Change For Change Sake

I've been to Bleak Hall Motors after 9 this morning (Thursday) to book the Renault Captur in to have it's annual MoT. I discovered that the current MoT runs out on 8th August, so it's as well I had thought to have it done. It's booked in to be done at 1p.m. on Monday. I just hope it doesn't need much doing to it to pass. I have a feeling that the brakes might need doing as last time it was MoT'd they said one was in need of replacing. The other thing I was told was that, because it's a diesel car, the timing belt will need replacing before December, another expense, but it has to be done. It has something to do with how the pistons are timed. It can't be left, but with my financial situation, it will have to be done in the next month after my pension has gone into my account. It will cost around £300 or so.

As I was driving along Standing Way, going to Bleak Hall and was turning right on the roundabout, a car very nearly hit me, speeding across without stopping. Another couple of feet and he would have hit me. No wonder my nerves are a wreck after driving. Stupid idiot, it's people like him who make the roads a battlefield and are responsible for high motor insurance premiums. I wouldn't be surprised if this youth, because I saw him as he sped by, doesn't have any insurance, so if he had hit me, goodness knows what would have happened. Scary.

From Bleak Hall I drove to Sainsbury's. I had to collect medications I only recently ordered over the phone, one of them being Diazepam. I was surprised that the Bisoprolol which had only been ordered a day or so ago was ready for collection. I have heard from the pharmacist at Lloyd's that the procedure for ordering will be changing in September. I won't be able to order as I currently do, by merely ringing Lloyd's and giving them the medications on my repeat list. They contact Ashfield Medical Centre to get the doctor to provide the prescription, which is signed and then emailed to the pharmacy. But from September I will have to order direct from Ashfield. I can set up an on-line account with the surgery and use that to order what I need to have on repeat. It worries me that this isn't going to work. I don't think I trust the system. I will be on edge that if I order that the surgery will get the order and then contact Lloyd's to make up the order. I feel sorry for the older patients who don't have access to the internet, let alone a computer, and wouldn't have any idea how to use one, so how are they expected to reorder their repeat medications? Does it mean they have to go to the surgery and make a paper order? Am I expected to do that? Why change a system which is working so well? It has been so easy, just to ring in my order, which I do when there are enough days for order to go through before my stock runs out. Some crazy pen-pusher somewhere, with no idea of the dress and upset this will cause seems they have to change things for change sake. If enough people were to complain I reckon it could be left alone. It's the people who waste such things as appointments, make them and never actually go to them, wasting N.H.S. resources in a really negative fashion.

Friday. Noon. It's a bright and sunny day. But the sun keeps going in and out. One minute, Bright, the next, it clouds over. Never mind. I'm actually bored silly. If Carol was here, we'd be going out and about, to Whipsnade, probably London, one of the National Trust properties, Wimpole Hall perhaps. But she's not, and my life's empty. I mustn't get myself upset, but it's days like these when the loneliness is the worst.

This morning I was planning to go to the Oaktree Centre to sample the food in the newly-opened café. One of Shenley Christian Fellowship members, Tim O'Brien is part of a musical group called Fadin' Shoes. It was he who drove me to the John Radcliffe Hospital to have my stent fitted. I drove out of Eaglestone at around 11.40 which would have given me plenty of time to get to Shenley, but, driving down Chaffron Way, the road ahead, at the roundabout where it intersects with Fulmer Street, there was a road sign in red stating quite clearly 'Road Closed, and a gang of workmen, presumably resurfacing the road. There was absolutely no advance warning as I drove along Chaffron Way, so this came as rather a shock, to say the least. I turned left and came to Standing Way and eventually got onto Watling Street and drove as far as Childs Way with the intention of hopefully getting into Chaffron Way further up towards Morrisons at Westcroft, but even that road was closed off at the roundabout at the intersection with Fulmer Street. So, not feeling very happy that my day had been ruined, I decided to head home along Fulmer Street and get home. Annoyed isn't the word, because I have wanted to listen go the music and have something to eat in the newly-opened café which has been a long time in the planning.