God, how I hate being old, I’ve come to the point now where I spend all my time being angry, which I’m sure is probably not good for my blood pressure, the only saving grace is, my anger will shorten my life and eventually I will be put out of my misery. If I were an animal, they probably would have put me to sleep years ago.

Todays anger stems from the ridiculous way the doctors surgery is run. I try to be as modern as I can and order my prescription on line but as I recently had a hernia operation I had used the NHS website to receive messages about any appointments and I was just checking to see when my follow up appointment was when I noticed you can order your medication there as well.

While I’m here, I thought, I might as well order my pills but no, it appears I need to have a review before I can order them again. I hadn’t realised I needed the review as it usually says on the prescription form they enclose with your medication but this month there was no form, I will have to phone up in the morning and book an appointment. As a back up I went online to check if I needed the review and there was no mention of it on the systemonline site where I usually order my medication.

I would like to say I woke the next day as bright as a button but mornings are not my favourite time of day, especially the early ones but I pushed on through and having had a forifying cup of tea I braced myself to phone the doctors. They have an automatic answering system, press number 1 for appointments, press number 2 for prescriptions, I plumped for number 2 initially as I wanted to check whether I actually needed the review. Unfortunately, the prescription line is only open from 10am to 2pm on Tuesday and Thursday, so I reverted to option number 1 where I was informed that once again I would have to call back later, or if it was urgent I should phone back tomorrow before 8am.

By this time, as you may imagine I was getting a little stressed and sat down to write this to both, calm my ragged nerves and to pass the time until I could phone back. As I’m quite busy today, let us asume I phoned back, got an appointment and all was well with the world. I may have to amend this at a later date but I’m trying to put a more optimistic frame of mind into the equation.

Oh, how I long for the old days, the days when you could visit the doctors in the morning and wait your turn in the smoke filled waiting room, or be greeted by a receptionist who could answer any query you could throw at them at the drop of a hat. Well, it’s nearly time to phone back when at least I will be spoken to by a human being, unlike last week where I spent some 45 minutes typing to an AI thing to sort out a problem whereby I had been sent two new credit cards from the same company both with different numbers, one would have thought, ‘which one do I throw away’ was a fairly simple question. Not only do I resent spending so long messing about with an AI chatbot but it’s the bloody cheek of the thing, who when questioned kept insisting it was a real person.

I’m just not cut out for modern life!

Just a quick update, I phoned the doctors and the receptionist put me through to prescriptions who having ascertained that I did need a review and this will now be done by telephone in five weeks time, luckily she will make up my prescrition in the meantime so I don’t keel over whilst waiting. Obviously, I’m glad that’s sorted but I always have to wonder why you need a review every year, for they always ask the same questions, ‘ how are you Mr Wells?’ To which I usually reply, ‘I’m fine, if I were feeling unwell I would have made an appointment to see you!’

Onward and upward, I have some heavy things to lift in the garden for my wife, but more of that anon.