Ophthalmology

Monday 17 May 2021

I have an appointment in Ophthalmology, for which I have been waiting a couple of months.
On the bus, I am seated immediately to the rear of the area for push-chairs and wheelchairs. Dark-blonde twin girls, about six months old, are in a tandem-configuration push-chair, facing me. Their hair is only just long enough to be swept tightly upward into side-bunches. The twins are awake and alert throughout their journey, but they don’t make any sound; and although their mother (standing inboard of the push-chair) starts her journey by looking at her smartphone, she also doesn’t make any sound, and she doesn’t interact with the girls. Further forward in the same area, a black mother is standing; in her push-chair is a boy ten or twelve months old. “Stop touching things!” she tells him, calmly and patiently.
During the second half of my journey, a woman who sounds about sixty years old is seated behind me. She is telling another, younger, woman — I get the impression that they have not met for some while — about what former colleagues of theirs are now doing. Mandy would have been retiring next year anyway, says the first woman, but she’s taken early retirement. Another two women are “trying to get back into the NHS” — it is not clear in what rôle(s). The first woman gets off the bus a couple of stops before my destination.
It is busier and noisier in Ophthalmology than it was when I was last there.
Dr Fitzjohn, a young dark-haired doctor of medium height, examines me. He tells me that the IT system is being a pain today — and the problems continue while I am with him.
Dr Fitzjohn puts dilating eyedrops into both my eyes, after which I wait outside his room for the eyedrops to take effect. I briefly chat with an old woman seated on the other side of the corridor. (Her husband has wandered away for some reason.) She tells me that “I’ve been coming here since ’91”; she is eighty-six years old.
After having a word with the consultant, Dr Fitzjohn gives me a prescription for a course of eyedrops, and arranges further treatment for me.
Then I am examined by a sixtyish south-east Asian doctor. I’d give him 1 out of 10 for “bedside manner”.
During my time in Ophthalmology, no-one mentions vaccination.
On the bus back home, there are two young women sitting immediately behind me, both of them on the phone. The woman in the window-seat is conversing in Spanish, and the woman in the aisle-seat is conversing in what sounds like a dialect of Italian.
I stop off at GigaGroce, to do a top-up shop.

Removal, redevelopment, inflation, infant

Thursday 22 April 2021

A removal-lorry is parked at the side of Mr S’s house, but it is the second house in the far terrace that furniture is being carried out of. Two men are loading the furniture into the lorry. A solidly-built brunette in her late thirties is standing in attendance — I don’t recall seeing her before, but she seems to be a member of the family that is moving out. Is theirs the house that in recent years has had the Christmas tree in the front garden, covered with flashing white lights?
For some days we have had cool, dry, sunny weather. I decide to take the short-cut via the woods, as the paths won’t be muddy.
The site of the builders’ merchant has been cleared. Housing, claimed to be up-market, is to be constructed on the site.
I discover that one of my regular purchases has risen in price by a little over ten per cent since March.
Walking back home, I go via the park. Ahead of me and to the right-hand side of the main path is a park bench with an empty push-chair outboard of it. A young man of Middle Eastern complexion and a young woman with a blonde ponytail are standing just beyond the push-chair. The woman, leaning forward, is using her smartphone to take photos of a baby boy (perhaps six to nine months old, and presumably the child of the couple) who is seated at the far end of the bench. He is wearing medium-blue dungarees. The woman is making noises at the baby, who is quite co-operative about being photographed — he is even facing forward!
The removal-lorry is still parked in the same place at lunchtime, but at 14:50 I see that it has gone.

Eggstremely eggspensive

Thursday 15 April 2021

As agreed, I arrive at Naomi’s house some time after 10:00, and take her to the local GauJem to do her main weekly shopping. Surprisingly, when I arrive she is almost ready to go out.
Naomi asks me to drop her off chez Henry and Dorcas, so that she can put Dorcas’ birthday-card through the letter-box. The suggestion is ridiculous, though I don’t say that to Naomi; she lives only three doors away from Henry and Dorcas! I tell Naomi that I’ll get her settled in my car, and then I shall go on foot to deliver the card. This is what I do.
I put the card through the letter-box, and walk away. When I have almost reached the pavement, I hear Dorcas’ voice from the vicinity of her front door.
“Is it BLEKE?” she asks.
I say yes, and tell her I’ve delivered her birthday-card from Naomi. “Happy birthday!” I say in conclusion. Then I walk back to my car.
There is plenty of space to park at the kerb near GauJem. Inside the shop, I carry the hand-basket for Naomi. The first item she selects is a pack of two boiled eggs, costing £1.05. When we come to the fresh eggs, I discover that even GauJem charges only £1.10 for a box of six medium-sized fresh eggs.
During our time in GauJem, Naomi is in a dither about every little decision on what to buy. She stocks up with lots of processed food and sugary food.
The weather continues dry and sunny.

BAU at TeraGroce

Friday 19 March 2021

For a lot of people, myself included, the most likely place to pick up COVID-19 would be the supermarket. I went there this morning. Recently, there have been vacant spaces in the car-park, but today…

— BLEKE (@BLEKE4_etc) March 19, 2021

…it was back to normal there, and it was crowded in the aisles of the shop — perhaps because people are no longer home-educating? So am I now at greater risk? ;o)

— BLEKE (@BLEKE4_etc) March 19, 2021

Four dreams, two garages

Friday 5 March 2021

Overnight I have four separate dreams, the first of them before midnight. They feature my cousin Naomi, my grandmother Mrs Xerxes, my friend Mrs SG, and the Old Man. This is most unusual — perhaps unprecedented.

Nineteen

Tuesday 23 February 2021

The Old Man and I are queuing at one of the checkouts of a nameless supermarket. I am standing at the opposite side of the checkout-belt from him. When we reach the front of the queue, the Old Man realises that he has forgotten some of the things he wanted to buy, and asks me to go and fetch “some chicken and some meat”. I am slightly exasperated by the vagueness of the second part of his request, and I respond: “It’s like the menu in an Indian restaurant — as though English people didn’t like lamb.” (i.e. the menu therefore doesn’t mention it by name.)
Then I notice that the checkout operator is a chubby South Asian woman, about 35 years old, with a medium-brown complexion. She has turned her head so as to look towards me. She isn’t offended by my remark, she is somewhat amused by it.
I head off to the corner-area of the supermarket where frozen chickens and frozen meat are kept. At the bottom of the first open-top freezer-compartment that I come to, I find some frozen chickens, but also some frozen small loaves of seeded white bread, for which the supermarket is charging what I reckon is a fancy price. I pick up one of the loaves, to take a good look at it — and the dream ends as I awake.
The time is approaching 04:30.

The vital spark

Tuesday 16 February 2021

I am a little later than usual setting off for TeraGroce. It is a dull and drizzly morning. The supermarket car-park has plenty of free spaces, as it very often does nowadays — I presume that people have switched to shopping online.

When I return to the car, there is a little white Toyota hatchback two spaces to its nearside, and there is a traffic-cone in the space between the two cars. The driver of the Toyota, a middle-aged man with a slightly eccentric and affected manner, asks for a jump-start. He claims that he has flattened his car’s battery by playing the radio. Fortunately, he has a set of jump-leads — they look quite new. Also fortunately, the drizzle has stopped. We soon get the Toyota’s engine started.

Out in the cold

Friday 12 February 2021

Towards 14:00 I go to GigaGroce, for a top-up shop. The weather is cloudy, dry, and very cold, with a variable breeze. For the first time in months, I have to join a queue outside — it is not a long queue, but it moves slowly. When I reach the final bend, the queue is at least three times as long as when I joined it five or six minutes earlier.
Inside the store, it seems not much busier than on previous occasions when I haven’t had to queue.
When I leave, the queue is of very much the same length as when I arrived.

Supermarket scrape

Monday 1 February 2021

Having called at the post office mid-morning, I return home via the GigaGroce supermarket. As I walk along the pavement of the access-road, I hear a scraping sound behind me. A big van has tried to enter the access road — but it cannot quite fit under the height restrictor. The van has to reverse out; I imagine the driver will try to enter the car-park via the other access-road.
The van belongs to GigaGroce’s own fleet of delivery-vans.

Before and after midnight

Friday 22 January 2021

I had a dream before midnight (so on Thursday 21 January 2021) and another after midnight: