Monday 14 July 2025: Where did *that* weekend go?

Honestly, blink and you miss it these days. While Friday does seem a long time ago, I seem to have completely missed the weekend…

I had a lot to do on Friday, with not a lot of time to do it in, and the day started, after feeding the birds and the dog and having my dirty cuppa, with Friday’s blog. Fortunately, I’d written most of it already. I just had to top and tail it and choose an image, and then post it.

I had a hospital appointment next, for which I’d allocated 2 hours…Hands up everyone who can guess what came next…

We got there with about 10 minutes to spare and I was 5 minutes early for my appointment. But they were running about an hour and 10 minutes behind, and I wasn’t the best of patients by the time they managed to see me. 

The doctor was lovely, but the nurse was annoyed at me for being annoyed at them. I wasn’t actually annoyed at them though. I’m annoyed at a system that reduces a specialist medical department from 4 doctors down to 1, a system whereby you have to go via a call centre to get an appointment, and a system that allocates only 20 minutes per patient per appointment.

It takes the best part of 20 minutes to get weighed and have your blood pressure checked and for the latest consultant to catch up on your notes and your history. Plus, with a revolving staff, if you don’t see the same person you saw the last time, you lose the continuity too.

The poet is an oft-head-hunted lean coach and every time we go to something like a hospital, he wants to get his teeth into their processes. I was a customer care champion back in the day, and I’m exactly the same over the way people-facers operate in every industry. Perhaps we should go into business in our dotage.

Anyway, the 2-hour segment lasted 3 hours by the time we also collected my latest prescription from their pharmacy, although the new management team in the pharmacy are a massive improvement on the shower that ran it before. They were friendly, polite, professional, timely, everything the previous management was not. So a big tick from both of us there.

We had grand-doggy #1 in the car as we were taking him home, and the poet stayed with him, with the air conditioning on, and they even managed a bit of a walk around the car park in between the poet doing what work he could under the circumstances. But taking the dog home added more than another hour to the day. And by the time we got back, it was past time for us to have something to eat.

The heat was still too oppressive for me to want to do much more when we got home, so I wrote the day off to bad experience, as seems to be so often the case at the moment.

We struggled to get up on Saturday morning. I think it was probably the heat. And when we did get up, we had to go and do the shopping. Back home we didn’t have a massive window as the poet had a gig Saturday night.

Thanks to the late night, we also had a late start on Sunday. We went to visit the mother-in-law and when we got home, I had a short story to write for assignment 3 of the 50 crime mystery prompts workshop. 

I’ve started using the laptop for writing stories. I’m trying to get into the mindset that if I’m on the laptop then it must be writing time. I could disconnect the internet, but it’s useful if I want to find out a quick fact. And, in general, I’m being very good. If I need a brain break or if I run out of steam, then I’ll do a quick internet browse on the phone. But so far, the plan seems to be working.

I wrote 1,700 words before we had tea, and I finished the story and submitted it after tea. The story came to just under 3,200 words. I didn’t have time to polish it, but he doesn’t want us to do that anyway. He would like us to at least try polishing it as we go, and even then it’s just for filling in details that become apparent the more you write. I don’t mind because at least it gives me something complete to come back to later if it needs me to.

There’s another Kickstarter I’m considering backing. I’m not overly fussed about the books and stories. Those are always a bonus to me. But I am interested in one of the special workshops. If I back it and choose the workshop, I get all of the books and stories anyway, plus quite a few pop-up workshops thrown in. This Kickstarter has already done so well they’ve added 2 more stretch goals and 2 more pop-up workshops, and they’re almost at the current final stretch goal too. I have 3 days in which to decide.

The heatwave continued all over the weekend. I believe we have some respite during the week now, with even a spot of rain forecast. And then we do it all over again next weekend.