Hospitals and doctors - they mean well, don't they, but they do tend to make mistakes!
Lois and I have been lucky enough to reach the age of 77 without having had very much to do with the medical profession or hospital admin staff, but I know that people not so lucky as we've been, can be quite scathing about them, and they suggest that even the smallest details should be checked carefully for errors.
flashback to yesterday. Lois and I arrive at Worcestershire Royal Hospital
only to find that my pre-op appointment had been cancelled for unclear reasons.
On Monday, Lois and I arrived for the pre-op for my upcoming hip operation, only to find that it had been cancelled for mysterious reasons. And on the way home from our abortive visit, we got a text giving the alleged time of the rescheduled pre-op.
the text we received on our drive home from the hospital
Luckily I rang them to confirm when we got home, only to find that the text we received was mostly correct, but "not 100%", apparently - somebody had got the date wrong, and the appointment is actually for tomorrow (20th). Oh, yes, and the time of day is wrong too. Everything else is spot-on. But what a good thing I checked haha !!!!!!
And what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
Just a minor slip, you might say, but there are so many instances of such "casual errors" in the papers these days, aren't there. And with cases of "hospital negligence" growing almost annually, if the press is to be believed, Lois and I, who are both "old codgers" these days - we haven't always been haha! - weren't at all surprised to see this story on the Onion News local "Worcestershire Desk" website a couple of days ago.
Have you ever noticed how a lot of babies look the same as other babies - they're just "standard-issue babies", aren't they, and it takes a few months or sometimes a couple of years for them to look more individual. And strangely, at the other end of life, old people fall back into the same pattern, and begin to look just like "standard-issue old codgers", or "standard-issue old crows", as the Danes say, whatever you like to call them.
a typical sample of "standard-issue" babies
Fortunately Lois and I have been married now for over 51 years, and we seldom fail to recognise each other, whether it's in the house, or in the street even - mistakes or "snafus" under this category are rare, I'm happy to say!
flashback to 1970, and the first known picture of Lois and me together,
on holiday in Shropshire 2 years before we got married
And we can also support each other: Lois put her back out in the bedroom this morning, so come 12 o'clock noon, she's perched on one of our hard-backed upholstered dining-room chairs, and it's me in the kitchen making one of my sadly underrated "signature lunches" - cheese-and-cucumber sandwiches for two, with a couple of bowls of vegetable soup. Yum yum!
Afternoon "nap-time" has to be cancelled too for today, although Lois's back is steadily improving as we go through the day, we don't want to take any risks. Instead, we settle down on the couch and do the quizzes in this week's Radio Times.
On "Popmaster" I'm happy to report that we do very well on the 1960's to 1980's, with a full score-sheet. However, it's a pity, but we obviously also show that we're not "down with the kids", and we "strike out" on any questions about what-we-call "very recent times", i.e. anything after 1990.
How many of these "doozies" would YOU have got, I wonder!
21:00 Lois's back issues mean that she decides not to take part in her church's weekly Bible Class on zoom, and instead we settle down to watch Episode 3 of Sky's new historical costume drama from the 1600's, "Mary and George".
This series is all about the ambitious Lady Mary Villiers, wife of the retired ex-Sheriff of Nottingham, and her plans to get her handsome teenage son George into the bed of King James I, Britain's new Scottish-born monarch.
King James (played by Tony Curran), the king
who "swung both ways"
James was known to "swing both ways" as people say these days. If Mary can get her son George into the King's bed, it'll also mean a lot of kudos for Mary herself, and she's sure to go up in the world, she thinks, and this will "restore her family's fortunes". You know the kind of thing they used to obsess about in crazy world of the early 1600's. Yes, I know it's all madness, but just stick with it for the moment!
The main obstacle to Mary's plan to "advance her son", is another young guy called "Somerset", who's currently the King's top "squeeze".
Somerset (left) the King's current top "squeeze", and
George (right), his possible future "squeeze"
And what of the "Elderly viewers' guide to the old question 'How to tell the two apart?'" - what does that say? Well, as I tell Lois, "Remember, Somerset is the one with the beard, George hasn't got one".
Keep that simple fact in mind, and it'll make the plot a lot more understandable, take a tip from me haha!
At the moment, George is halfway there on his mission to become the King's new "squeeze", because he's been chosen to play the background music on his cello at the King's orgies, which was regarded as a great honour in those far-off days.
a partially hooded George (right, ringed) on his cello, playing
the background music for one of the King's orgies
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
And in those far-off, crazy days, there's going to be little doubt about Somerset's sentence, to put it mildly !!!
Anyway, back to the plot!
George's mum, Mary, knows that she has to discredit Somerset, so that her son George can replace him in the King's bed. Luckily the current Attorney-General Sir Francis Bacon, has a soft spot for Mary, and he prosecutes Somerset for the murder by poisoning of somebody else with a beard, I think it may have been Sir Thomas Overbury or some-such nonsense.
George's mum Mary goes to see Sir Francis Bacon,
the Attorney-General and persuades him to have Somerset
prosecuted for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury
And it turns out Somerset's "as guilty as hell" of the poisoning anyway, so fair enough!!!!
As the episode ends, the jury has just come back with its verdict - and yes, Somerset has duly been found guilty and he's sentenced to hang.
the jury delivers its verdict of 'guilty as charged',
as a delighted Mary watches from the public gallery
So the future now looks rosy for George and mum Mary, that's for sure, which is a nice ending for Lois and me to go to bed on!
Time to hang up your cello, George!!!! Just saying haha!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!
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