… do anything today.

Well, that’s not quite true. I was up reasonably early (well, reasonably for these days) and after breakfast I cracked on with the rock music programmes for Radio Anglais. By lunchtime, I’d completed the “Miscellaneous” programme and written all of the notes. Tomorrow, I’ll be doing the live programme, although I’ve no idea yet what concert I’m going to choose.

Another thing that I did do was to telephone the local doctor’s to see about a medical appointment, as I can’t go on much longer like this.

And this is the beauty of living in France, and not in the UK.
Our Hero – “I need to make an appointment to see the doctor sometime soon”.
Receptionist – “is it urgent?”
Our Hero – “not really”
Receptionist – “well, if it’s not urgent can it wait until 15:30?”
Our Hero – “today?”
Receptionist – “yes, today”
As one of my friends in the UK commented, “had you been in the UK, you would have been offered an appointment at 2020, and that wouldn’t have been 8/20 in the evening either”.

And so I duly struggled into Pionsat and the doctor’s surgery, and the first thing that the doctor said to me when she saw me was “are you usually this colour?” Apparently I’m totally white – there’s not a patch of pink or anything in my skin or my fingernails and toenails. I had my blood pressure checked – which is within the norms – and she listened to my heart, which also seemed to be normal – and that’s good news – it means that I’m not a Tory, thank heavens.

But she’s worried about something because tomorrow I have to have a blood test at 09:00 – and so I suppose that I’ll have to spend all night studying. It has to be à jeune – namely “in famine”, so no breakfast tomorrow. How can I survive without a coffee – because that’s forbidden too. But she’s taken my ‘phone number and she’ll ring me as soon as she has the results – and I found that rather ominous too.

I also have to go into Montlucon for an ecographie – a heart examination – but I’ll wait and see what the blood test reveals before I ring up for an appointment. Wednesday afternoon would be a good day for me because it would mean that I could have a lift with Liz.

By the time I returned home I wasn’t in much of a state to do anything and crashed out here for an hour or so. Now I’m going for an early night because of my blood test.

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