Canon Camera Repaired

I had a letter in the post yesterday from Jessops informing me that my Canon digital camera was back from being repaired. We decided not to rush in and collect it yesterday, preferring to go in this morning. The weather was really cold and there was quite  frost, as well as fog. I don't like driving in fog. Just not nice. Carol is the same. She does most of the driving these days. We went up the A5 yesterday, to one of our favourite haunts, just beyond  Weedon, and called Heart of Shires. It must have been a farmyard in a former life, but is now a rather special shopping centre, with some rather pleasant little shops within it's perimeter, including clothes, toys, antiques and gifts of all sorts of descriptions as well as a restaurant, Darlington's, which I imagine must have been the farmhouse, when the site had an agricultural purpose. We had lattes and toasted tea cakes and spent a rather pleasant hour or so browsing the retail outlets. It was a cold day, but the sun was out. The A5 has several similar retail sites along it's route, another being just outside Towcester and yet another further down the A5, which we have visited several times. Also, a couple of garden centres which have a good selection of gardening items such as plants and flowers and from which we occasionally buy our Christmas trees over the past few years. You can drive along the A5 in preference to the M1, which is only a short distance away, but we prefer the A5 (or Watling Street) as the scenery through which it passes it far more interesting. For some reason motorways seem to be designed so you can't always admire the scenery they pass through, and you are expected to drive far too fast and other motorists (but not all) can be very aggressive and self-centred and not respect you. Not quite so bad driving along Watling Street. 

It was foggy as we drove into Milton Keynes centre this morning. We parked in Debenham's multi-storey carpark. We walked through the shopping centre and arrived near Middleton Hall and had coffee in Caffe Nero. As Carol is diabetic she has to have occasional snacks to prevent her blood sugar going too low. We went into Boots to try and get test strips for her blood sugar monitor, but they didn't have them in stock. Quite complicated as there are so many of these devices on the market and all having different systems that aren't interchangeable. By this time it was time to go to Jessops to collect the camera and took out an extended warranty on the Canon so that if it needs repairing over the next few years it will be repaired without need for further payment. Also, bought a spare battery which we put in the camera. Always quite handy to have two batteries when we go out for the day as one can be in the camera and the second one, if fully charged, is always there as back-up should the one in the camera use up it's charge. It only takes two hours to charge, unlike the more traditional rechargeable batteries the Fuji camera uses which take around eight hours for a full charge.

We got back to Debenhams and, as there was a sale on, Carol wanted to have a browse. She saw a rather nice coat and a dress in the Mantaray department downstairs which she bought, along with a lovely silver broach in the form of a dog which looks somewhat like Poppy. Once we'd finished in Debenhams we went back to the car and drove to Sainsbury's. The fog had got a good deal thicker when we drove out of the multi-storey car park and it was even colder and it was as well we weren't driving far.  On the television news we've been hearing of accidents in and around the area, particularly one involving a bus on the M40 near Oxford. A lot of these crashes are because people will simply not slow down in fog. They seem to think they're safe continuing to drive as if it's clear, bright sunshine, but then get caught out when they don't realise they can't see as clearly as they should and so run into vehicles ahead of them that are driving a good deal slower.  In Sainsbury's, whilst looking for a suitable joint of beef for Sunday's roast,  we couldn't see a suitable piece of a size big enough for just the two of us, so we decided to leave and go to Morrison's near the railway station and did our shop there. By the time we'd finished we were well and truly shopped out, having been out for around four hours.

Late Night Visit to Urgent Care Centre

I mentioned on an earlier post on here about how I attempted to get Carol a doctor's appointment and failed because after around two hours of trying to get through on the telephone because that is now the only method available to get seen by a doctor at our surgery. So she still hasn't got an appointment and her health has got worse over the weekend ( I shall not describe on here what it is that is causing her problems as it it somewhat personal and she wouldn't thank me for giving such information, if you will excuse me from doing so. This doesn't matter because I really want to write about the N.H.S.'s inability to make available access to their services by people who are in need of serious attention and the fact that Carol, as a teacher, is what you would describe as a 'Key Worker' along with such people as ambulance drivers, paramedics, doctors etc, who keep the country going and cannot make appointments during work hours, hanging on telephone lines attempting to make doctor's appointments by using such ludicrous systems as set up by out-of-touch bureaucrats who sit in offices and don't use such services themselves (or so it would appear.)

At around 3 0'clock on Sunday morning Carol was in real pain. She has been taking paracetamol without much success, so we decided it would be best to visit what is called the Urgent Care Centre at Milton Keynes Hospital, formerly known as the Walk-In Centre. It's for those who need medical attention but not serious enough to need to go to Accident and Emergency. I have used that service when I had my original heart attack and subsequent angina attacks which then lead to over-night stays in hospital. She rang the 111 phone number and gave details of her problem and was then told to go to the Urgent Care Centre where an appointment was booked for  3.50 a.m. We had to get dressed and I was half asleep, as you can imagine at such an early hour. The dogs must have wondered what on earth we were doing getting up in the middle of the night so they had to be put in the kitchen, much to their surprise as they usually spend the night with us in the bedroom. Spoilt doggies.

It was an easy drive to the hospital. We live directly behind Milton Keynes Hospital and we could have easily walked through to the Urgent Care Centre but we decided as it was so late and dark (and who knows who would be wandering around the streets at that time of night. Probably no safe unfortunately.) We got to the carpark and decided against payment. Sorry, we didn't have any cash and it seems unfair to expect you to pay when you visit any hospital department. Fortunately the reception had details of Carol's ailment on their computer but this didn't mean we were seen any faster. There was only one other person waiting so we couldn't see why we had to wait so long. Another hour or so before a nurse saw her and then another hour before a doctor saw her. Only two other people came in and sat in the waiting area. The two vending machines in the place were not working. Not very good considering you were likely to wait several hours to be seen and the place was really dirty with empty coffee cups, coke cans and crisp wrappers on the floor. Some people seem incapable of putting their rubbish in the bin provided. No magazines to read either or even a television on as you might expect. The plastic chairs you have to sit on are so designed to make the whole experience as uncomfortable and unpleasant as possible. Possibly an attempt to put off that element of the community who treat the N.H.S. and it's services with some sort of contempt and think they can get every single minor cut, broken finger nail, sniffle, sore ear, throat or big toe treated in such places and waste money and time doing so. I know I'm ranting a bit but such people don't need to clog up the system when they can deal with those minor ailments by going to a chemist and speaking to a pharmacist who will tell them to take aspirin or paracetamol or just go home and go to bed for a couple of days until they feel better or to just be more sensible and take evasive action so as not to cut their finger or stub their toe and thus allow more serious ailments of other people to be dealt with in a calm and sensible manner.

Anyway, we left after barely two hours and Carol was given a prescription for some medication as well as being told by the doctor who eventually saw her that he'd sent a letter or no doubt an email to our surgery to the effect that she needed an urgent appointment. So we drove home where I then made mugs of tea which we drank in bed and went back to sleep. So I imagine I'll be rung on Monday or probably Tuesday by the surgery in Beanhill to give Carol an appointment.

After our early-morning visit to Urgent Care, we didn't get up until quite late. It must have been at least 9.30. The sun was shining so it seemed in order to get out so we drove up the A5 past Weedon to visit the Heart of Shires shopping village, somewhere we've visited on quite a number of occasions. There are quite a few of these sort of places dotted along the A5 which we love to visit because the A5, Watling Street is a rather pleasant drive as an alternative to the M1 which is such a soulless drive and the service areas over-priced and very bland. This particular place has a wide range of really great shops, selling a range of products such as food and drink as well as antiques. We had a pleasant meal in Darlington's Tea Rooms where we both had ploughman's lunches which were better than the average you would get elsewhere with plenty on our plates and we also had coffee. Very efficient service and reasonably priced in very pleasant surroundings. It was a shame that the weather changed as we were in there and by the time we went back out to the car to return home it was getting very windy, the sky began to cloud over and it looked as if it was going to rain.

Spring-Like Weather

For the past couple of days we've been experiencing almost spring-like weather. Carol was on Half-Term Holiday last week. She had to make a doctor's appointment early last week. We didn't go to the surgery on the Monday because from experience we knew that it was likely to be busy, with a long queue outside (I was only the second person in the queue the week before at around 7.45 a.m. when I'd gone to make an appointment myself.) So we'd gone on the Tuesday. It turned out that she would have to have a blood test, so had to go back the next day, at around 9.20 for that. 

The weather was mixed. Some days it was bright and sunny, whilst others it rained. On the Thursday we went to the Heart of the Shires shopping village at Weedon, which is up the A5. We had gone to another a few months ago, on the major roundabout on the A5/A43, just beyond Towcester, called Bell Plantation Garden. We'd had a nice meal in what's called the Plantation Cafe. But when we'd arrived this time we discovered that there was major roadworks on the roundabout. It looked as if they were widening the road and making the roundabout a good deal wider, putting in several new lanes for traffic. We have shopped in the Aldi branch which is nearby in the past. So we had travelled on until we came to the shopping village at Weedon. We'd discovered these places quite by chance as we've been up and down the A5 as it's a good deal less stressful than using the nearby M1 which is only a short distance away. There is so much more to see as you drive along the A5. There are several quite pleasant garden centres and shopping villages and you pass through a few really interesting villages and towns along the way, one being Towcester. Weedon is at the crossing-place of the A45 which goes on towards Birmingham, Warwick and Leamington Spa and is the way we drive whenever we go to Kenilworth Castle. The east direction heads towards Northampton and eventually Bedford. There are some really interesting shops and outlets at the shopping village, selling a range of items such as housewares, antiques, clothes and gardening items. We had a coffee in the cafe and then drove home slowly. Not an entirely over-exciting outing, but considering we hadn't been out all week it was quite a pleasant little outing. We did have a browse in the antiques centre but decided that most of what they had on offer was really over-priced. Our knowledge of antiques has been acquired as a result of watching such television programmes as Bargain Hunt, Flog It and Antiques Roadshow. I had never heard of Lalique, Famille Rose, or many of the more famous makers until I'd watched these shows.

On Saturday we decided that the dogs needed a well-earned outing, and wanted to take them for a walk. As mentioned in earlier posts, it's quite a military operation as you have to be properly organised for these outings as Alfie, our Yorkshire terrier gets very wound up when he knows we're going out. Fortunately this time he didn't get quite so stressed out, but I had to put the cage into the back of the car without him seeing we doing it. It started out quite fine and sunny, but it began to cloud over as we drove up the A5 as we were going to Salcey Forest, somewhere we haven't visited in quite a while. It turned out that there was building work going at the carpark. It looks as if they are building a new visitor centre. The cafe which is there currently is only wooden, a sort of temporary construction. Also, it was extremely muddy as we walked along the paths, which didn't bother either dog, but when they jumped up on us we became extremely covered in mud. Not a real problem because our clothes could be washed easily in the washing machine later. But, again, it was a nice outing. No sooner had we got back home than the rain began so it was as well we went out when we did and had made the best of the day.