Thursday October 14th 2021

What a morning - Lois and I spring out of bed at 7 am, to wash, dress etc and have breakfast etc. Lois has an appointment with the nurse at our doctor's surgery for 9 am, for a bit of ear wax suction action. 

a typical wax-removal procedure

We don't usually drive anywhere except "when it's quiet", so we leave the house at 8:25 am "to be on the safe side", but to our surprise the journey only takes 12 minutes or so. Where are all the commuters that usually clog the roads? What madness !!!

I park on the street about 20 yards down from the surgery entrance and wait, while Lois eventually goes in when it gets to 8:55 am.

I park a little way down the street, and sit and wait, 

while Lois goes inside for her treatment

Lois gets into the waiting-room 5 minutes early, but it's half an hour before she's called, and then the nurse tells her that "we don't do suction here any more", despite the fact that when Lois made the appointment she specifically asked them to confirm that they did do it. What madness!!! [Don't say that again! - Ed]

They only do syringing at the surgery apparently, but Lois can't have syringing due to a previous injury. My god, what a nonsense!!!!!

Lois looking understandably a bit crestfallen

as she emerges from the surgery without having had her treatment

One good thing did come out of the rigmarole, however: Lois gets them to give us an appointment for our booster COVID shot and general flu jab, both at the same appointment, on Saturday November 13th at the County Fire Station, which is nice.

10:00 We get home, and after a cup of tea we get on the computer and book an appointment for next Wednesday with Specsavers optician's, who do do the suction treatment, although we'll have to pay, of course. Damn!

The website seems to recommend that application of softeners like olive-oil cease 7 days before the appointment, which seems odd, but at least it means one less thing to do, and it's twice a day as well, and takes a minimum of about 25-30 minutes each time. We usually do it when we're in bed - Lois has to lie on her right hand side and I squirt the stuff into her left ear, and afterwards she has to stay in that position for another 20 minutes. What a palaver !!!!!

the squirter in happier times: lying peacefully on our bedroom dressing-table

in a Danish eggcup, waiting patiently for squirt-time to come round again

Luckily we don't do anything rash, like throwing the squirter away, however, because later we find out that we have to keep doing the squirting right up to the day of the appointment - oh dear!

[Couldn't you have said all that a bit more concisely? - Ed]

What a crazy world we live in !!!! But we decide not to start squirting again till tomorrow. Sometimes you have to give yourself a break, don't you!

Needless to say, we are not feeling particularly happy about our doctor's surgery either. The sooner we can transfer to another one, the better, that's what we're saying now!

Plus, if we hadn't asked them for a COVID booster jab today would they ever have offered us one? When they cancelled our last invitation they said they'd be contacting us with a new appointment when we were eligible - what a load of nonsense, we became eligible about 2 days ago: why didn't they contact us??!!!!

As presenter Richard Madeley says in his twitter posts, "Grrrrrrr!!!!!!!!"

20:00 We watch a bit of TV, the latest in quiz-show presenter Alexander Armstrong's new series on Iceland.

Who knew that Icelandic "horses", which are quite a bit smaller than normal ones, have 6 different "gaits"? [I expect a lot of people know that! - Ed]

I can remember from the 1980's, when our daughters Alison and Sarah were taking riding lessons that in the UK there are just 4 gaits: walk, trot, canter and gallop. And I'm fairly sure it's the same in the US where our daughters took lessons as well. 

Icelandic horses have an extra two gaits, apparently, including, most crucially, the so-called "tolt", which is somewhere between the walk and the trot. What madness !!!!

It all started with the lack of trees in Iceland, which made it difficult to build a lot of wagons etc. The result was that people had to travel long distances on the back of these little horses, and it was worked out that the so-called "tolt" was the gait which enabled them to do these longer distances the most efficiently, and the rider arrives feeling less sore. Who would have thought it, eh?!!!

In tonight's programme, a young Icelandic horse-trainer, Agusta, initiates Alexander into the secrets of the "tolt".

Alexander then accepts a challenge from Agusta to ride with her, each carrying a drink: Alexander carrying a full pint glass of beer, and Agusta carrying what I'm guessing is a full half-litre glass.

It all seems to be going well, but at the end of the ride, Agusta has a full half-litre of beer to drink, but Alexander's only got a half of his pint left. Oh dear!

Poor Alexander !!!!!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!