Wet.

Autumn has begun with clouds and frequent rain. Luckily not too cold yet.

        

You can tell the season is over, not a single person on the beach and out at sea a little blue boat was bringing in the buoys that mark the inshore water.

        

This morning I had an appointment at the hospital to have the cyst on my toe looked at. I don't know if it only applies to me but I find any hospital appointment utterly stressful. Not because I'm concerned about my health since I've been fortunate enough not have anything with life threatening consequences but because I always feel I'm going to to battle with the system. A system that is more concerned with saving money and ticking off numbers from the various lists that are used to demonstrate how well or badly the hospital or even the NHS is doing than actually sorting out patients' problems. It's taken 7 months from my first visit to the GP in the hope that the cyst could be removed to seeing anyone at the hospital. I thought that today I might be offered to have the cyst drained (a 50% reoccurrence rate) and had my arguments ready to push to have the cyst removed. But no, all that happened today was that he looked and then handed me two forms saying that I needed an x-ray and bloods and they would phone me in 2-4 weeks as to the next steps. He also said it might be arthritis, hah! and that even with removal the cyst would come back. Then he went all doom and gloom saying it's never just one operation and might be two or more and maybe having to have the toe bones fused. Pretty sure that was arse covering or trying to put me off surgery. So out I went clutching my two bits of paper wondering what to do next. Luckily the nurse followed me out and explained I would have to phone the hospital or my GP for the blood to be taken but I could go to x-ray straight away. The x-ray didn't take long and when I phoned my GP surgery they gave me an appointment for Wednesday morning. I guess it was too much to expect more progress.

       

I spent the afternoon peeling vast quantities of tomatoes, vowing to grow half the number of plants next year, to make lots of tomato and onion sauce to go in the freezer. No recipe, I just threw in plenty of the herbs I like plus garlic and now its simmering in the slow cooker to reduce.