Not for me, Scamp’s visit to Hairmyres.
We left in plenty of time for Scamp’s 10am appointment. I made sure she got to the correct area of this gigantic building. Actually a much airier building than many of its like and with Christmas decorations on all the doors, it was more welcoming than most. After that, I headed for the shopping centre, just to be nosey and to compare it with our megalithic atrocity. It won by a mile, no, make that a hundred miles. Clean, well lit and with many more shops. Very few shuttered shops and no closed off areas. Yes, this was a shopping centre, not a disaster area. Only sore point was that you had to pay to park, but a quid wasn’t going to break the bank for an hour’s stay.
Took some photos of the outside of the building and tried not to compare with the collapsing Town Centre we have. Then I found my way to Calderglen Park. The last time we were there, the place was a mess with ongoing works designed to mess up the traffic flow. Nothing had changed. The last time we were there, there was no notice to show you where the entrance to the park was. Nothing had changed there either. It seems that North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire are joined by more than their surnames. In other words, both as crap as each other. But there was a shining light in the park, the wee cafe, the Courtyard Cafe to give it’s full name. I had a roll ’n’ sausage with fried onions and a mug of coffee for just over six quid. I was pleased with that. Good roll ’n’ sausage, award winning fried onions and, ok, the coffee was a bit of a letdown, but you can’t have everything. There was blue sky when I had arrived, but when I left the clouds had rolled in and it looked like rain was on the way.
I was just thinking I should head back to the hospital when Scamp phoned to say that she too was having coffee (but without sausage or fried onions) and then she told me she’d have to wait at least 10 months for the operation. Almost a year to wait for a cataract removal! Is it any wonder that people are going private? Apart from that, she seemed satisfied with the consultation and of course because it was NHS, we’d already paid for it with our NI contributions. But still, at least 10 months. Factor in the uncertainty with Covid restrictions and what are we talking about? 18 months? 2 YEARS?! Who knows.
Drove home discussing the implications of what she’d heard today and wondering where it took us. Back home and after lunch I had a look at the photos and although I’d taken a few at Calderglen, it was the architectural ones from the EK shopping centre that were the most interesting to me. It’s one of them that got PoD.
We’d brought the tree down from the loft yesterday and today was the day to put it up. That’s really Scamp’s job. Even with her present limited vision, she is far better at lighting and dressing a Christmas tree. With some Christmas cards hung up and some decorations, the place is looking quite festive. All I did was put batteries in the little strings of lights that are scattered round the living room.
I phoned Virgin Media tonight to sort out a problem with accessing some websites. As far as I can see there is something different in the DNS coding/decoding of the relatively new modem we have. After being on the phone for half an hour or so, I managed to convince the lady on the other end that something was awry. She agreed that it would be best to send out an engineer (possibly to get rid of me). He/she is coming on Sunday. We’ll see what they can suggest. Knowing my expertise with modems it will be a simple fix and it may cost us £25 if there is no fault with the hardware. It’ll be worth it to be able to access websites properly and at least we don’t have to wait ten months for someone to fix it!
One last thing. I saw this on FB today, attributed to Chris Riddell political cartoonist on a sketch of a certain British Prime Minister:
I’m really sorry that the British public found out about the party that didn’t happen last Christmas, but the person who laughed about not being at the party that didn’t happen has resigned and I have appointed someone who might have been at that party that didn’t happen to investigate … Now please wear a mask the way I don’t …
Hoping to meet Alex tomorrow in Glasgow. I intend to drive in that means I don’t have to sit on a bus or a train with the great unwashed. Don’t know where we’ll go. It’ll be a surprise!