added problems of dealing with Ashfield Medical Centre. These tablets are not officially on repeat (which seems crazy.) The doctor would have to clear the repeat and then have the prescription printed and then collected by Lloyd's pharmacy at Sainsbury's. It wouldn't be until at least Tuesday before the prescription was made up. I just don't know why the doctor at the hospital can't sign off the prescription, which would mean cutting out Ashfield altogether, since he is the one looking after Carol through the oncology department. Just another level of bureaucracy which no doubt adds to the expense of the N.H.S. It seems that Ashfield have to make as many problems than they solve, for no particular reason. Just bloody-mindedness to be honest. 

Anyway, having put in the prescription request we then drove to Waitrose. Anything to get away from the stress caused by this unnecessary problem. It was raining quite hard as we drove into the carpark. As you come down the slope from Chaffron Way you have to be extra careful because they've put bollards at the bottom. It would be quite easy to run into them if your weren't careful. As we were about to walk into the store with a trolley, Carol said she recognised the lady coming in behind us. She goes to Shenley Christian Fellowship and lives in Eaglestone and has visited on a couple of occasions. We then queued up in the café and ordered two lattes and some rather nice cakes which we had with butter. Carol went to sit down on one of the sofas and I waited for the coffees to be made. We sat down to begin drinking the lattes and eat the cakes when the lady we saw coming into the store queue at the counter and then she turned to face us and then came over to sit with us. She had come in on her bicycle and was in wet-weather wear. We had a long conversation and when we finished we did some shopping around the store.

On the walk back to the car Carol got in whilst I packed the shopping in the back. As I pushed the trolley back to the trolley park, a large Range Rover came along the road between the rows of car. I heard a lady shouting. She was pushing her trolley back to her car and was very nearly run  into by the Range Rover. If she hadn't called out there could have been a really nasty accident. It was patently clear that the driver of the Range Rover wasn't paying attention. Some people are in too much of a hurry to look what they're doing. No doubt the car was big and high off the ground and he couldn't see the lady with the shopping trolley. There seems too much of this sort of thing. I don't recall the driver even apologising to the poor lady. When we were in town yesterday we were going back up the escalator in Debenhams, on our way back to the carpark when a couple came up behind us and virtually pushed us out of the way, not bothered that we were in their way, no sort of apology. Just plain rudeness. There is certainly a great deal of this at the moment, particularly from car drivers who don't like the fact that you might be in their way. They want the road to themselves. They're not too keen to be held up, even for a few seconds, particularly at a roundabout or road junction. I'm constantly being cut up at roundabouts by other motorists. I think I've mentioned this before, people's manners are appalling. I'm not saying everyone I encounter. Generally most people are generous and respect others. It's just the very small minority of people who don't respect others who cause problems on the roads.

Well, the day may have begun wet and miserable, but the sun did come out eventually, late afternoon and it was almost like spring. Well, as it should be. We have daffodils appearing all over the city and along Chaffron Way, as we drove down towards Waitrose, we saw an amazing display of primroses, so, yes, spring would appear to be with us. Trees have begun to bud and the birds are busy building nests, or at least I imagine they are.