A spreading epidemic?

It’s a quiet morning for me. The Fox is cooking today. He’s making linguine with a spicy tomato & tuna sauce, so there’s not even potatoes for me to peel today. It seems quite strange.

Yesterday I had got up expecting that the Fox would have to go for physio in the afternoon. That was cancelled due to the physiotherapist having rung in ill. You can imagine my surprise when later in the day, I rang our surgery to make an appointment for our annual MOTs. The message on the phone announced that many appointments with nurses were being cancelled or transferred due to illness. Routine tests may have to wait for 8 weeks. Has some epidemic hit the area? We’ve not heard about it. When I finally got through to a receptionist I managed to make an appointment for the end of the month.

As neither of us is in the best of health these days the surgery likes to check our bloods and our blood pressures. They also check our weights & give us lifestyle advice which we generally ignore. It reassures them, and us, that we’ve not deteriorated too much more. If necessary our medication will be tweaked a bit.

In the afternoon we went off to the golf club. We sat & watched a flock of oystercatchers rootling around in the damp ground. Briefly we were joined by Ash, an old friend from the Pub days. He’s a retired teacher, used to teach alongside PD. He’d been assaulted at the weekend.

Apparently he was quietly walking his two elderly dogs along. One of them did its doings. Before Ash had even realised what had happened a man ran out of a house swearing at him about the mess. Ash duly apologised & offered to bag the mess, as is his habit. Before he could do that the son of the household had also run out of the house & had grabbed Ash around the neck. Ash’s hands were full with the two leads but he managed to croak himself free by pointing out he was an ex-boxer & that he would report what had happened to the police, which he duly did. He still seemed shaken by the incident.

Much as it is annoying seeing dog mess being left around, especially in front of your home, it should have been sufficient to draw Ash’s attention to the mess & let him clear it up, not to resort to violence. Hopefully that young man will have been warned to keep him temper under better control in future.