What are you all up to

.......and so the chaos continues....  had a call from our daughter who is travelling to us.  They're just somewhere between Glasgow and Carlisle.....  and the car has broken down.... Electric Power Stearing Pump.  Fortunately they are in two vehicles (they are bringing their old Campervan down for the person they have sold it to!!).  So now they are travelling down in the Camper and the car is being recovered to Tamworth.  I have been ringing around to see if anyone can repair the vehicle next week..... eventually found someone.

....so...!  We will have fit in getting Wayne to Manchester airport tomorrow (he's off to work in Switzerland) and Ruth to Manchester next Wednesday for a course she is doing - working this around what we've got on already....

This reminds me of last August, when we visited the Outer Hebrides and broke down and had to be recovered back to Polesworth!

.....you just couldn't make this up!!!  🤣🤣🤣

David

Doublejabbed yesterday, both of us. Me a bit of an ache, but in truth I was aching a bit before jabs. First time for me in our new extended surgery, very impressed. We had a lovely doctor who headed (in fact owned) the practice for decades. He very sadly suddenly passed away, but we found out yesterday that his son is now coming back to be part of the great team of docs. The son briefly looked after Dad when he was in hospital, and while he was still training, so it’s good to know he wants to come and practice locally.

Few things to finish off for Wedding which is on Easter Sunday. OH is actually going to choose a shirt today, so progress on the male front is happening😁

Not boring in your household David. Good luck.

Haven't had a chance to say that it was good to see you had a super weekend away Ttda. 

Nothing much happening except frustration. Pharmacy making a right old mess of prescriptions. OH has to go to GP surgery tonight at 5pm to sort it out. She's not a happy bunny. We're going to change pharmacy once its all sorted.

I've been summoned by GPs as well but not for another 3 weeks so nothing to panic about. It's probably a review of my meds.

Pharmacies seem to be in a bit of a mess generally WN. Ours is next door to our surgery, and is usually very good, but lately they seem overwhelmed trying to get hold of certain drugs. Last three months I have been given only half a prescription for Mum, and she’s only on three items, two of which are eyedrops. But lots of other folks I notice while waiting are going away with only half of what they need. My SIL spends hours trying to get stroke medicines for her OH from various pharmacies. I’m sure there’s a reason why, but what it is, who knows🤷‍♀️

Just lost 20 minutes of my life to “Jasper” at O2, however have halved my massive £7 a month bill for my mobile, so it’s a result I suppose. Hopefully it will stop the pester phone calls as well. 

Successful retail trip with OH. That’s his shopping trips on hold now until the next wedding. Haven’t the heart to tell him it’s next year. He likes a good decade between forced clothes buying expeditions🤣

The difficulties with drug supplies are pretty general, TDA. More than one doctor has told me it’s since we left the EU that some medicines have been in short supply and some have vanished altogether from these shores.

tooHaven’t looked in for a while as things have been hectic and stressful. Couple of weeks ago poorly granddaughter was having a ‘better spell’ so she went to stay with a friend up north for a short break. On travelling home she was suddenly taken very ill at Birmingham station and rushed into hospital. The family, including us, were making very quick plans to get her home on her sudden discharge, when her friends lovely family stepped in and helped out enormously. 

We had made plans to take a break and check our caravan and open it up for the season, on arrival it hammered down and the river had sudden flood warning, our son who was due to visit us for a few days cancelled due to this and we packed, just in case. The river rose very high but didn’t flood. Then I became unwell with a heavy cold, bad throat and cough. Not the break we had planned, we returned home 4 days early.  On the bright side we did manage to get to the RSC and use our tickets to see Midsummer Nights Dream, it was excellent. Luckily our caravan is ok. A lot of cleaning up needed outside but we will get there. Sadly not so for two of our neighbours, their vans are wrecked and those are just the ones we know about, some others there didn’t look too good.

Feeling much better now I’m home and today I had a good full day gardening, put in lots of new plants, now just need to keep the slugs off them.

Talking of pharmacys, our granddaughter has very serious anyphalactic shock problems and regularly needs to use life saving epi-pens, she said that yesterday she had to visit 5 chemists to get any as they say they don’t stock them anymore, I find that appalling and very scary.

I saw a programme about pharmacies very recently and it stated that some of them are running at a loss because as some meds are in such short supply that in order to get them for their patients they are sometimes having to pay more for them than the NHS pays them. Quite a few pharmacies are closing for this reason. It is all very worrying.

Glad that both tda and Helen had good trips away with their vans. Good to hear of people getting out and about. So sorry to hear that DEBSC's latest trip wasn't a success. Glad you are feeling better now.

Nothing much to report from here. OH has done a lot of work in the garden. Looking at the weather forecast I think that will be the last gardening for a while as it is going to be very wet! A friend treated me to breakfast at a very nice garden centre (Bosworths) this morning - another birthday treat. The weather was good as well, no rain and some sun. We are off to N Ireland next week so I had better start thinking about what clothes to take. I think wet weather gear and warm jumpers will be the order of the day.

Can't say we have had particular problems getting medications but before Margaret started using the Libre2 sensors in conjunction with her mobile phone she often had problems getting needles and test strips to take blood sugar levels. We changed pharmacies because the one we started using was a bit chaotic so we moved to a different one only for that to be taken over by the chaotic one!!!!

David 

My goodness Millie you certainly do know how to make a birthday last!

OH's main problem stemmed from a med, the only one she has, that Pharmacist couldn't get hold of but took a few days to tell us this. They then wanted to change to a different one but needed a new prescription so that took longer. OH picked it up but didn't like the look of it when she got home, went back the following day and found her original item being sold over the counter and in stock on the shelves. Obviously pharmacist then couldn't change it back without a new/original prescription hence tonights visit. So she will have to take it in tomorrow but to a different, but more inconvenient to us, pharmacy. Receptionist did let slip that she has less trouble with our prospective new one.

Ironically when MiL was in hospital their own pharmacy couldn't get hold of the Nutritional Drinks that they wanted her to take. Neither could our own pharmacy but this "new" one could so we ended up with a favourable impression of them straightaway.

Edit - that's awful DEBSC about the scarcity of epi-pens. Scandalous.

The pharmacy that we use for OH's medication is part of a local group so I guess they can access the required tablets from others if they don't have them in store. We get a text when they care ready for collection after having ordered the prescription on line from the doctors. We have not had any problems so far, fingers crossed. 

Sorry to read that you had to shorten your stay at your caravan, Debs. Glad  to read that you are getting over your malady, and that you were able to get to the RSC. David you and the family certainly lead an exhausting life. Hope that that the car is fixed for the return journey north.

It has been a rather damp day here, although the rain did stop for a while this afternoon. I had a visit to "see" the audiologist at the hospital this morning and ended up with a pair of hearing aids. Having only tried them for a few hours but they certainly seem to make a big difference, once I had adjusted their volume. They are Bluetooth so grand for listening to podcasts while out walking!!