The build-up to the building

Shipley Church, September 2017

What a week. I've been clearing out the kitchen properly because of the building work starting very soon, and I've set up the alternative kitchen in the living room to try it out. It's working OK and I'm sure I shall soon start to remember where the bin and the kettle are now located. Mugs are on the shelf with the CDs, cereal is in the cupboard with the music system, decaff teabags are in the next room and I've bought several packets of biscuits because I'm assuming builders eat biscuits and I want them to like me so they will do a really good job.

Meanwhile there have been some extra stresses at work. On Monday one nurse and the doctor were both ill, and the remaining team was led by a nurse who, let's say, is not an enthusiastic worker. So she made the receptionist cancel all the patients for the day, and the doctor was not pleased when he found out. The nurse won't care, though.

More kitchen clearing on Tuesday, then on Wednesday I went to a meeting convened by Diabetes UK and NHS England all about self-management through Structured Education. I really, really need to think more carefully about whether I should go to these meetings. It was attended by several people working for Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) from different areas in the West Midlands, and by 'service providers' like myself.

I listened to an account of a really good way of delivering self-management education to people with Type 2 Diabetes in Worcestershire, while thinking how it could never happen in my region because all the key people are all too busy picking fights with one another. But I spent a bit of time talking to one of our Senior Commissioners, but there are so many administrative layers between that level and my own that it really seems to make no difference to me what is decided at the top, and similarly there seems to be no accountability to Commissioners about what I decide to do. It just frustrates me that I don't understand how the system works and nobody seems able to explain it to me.

Evening activities added to the running about that I did, with the usual badminton (including the first match of the new season), my new Buddhism class (more about that soon), and, unusually, some social activities.

On Friday I went to a Charity Music Quiz in aid of one of my colleagues who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It's a very sad story: she and her family were devastated by the diagnosis and did what many families in their position would do - clutch at straws. Faced with their oncologist's pessimistic prognosis they found a clinic in Germany which offered a treatment costing £50,000 for the first cycle (I think three cycles were recommended) after an initial fee of £17,000 just to look at the biopsy samples.

So they embarked upon a massive fundraising effort including local newspaper and radio coverage and many events and sponsored activities. Thankfully during this period the oncologist was persuaded to do a bit of research on their behalf, and an alternative but comparable treatment has been found in this country for a lot less money. But still a lot of money.

The quiz was part of this fundraising effort, and although it was on a Friday night with colleagues from work, both of which would normally have meant I would have taken care to avoid it, I signed up for the sake of my colleague. It wasn't a bad evening, and our team did quite well - I even contributed one or two answers. There was a raffle at the end which landed me a bottle of gin, but there were ten rounds in the quiz plus the raffle and I didn't get home until midnight.

The weekend was full of preparation for the builders squeezed in alongside more social events. Astonishingly, I found someone who wanted the kitchen cupboards! So on Saturday I welcomed a man and his nephew with their not-very-capacious estate car, who proceeded to take all the cupboard doors and a couple of the shelf units. Despite seeming a little suspicious about the whole deal at the start, by the time they drove off I was invited to drop in to visit any time I happened to be in their neighbourhood.

My monthly music group was on Saturday afternoon, and then in the evening I went to a local venue because a friend was playing a gig there - another late night (but not as late as the quiz night), and a walk on Sunday with the Meetup group which was delightful. The weather was so warm that we could sit outside at the pub stop, and after the walk I visited Charlecote Mill - a working water mill which was having an open day. So another long day, then back to work on Monday, more badminton on Monday night, and then...

The Builders Arrived.