Windy.

Wild and windy again today. After a grey start the  sky cleared a little and had a bit of blue in places. I took a chance and hung my work joggers out on the line, they couldn't have got any wetter after yesterday. By the end of the day the wind had blown them almost dry. 

Today has been a town shopping day. First stop was Morrisons where I did the basic shopping. It's always a gamble as to which items to buy there and which to buy in Lidl as Lidl is cheaper but smaller and often has empty shelves. And so it was today. I waited until I got to Lidl to buy kitchen roll only to find none there. Rather than go back across town I called in at the shop in the village and bought some there.

Yesterday morning there was an article on Radio 4 about a shortage of eggs. That's a sure way to send everyone panic buying. The shelves were about half filled with eggs but Lidl had were restricting purchases to a maximum of 3 boxes. Above - this is the first time I've seen eggs being sold singly. Not such a bad idea if you are on your own or only need an egg or two for baking. For some reason I find I never eat eggs these days and only use them when baking.

In town - It's such a shame this refurbished former school isn't being fully utilised. The building ahead is a large cafe while the one on the right was one of those very rustic but expensive organic food shops that closed down and the building on the left has always been empty. It's such a nice space which contrasts with the rest of the shopping streets which are run down and dirty.

Apart from the usual household shopping I had other items on my list including some clips that Peter wanted for the new boat trolley that is ready for them to use. Those I found in Charlie's but I wasn't so lucky in my search for a couple of clothes airers. The only place that stocked them had sold out so Amazon it will have to be. I hate supporting that company but when you live in an isolated area of the country it's sometimes your only option.

Coming home I had to call in at the pharmacy for yet another prescription. This follows another saga of things going wrong, not with my health but with the health service where IT systems are not talking to each other. When I saw the out of hours doctor (bear with me) on Sunday I gave him a sample of the offending piddle/pee/urine (pick a version that doesn't offend) which he sent to the lab to be tested. I was instructed to phone the GP's surgery on Tuesday for the results. I phoned but nothing had arrived to the surgery from the hospital. I phoned again on Thursday to be told still nothing and that despite them trying to track me down I did not appear to be on the hospital system. As the out of hours service doesn't open until after the surgery closes they suggested I tried to contact them myself in the evening. I rang the hospital first but out of hours is a separate service that just happens to use rooms in the hospital. So phoning 111 was on the only way to get in contact with them. Thank goodness I used Peter's phone as I was on hold for over half an hour and would have used up all my pay-as-you-go credit. Eventually got through and after persuading the call handler that she didn't need to go through her list of questions to see what was wrong with me off she went. More time on hold and then .... she'd found me but my surname was mis-spelt. But she couldn't tell me about the test. A doctor would have to phone me back. Much later on I got a call from a random doctor who couldn't find me on the system with either spelling. He then tried to fob me off saying I hadn't needed a test anyway. I'd been given antibiotics and that should be the end of the matter. What !!! I got cross at this point and emphasised that if a test had been done then the results should be known. Eventually he said that if I wanted to know out of curiosity he would try emailing the doctor I had seen. Hmph. I was all set to ring my surgery this morning and tell them how I'd been fobbed off but they rang me first. The results had come through, my doctor had seen them and I need to take a third course of antibiotics which I could collect from the pharmacy. So much for the test not being needed. I have to take two tablets three times a day for a week. And they are not nice. They must be quite anhydrous as you have to have dry hands to take them out of the individual packages and wash each down with a least half a glass of liquid to avoid them sticking in your throat. They leave a nasty taste and feeling but if they do the job that's the important thing.