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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Free and easy

There is a naked man on the beach.

In Spain this does not usually constitute news as there are many nude beaches along the coasts, but I was not aware that the beach in front of our flat had this designation. There are not many people on the beach today, though the sun is shining and the skies are clear blue. Is the lone man a dedicated naturist making a bare statement seeking to liberate the beach or is he a daftie who forgot his bathing costume and disports himself defiantly?

Who knows; who cares?

The continuing story of my medical treatment has now reached the stage, as I have previously mentioned, of getting my medication. Given my problems with the medical centre this is a major break though, though the problems do not stop there.

A simple duplication of my British medication is impossible because of “different protocols” so one tablet is now two; one brand name has given way to another; one dose has been doubled and one prescription seemed entirely different and didn’t have the active ingredient anywhere on the box or on the paper inside. After a few phone calls and one phone call back from the doctor I was advised to visit the surgery and make an appointment to see him. Thus, the first of my visits to the medical centre today. The second to see the doctor revealed that the medication I had been given was indeed the wrong one. Thus, back to the pharmacy where confusion reigned. I did get a replacement box, but the shop assistant actually tried to charge me for it! I refused to pay holding up the other box and muttering “incorecto!” like a sort of incantation to get my way. Eventually, after giving my telephone number, I was allowed to leave with my appropriate pills and later had an almost completely unintelligible telephone conversation with the lady in the pharmacy (I understood that much) which I have decided meant that she was accepting the cost of he wrong medication to compensate he for the price of the right one. Well, she has my telephone number and she can always make another attempt to get me to do something other than nothing! And anyway Toni might be home then.

I suppose that there is a law which states that how ever much time you appear to have available to complete a series of tasks they will all, inevitably, gravitate towards one particular time slot for their actual completion. So tomorrow, along with other less pressing requirements, now has Toni’s arrival in Barcelona airport together with the courier arriving at the flat with the precious Barça tickets while the rubbish needs to be taken to the bins.

A second law states that if to complete one task you leave the centre of operations then, inevitably, all the other tasks will require your immediate presence in the centre – In which you are not, if you see what I mean.

I look forward to a fraught fugitive time.

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