naughty bacteria, the iron lady & a poetry acceptance - england day 7

so, a trip to the sandown health centre this morning for my 09:40 appointment. the verdict: chest infection. nasty little buggers in my chest had to spoil my well-deserved, much-needed holiday! for the second time this year i am on antibiotics. the last time i took antibiotics before 2013 was in the early 90s or even in the late 80s! crazy. apart from antibiotics - rest. i asked about flying out on thursday: not recommended. well.

pharmacy, breakfast, www to do something about my flight. eventually found a rather cheap flight back, cheaper than changing my ticket at any rate! so i will be here till sunday. i hope by the end of the week i will be fit enough to venture out for some hours or i'll get a different kind of fever - cabin fever!

i rested, then went for a 15 minute stroll before getting something to eat. the short walk and a trip to the shop left me more tired than my 14 km walk on saturday! but then, i still have a temperature.


broken sun


the good news of the day is that after a couple of rejection notes, i got a "yes" from red fez magazine, accepting my poem inspired by the element magnesium. i am glad it has found a home - and red fezes look stunning on poems. ;)

of course, the big thing everybody is talking about here is the death of the iron lady, margaret thatcher, who passed yesterday. there are reports of street parties, of people rejoicing in her death. i understand where some of them might be coming from (though i believe many of them are too young to actually remember, or were not even born back then), but i still think it is wrong. (i'd actually like to ask them a simple question: let's say your mother is a controversial public figure. or let's just say the neighbours didn't get on with her. let's say she dies after a long struggle with cancer or a demented old woman. how would you feel if the people in your street had impromptu parties, singing songs about the wicked witch being dead?)

the margaret thatcher who died yesterday was not the margaret thatcher of the 1980s, she was an old and very sick woman. and yes, thatcher steered the country into an entirely wrong direction, from my point of view - and obviously from the POV of many, many british people - but she did not do so single-handedly, and those who have come after her ... well ... they haven't exactly helped, have they, to put things right. thatcher might have started it, she might have messed up a lot of things ... scratch that, she DID mess up a lot of things for a lot of people, but what about her successors? will partying in reaction to the news of an old woman's death change anything, anything at all? 'fraid not. what it would take is for people to get organised instead. have they got that in them?

still, i had to chuckle at the typo on some media website: "margaret thatcher died after a strike". if it was a typo, that is ... it might also have been cleverly sneaked into the article ... ;) and - i don't believe in an afterlife, but ... if there happens to be one, perhaps margaret t. can get stuck in a neverending miners' strike. *g*

and okay, i can't resist choosing the following as my ...


song of the day: stand down margaret by billy bragg.

sweat, sleep & the NHS - england day 6

hot & sweaty night. (not what you think. get your mind out of the gutter!) woke with a temperature of 38°C. not a promising start to the day. a trip to the pharmacy across the street then, to get some paracetamol, cough relief and vicks vapo rub. grocery shopping. i didn't even bother with breakfast, just had a pain au chocolat - the kind of pain that is actually sweet. ;)

back to bed - a little reading, a little lexulous, a little looking out the window, a little listening to my "the name of the wind" audio book. then more sleep. talked to heinz, who i'd asked to contact my GP in vienna. the thing is, in austria, if you get sick during your holidays, it doesn't count as a holiday, because holidays are for recreation, and being ill clearly isn't. so if you get sick on a holiday, you need to see a doctor to get a certificate or confirmation of being ill. my GP told heinz that i needed to see a doctor here in england to get some confirmation to take with me to vienna.

so i rang the sandown NHS health centre. after getting disconnected three times, the lady i finally got on the line wasn't terribly friendly or helpful. she said they could not give me any confirmation or anything, if anyone in the UK got sick during their holidays, it was "just one of these things". sorry. great. i decided to call my GP in vienna. he was surprised at the reaction of the NHS person and said if i could bring a bill or confirmation of an appointment, that would be fine. i tried a different health centre, in shanklin, and they were much friendlier. they said i could get an appointment card, certainly, but i would have to go to the health centre in sandown, because i was staying there, not in shanklin. so, another call (looking forward to my phone bill! not.) to sandown health centre, and fortunately i had a different person on the line. she gave me an appointment for tomorrow morning, to see a nurse. i hope that will get me what i need.

due to the paracetamol, my temperature has gone down, but i feel very tired and weak. i guess the sweating is actually very good, but i am running out of clothes ... i hate being ill away from home, and this certainly isn't the way i pictured my holiday. i'm quite upset and disappointed, and i think i am also unhappy with the way i went about it all ... i should have taken it easier the first couple of days, perhaps found some indoor activities instead. will i never learn?

i am feeling quite anxious this afternoon. i already dread going back to work, especially now that i won't feel rested at all. i am trying to be kind to myself and not to be angry with myself for overdoing it and falling ill, but it's not easy. i sat down to write this blog post, because i was beginning to feel panicky. and that's about the last thing i need.


song of the day: fever by elvis.