WHAT DOES THE DOCTOR THINK THIS MONTH?

It is hard to believe but we have now been in Worcestershire for a month. The final removal day was frenetic. The massive lorry rocked up at 7am, accompanied by a smaller 7 ton version and they loaded up and were on their way by 12.30pm. This was the second load in the massive lorry and, when the men arrived in the Midlands at tea time, they met our son Calum who was going to direct them to the house of the lady who had bought our dining room furniture. The removal men told Calum a great tale of woe, along the lines that there wasn't a snowballs chance of the 180 large boxes they had brought up fitting inside our new house as the house was already full with the load they had brought up a month previously. Calum sprang into action and erected his massive holiday tent on the lawn to deal with the overflow. Good job he did as we filled the tent to the roof and it has taken me a month to work through the contents; this process was not helped by the visit from the Beast from the East which produced freezing temperatures and feet of drifting snow. The tent survived well but the double garage filled with snow which blew under the doors and we had to shovel it all out. The snow also got into the eaves of our house and landed on the ceiling lights of one of the bathrooms, causing electrical distribution switches to trip. Howmsomever, as they say in Norfolk, be that as it may, we seem to be coming out the other end and the house is getting straighter, with only three rooms so full that we dare not open the doors. On Mothering Sunday, we were invited to daughter Charlotte's home in Sutton Coldfield for lunch. We got up early and showered and dressed in a leisurely fashion as I had given myself the morning off from unpacking. I decided to wear my navy trousers and, as I put them on, I found my spare Espace key in the pocket. We were due to leave home at 11.30am; we had decided to take Deannie's car to give it a good run and charge up the battery. At 10.45am I decided to sort out the SatNav in Deannie's car, having read the instructions the night before. It took me 45 minutes to fail abjectly. The instructions, which had looked so clear the night before, turned out to be opaque.All I achieved was to change the language from English to German. A bit fed up, I decided to call it a day and use a road atlas. As I shut the door, I inadvertently pushed down a door locking button and ended up with a locked car with the keys inside. I know we have a spare key somewhere, and I vaguely remember seeing it here since we arrived. However, it was nowhere to be seen and extensive subsequent searches have failed to locate it. The next morning, I rang around and ended up with a Chinese locksmith by the name of Nathan Chan. He turned up, inserted an oblong skeleton into the lock, pulled out levers which he carefully wiggled up and down, in and out. Within a minute, he had unlocked the car. I suggested that such devices might be available on the internet and he replied, “Yes, the bl**dy Chinese copy everything and put it on the net”. He was then off the the local Vauxhall main agent whose key board had been stolen, with all the keys for the cars in the showroom. To be on the safe side, they employed a guard to patrol the premises at night to prevent the thieves returning to steal vehicles. He had fallen asleep and the thieves came back and had it away with five top of the range new cars and those customers' cars which were in for service! We are really missing all our Norfolk friends and patients and thank all of you who have sent messages of goodwill. Daughter Charlotte is now the Head teacher for a 700 child school and she relayed the following joke. Finding one of her pupils making faces at other children, the teacher reprimanded the boy, saying “When I was a child, I was told that if I made ugly faces and the weather changed, I would stay like that”. “Well”, said the child “You can't say you weren't warned”. Two college students happened upon a beggar and one of them gave him some notes. His friend reprimanded him, saying “You know he will only spend it on alcohol and drugs” His friend laughed “What.....and we weren't going to do just that” Joe visited his friend Bob to help him with a job. He noticed that Bod frequently kissed his wife and complimented her a lot. When Joe commented, Bob told him that he had started 6 months ago and it had revived their marriage. Joe went home, kissed his wife and told her how much he loved her. His wife burst into tears. Bob asked her why and she said “This is the worst day of my life. First, little Billy fell off his bike and twisted his ankle. Then the washing machine broke down and now you come home drunk!” Susan is looking in a mirror and she says to her husband “I see an old woman, my face is wrinkled, my boobs are sagging and my bum is hanging out a mile. I've got fat legs and my arms are all flabby. Tell me something positive to make me feel happier about myself”. “Well” said her husband “there is nothing wrong with your eyesight”. A wife stood up in church and asked the congregation to pray for her husband who had suffered a nasty motor cycle accident and had suffered a broken scrotum. She described how he was in constant pain, had stopped work and that their love life was now non-existent. The women looked sympathetic and the men looked decidedly uncomfortable. Suddenly, a lone figure stood up, hobbled slowly and painfully to the lectern and spoke into the microphone “My name is Jim and I have only one word for my wife – that word is sternum!”

Best wishes to you all Ian Nisbet