Upon hearing that my referral for testing never went through, the GP pulled up the file, glanced through it, and agreed that I should have been seen more than a year ago. The fact that the referral was for oncology didn’t seem to strike him as an unusual glitch in the system; in fact, we had quite a nice conversation about the structure of health care trusts and the sneaky habits of a certain teaching hospital.
I now have the direct phone number for the oncologist, and approval to invoke my private insurance if there is any further delay in getting an appointment. Which is all well and good, except the bit where I really do not want to do the tests.
In more interesting news, we spent the weekend in London and showed my mother all sorts of things, including but not limited to Kensington Palace, where we had a tour of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon’s shabby 60’s era kitchen. I was very impressed that the private stairwells all had the same sort of rub and skid marks that haunt my own walls. Apparently even the royals can be somewhat lax when it comes to upkeep.
We left the children with their grandmother and the televised celebration of Trafalgar Day to meet up with Iain and Xtina for dinner and drinks. We had a fantastic time; they are hilarious and have excellent taste in restaurants. The pub they chose even featured a photograph of the Queen Mother pulling pints – with extraordinary glee.
Byron left for Paris this afternoon; on the way out the door he said that he couldn’t wait to get to the hotel and sleep. I retorted You aren’t going to stay in, you are going to go to a cafe and get picked up by strangers who will take you out to fabulous clubs and parties.
He opened his eyes very wide in an expression of mock innocence.