Waiting For The Doctor

No, nothing to do with Doctor Who, not waiting for the Time Lord to turn up. Far more prosaic. Perhaps if The Doctor was involved, perhaps he could send in the Daleks or the Cybermen to hurry things along. Go backward or forward in time in the Tardis to sort things out. To what do I refer? Well, Carol needs a doctor's appointment at Ashfield Medical Centre. We thought we'd try and get an appointment by telephoning the surgery at 8 o'clock. Any thoughts of actually getting through were thwarted. The lines were obviously not open as all we got was a 'burr, burr' sound. After about 25 minutes of attempts I drove to the surgery. One other person waiting. Nobody else. No staff immediately in attendance, they were in another room, chatting. I moved towards the desk and a staff member appeared. I managed to get a 'ring-back,' meaning that our doctor would call at some time during the morning to discuss what the issue was before deciding if an actual face-to-face appointment was necessary. Getting to the surgery is made worse at 8-9 o'clock in the morning because the traffic is heavy through the Standing Way roundabout. As I came out of Eaglestone into Saxon Street I noticed there was heavy traffic outside the Academy. Parents leaving their children. But they're not supposed to park in the road directly outside the school. They are supposed to use the carpark at the rear of the school (where the old school used to be, which Milton Keynes Academy replaced.) There's a perfectly adequate amount of parking there, but people seem to refuse to do what is far safer. They've already put yellow lines outside the Academy and it's clear that it's not a parking area. Some parents even park half on and off the road, onto the grass, which is simply not safe. I just think it's very selfish and goodness knows what would happen if there was an emergency, such as a fire, or if an ambulance was needed for whatever reason. They would never get into the school grounds with so many vehicles in the way.

We did eventually get a call from Ashfield Medical Centre, at gone Midday. Carol had an appointment booked with one of the practice nurses at 5.