I woke up after a remarkably good night's sleep in an unfamiliar bed. June was on the phone, frustrated by not being able to get through to her GP surgery to re-order her prescription medications, having failed on Friday as well. She had tried to order on-line but when she reached the prescription page found a message stating that the number of requests the surgery could process that day had been reached and no more could be accepted. It shows how under-capacity an under funded GP surgery admin can become in an urban area of high population density.
Before I got up she'd gone on-line again to order, hoping to be early enough to be in the prescription processing queue, but this time was greeted with a page error, and unable to proceed. That's why she was trying to reach the surgery on the phone. But the phone wasn't ringing out, though the line is supposed to be open to receive calls from eight o'clock, and it was by then nearly eight thirty.
Shortly after eight thirty, the surgery phone started taking calls, and she was able to place an order which will take until Wednesday to process. It believe it's sent to her pharmacist in Bellevue Road who delivers. Out of curiosity I went on line and quickly found the same page error for the surgery website. A little way down the same search list was another find for the same pharmacy with a logo next to it, and the same page address. When I entered this it displayed a brand new landing page with far too much info displayed and confusing to navigate, as it looked more like the site of commercial business than a GP surgery, but it had the correct address and NHS log, and minor detail to reassure me it wasn't fake.
I showed it to June, and after a quick glance said it didn't look familiar. I closed the page, did another search and came across the same pages again, only this time the GP surgery landing page didn't appear! There was no error message, the computer just seemed to stall. My first thought was that it was a DDOS attack swamping the website and taking it off line, though I'd seen no error message, so I kept the page request open to see what happened. Ten minutes later, the posh GP surgery web page popped up of its own accord. Then the penny dropped.
Monday morning is peak demand period for surgeries around the country. Phone lines not open at usual time starting half an hour late. Likely hundreds of people book an appointment on-line any day, but this morning the old landing web home page has been disconnected and the forwarding link to the new page not working or not in place. But the new landing page is up and running and can be googled, as well as the former one. The devil is always in the detail.
Anyway, I was able to figure out how to log my sister's account details in the new system, though it was far from easy, as there's two stage security in place, and it took a while to find the second stage info to complete the access routine. What a rigmarole! Then we had breakfast.
I spent the rest of the morning on a small collection of tech troubleshooting issues, then went for a walk around Wandsworth Common, discovering two lovely ponds with trees and an assortment of waterfowl in residence. I ended up at Sainsbury's to collect a few more items June needed. While I was packing purchases at the checkout, my phone rang. I was Ruth, calling to confirm that I was opening St John's for the Thursday Eucharist. She was concerned about closing up afterwards. I reassured her that I was going to stay for the service and would lock up as well, but with the background noise of the shop it was a rather confusing conversation at first, but we were able to laugh about it in the end.
We ate a very late lunch at four. I had some salmon and spinach fish cakes with peace which were tasty, but too tasty, leaving my tongue with an aftertaste I associate with eating very strong cheese. It's what happen now if ever I eat something which has even a small amount of milk product in the recipe. It had occurred to neither of us that this might be the case with fish cake! Fortunately, this didn't have much of an impact on my digestive process, but the taste of strong cheese was with me for next five hours while I travelled home.
The trains and underground were running normally. The journey from Wandsworth to Paddington took three quarters of an hour, so I had a quarter of an hour to wait before boarding the 7.15 train, enabling me to sit and listen to yesterday's Archers episode on catch-up and then tonight's while other passengers took their seats. An new angle to the storyline of terminally ill villain of the piece Rob Titchner. He has sneaked back into Ambridge to find the Vicar and ask to be baptized, saying he's realized the error of his ways and want to be baptized before he dies.
It takes the Reverend Allan time to react, and he twice uses the alibi 'too busy' to deal with it directly. Finally he confronts Rob and refuses his request do this in a local parish church where Rob's reputation is known as a former resident and non-churchgoer, also without him going through due preparation. He suggests Rob asks in the Parish where his family home is, given he's just arrived and is renting secretly in a neighbouring village, probably contravening his court order to stay out of the area in any case.
Rob reveals his reason for choosing to return is that he wants to show village that he's a changed man who had reformed. He says he believes, but what he says is reasonable ground to doubt his motivation, for what matters is his relationship with God, not his social standing. The Vicar's caution is commendable, but it would have been exemplary if he'd queried not Rob's belief in God but the personal relationship which arises from believing. I'll be interesting to see if the mainstream religious commentariat pick up on this and reflect on it in the coming week.
A downpour started as the train arrived in Cardiff, and continued for two thirds of my walk home, so I got pretty wet. Clare had come down with a cold while I was away and went to bed early once we'd greeted each other. I picked up on editing the next edition of Sway after sending and receiving information earlier in the day. I was approaching midnight by the time I turned in after an eventful day.
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