Me on Monday - still fuming

We don't ask for much Mr M and I. We have a roof over our heads we have food to eat and we have family and friends that love us and we love very much. This is why when things go awry we feel hurt and sometimes we feel that people just don't give a sh*t.

We have to take drugs to prolong our lives, most people when they get to our age are taking something and as a result we have to put in a request for a repeat prescription for said drugs. This is made simpler for us by a neat little scheme whereby the pharmacy of our choice can send our request direct to the surgery and the prescription can be generated and returned to the pharmacy where it will be filled and then delivered to our door.
Because I am a bit obsessive about this I like to do the call to the pharmacy on a Monday morning as soon as the place opens at 9am. This means that the request will go to the surgery on Monday morning and the drugs should be with me on Wednesday, yes? Well that's how it has been for the last eight years.
Now, it seems, the surgery has a "Prescriptions Clerk" so when the request arrives on Monday morning there is a very good chance that the drugs will not be delivered until Friday, if we are lucky. This is progress and efficiency.
A week ago I called in the request for my medication and for Insulin for Mr M. The nice lady who answered the phone said "it should be with you on FRiday, will you be in because the insulin has to be refrigerated?" I said yes.
Friday came and so did part of my medication and NONE of the insulin for Mr M. I rang the pharmacy and I was told that the scrip for the insulin had only just come from the surgery so it would be delivered on Saturday. I was told to ring the surgery about the non appearance of part of my medication as they had only sent what the surgery prescribed.
I rang the surgery and was told that a post-dated scrip would be issued on Monday because that particular drug was not due to be repeated until July 10. I tried to query this and was told to "ring on Monday morning to see if it has been sent".
So now it is Saturday and we are waiting for the man to arrive with the insulin. I ring the pharmacy at 12 noon and they say it is with the delivery driver. We wait
And wait,
And wait.
At 6pm we decide that the delivery man is not coming but we can't call anyone to find out and Mr M does not have enough Insulin for Sunday. We contact the Out of Hours Doctors service, which used to be OOHDOC but is now Gwent GP Out Of Hours Doctors service and has a new number.
They talk briefly with Mr M and then say they will ring him back - in the next hour.
Now it is Sunday and we have to go to the Pharmacy in Sainsburys to get a supply of insulin so that Mr M can inject. We are not happy and the stress is making us both feel quite sick
This morning I ring the pharmacy as soon as they open and ask if there was any particular reason why the delivery man didn't deliver the insulin on Saturday. They say they will ring me back.
They ring back within five minutes and say "He tried to deliver but no one was in"
I shoot that down in flames and tell the nice lady that I sat in my sitting room watching the front gate waiting for the man to deliver because we had things to do and places to go and we couldn't because of the need to get the insulin into the fridge.
She goes away, promising that the pharmacist would investigate.
Meanwhile
I ring the surgery to find out why only part of my medication arrived and I am told to "ring back at 11am when the prescriptions clerk will be able to help you. I'm afraid I got a little upset and told the haughty lady on the phone that their inefficiency had already caused us to lose a weekend of planned events and now I was being forced to stay home from a planned holiday because they didn't send my medication. So She asked me where I was going!!! I told her it was none of her business, she was fobbing me off by expecting me to ring back again for someone else to try and explain why a simple repeat prescription couldn't be done like it has been done for the last eight years and I put the phone down before I started cussing

Then I forgot to ring back at 11am. I was busy and suddenly it was gone 1pm when the prescription query service ends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am composing a letter. I will keep it brief.
Meanwhile back at the pharmacy.
The head pharmacist rang me and explained that he had questioned the driver who said he couldn't find the address. His satnav took him to a house marked 50 but there was no one there. He didn't know what to do and couldn't ring the pharmacy because they close at 12 on a Saturday. They were falling over themselves to be apologetic. He explained that the driver is new and is on a month's trial.

I will see how it goes.

My thanks to Sian for inventing this meme to keep me writing and give me somewhere to vent my frustration

Memorandum Monday - That Long? Well Done!

So. Father's Day eh? We had a little trip out on Saturday. We took Nan's clock to Leominster, as you do, and then did lunch at the OK Diner as a father's day treat. As you can see Mr M is struggling to know where to start on his Three Cheese melt sandwich. He managed it eventually although he left most of the fries and half the bun.

The Clock? well, in Leominster is the Barometer and clock shop and they are really good. Nan's clock was without a key. During the clearance of Father-in-law's house everyone had been "keeping an eye" for a key to fit Nan's clock. It wasn't found, although we did discover about seven keys that have no keyhole or lock to fit them. I had the idea on Friday that we could take the clock to the Barometer shop and perhaps they would have a key, or they would tell us how to get one. I rang them to make sure they would be open and so we put the clock into a shopping bag and set it on the back seat of the car. It is a chiming clock so there was the occasional ting, slightly muffled by the bag, just to remind us that we were transporting a valuable cargo.

Worth about £30 in the present market, apparently. The key cost us ten pounds and we had a quick lesson in how to regulate this particular clock. If we wanted to get it in running order, all clean and working well it would be about £200 plus VAT. Hmmm that's pretty expensive sentimental reasons and they would be the only reasons for spending that amount of money because even after cleaning and servicing it would still only be worth about £50. We don't mind. It belonged to Mr M's grandmother and we actually heard it chime and it is really nice. One day we'll get it done.

Sunday was Father's Day and also it was the anniversary of the day 35 years ago when I became Mrs M. (original post) it was also the 71st anniversary of when my parents married in 1945. Having been to Leominster on Saturday we didn't feel like going out again so we spent the day happily playing on the computers, reading and, for me at least, snoozing in front of the TV.

For our anniversary dinner we had home made chicken and ham pie followed by apple meringue pudding.

My Thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing

Me on Monday - tired

It's been a funny weekend but I have learnt some interesting things. The World Wide Webby has come up trumps again. This is a picture of my great Grandfather, Charles Guilfoyle-Seymour, This picture was taken by Kisch Brothers, Durban, Natal. We - the descendants of CGS know he was an actor, we have loads of reviews about his performances. We also have a copy of an advertisement where he sends Christmas greetings to "My friends in the diamond fields." What we didn't really know was why he was in Natal. Then I found a newspaper report of a travelling company run by Captain Disney Roebuck, that took a party of actors to the diamond fields to bring a little culture to the mines. The actors were contracted for a year and travelled by Ox-cart. I found a report of my great Grandmother going there and taking the Captain to court for withholding her wages. This, we realised was where they met. When I brought the picture to the attention of my Cousin Travis - he is an actor/writer/teacher who lives in Holywood! (yes, I know it makes me all excited and proud and he has loads of stories... but it's not Travis we are talking about here) - he said the pose is "classic Hamlet" and that several other very famous actors used just that for Hamlet. It makes sense because we know that the Captain took Shakespeare to the diamond fields it says so on Wikipedia. So that was new information for the family to hear in the next newsletter.

While all this was going on in the ether Mr M and I went out for a bit of lunch and a little ride. Where to go for lunch ... well we stopped at the new services on the A449 at Raglan. There used to be a real cafe/restaurant there but that services closed years ago. Now they have rebuilt it and there is a Greggs and a coffee shop and a Subway. We bought some baguettes and some water and got back in the car. "We don't want to sit here looking through the windows do we?" asked Mr M. I shrugged, because I really just wanted to eat.
We drove up the road a ways and stopped in a lay-by and ate our food with a perfect view into the gents toilets. I didn't comment on the view because I was too busy eating and not laughing.
Then we drove on past Monmouth and into England where we took a left at Hereford and drove through the countryside. We eventually turned left and headed back into Wales and we came into the Wye Valley. Not that pretentious gorge between Monmouth and Chepstow that Turner and Wordworth made such a tourist spot. No this is the Wye Valley around Hay-on-Wye and Breconshire. Wide and light and extraordinarily green and, in my opinion, far more beautiful than a gorge with such thick trees all down the side of the road that you can't see the view anywhere.
Did I learn anything this weekend? yes. I learned that you have to keep on putting stuff in front of family so that their memories are triggered and they say things like "Did I tell you that...." and you say "no, oh do tell" and they then give you fascinating glimpses into their lives and you are enriched by the history. I learned once again just how lucky I am to live where I do. Perhaps I am biased but coming home from anywhere always makes me see this precious area of South East Wales for the jewel it is. So much diversity in such a small place.

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing

This is my peony - after the rain

Last night it rained. Taking it's photograph obviously didn't break the curse of rainfall. Ah, well, there's always next year

This is my Peony

This is my peony - excuse the bin but the front garden is the only place to keep such a huge monstrosity and the council won't take your rubbish if you leave it out in bags *sigh*

Now where was I? Oh yes, this is my peony. Isn't it just beautiful? Every year it gives us the most beautiful blooms and every year, just as they are all open and reaching perfection it rains. I mean it usually hammers down and the blooms fill with water and droop down and touch the ground. This makes the edges of the petals go brown and - to quote my eloquent daughter - "go manky".

I was fortunate enough to have my camera in my hand when I opened the door and saw the first flower opening. I took its picture in the hope that this will cause the rain to hold off until at least the first petal falls.

Memorandum Monday - Something has to give

We sent the three top cushions, the black and white ones, to north Wales for Eldest Son and family. This is all part of the campaign to empty the Fornow room. Miss Boo got to see her beloved cousins and the new cushions were welcomed FTW!

We went out to buy the "other" printer on Friday. We have a brother A3 all whistles and bells printer that drives us absolutely mad with frustration.
Why? I hear you ask, I know you were thinking it though. It has its paper drawer underneath it and the paper has to be picked up and fed through rollers up and around inside the back and then is printed and spat out the front - usually onto the floor because I have forgotten to pull the plastic stop thing out.
This happens only when it works. For some reason it hates photographic paper. The customer service asked if I had changed the paper quality in settings before I tried. I didn't get cross.
It will pull one sheet through and then fail with the next one. It does this on ordinary, standard printer paper - it even does it with the brother approved paper.
"The rollers might be dirty or greasy" said the customer service. What? from the first time it came out of the box? Does that mean you send out printers with dirty or greasy rollers?

Anyhooooo, Mr M was muttering about getting the axe out of the cellar so I suggested that these days a person can buy a printer cheaper than the replacement ink cartridges cost. He took this and ran - or rather drove with it.
He came home from work on Friday lunchtime and after a quick sandwich we were off. We did the tour around Staples because they always have stuff we desperately need. We found a printer for around £35 and as we came out I spotted the new Wren Kitchen shop. I went in.

I have found my perfect kitchen and now I am torn. Do I want to live in this house with my perfect kitchen for the rest of my life or do I want to move to a bungalow and have my perfect kitchen somewhere else - or would that just be doing what I have done for 50 years ... wait.

Then we went to see some cousins. Between us Mr M and I have a huge number of cousins and first cousins once removed etc and we are pretty close to lots of them. On Friday we sat down and ate a takeaway and looked at Mr Ms family tree and corrected some things and we talked and laughed and laughed and talked and it was one of those precious evenings that you want to put in your pocket and savour. We are going to do it again real soon.

The rest of the weekend passed in a warm and sunny blur. we were out most of it in our new car. We are getting used to it and might even keep it LOL

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for inventing this meme and keeping me writing