Unenjoyable mountains

Today I went to Guildford to see a neurologist. He works out of a private hospital at the top of Guildford. When I say ‘top’ I mean at a great height. The hospital is called Mount for a reason.

As if the exertion required to scale the heady heights of the hospital wasn’t enough, I also went to the gym this morning. I enjoyed the usual round of cardio and upper body exercises and, for the first time ever, actually had the changing room to myself. It was a rare joy.

From there it was the usual shopping trip into Farnham before heading back home to two excited puppies.

Today also saw the U3A switchover. I’d handed the webmaster reigns over to someone else a while ago and have just been waiting for the new site to be ready. Today was the day. First thing this morning I deleted all of the files and left them to it.

I’m not convinced by the new site but what do I know? They wanted a site that the members could amend as they required rather than go through me all the time. What they have is a site built around blog software. That’s fine but it’s still a blog and if the users are as uncomfortable with the Internet as I have been led to believe, I don’t think they’ll use it very often. Though, it’s not my problem. Besides, I haven’t had a thank you or anything for the last five years so what do I care? Not a lot!

While the site deletion took up a bit of time, most of my ‘home’ hours were spent in the garden.

I weeded and planted up a few things in The Day-z Bed which should create a bit of colour. There’s still a few things to do (get rid of the awful mint for a start) but it’s slowly starting to take on a nicer appearance than it’s had for a while. I’ll add a photo when I’ve finished – hopefully tomorrow.

And then, of course, I caught the 65 bus into Guildford.

I really liked the receptionist, Emily and the furniture in the waiting room. But most of all, I really liked Dr Trend. What a jolly chap. He immediately put me at my ease by asking what he should call me. I said Captain* would do, and the appointment went along from there.

He had me walk around and up and down. He had me try and stand on my heels and then my toes. He tried to get me to squat (that was hilarious) then walk one foot in front of the other. He had me lie down so he could test my reflexes then tickled my toes. He used a tuning fork to determine how much feeling I had in my feet. He was very thorough.

We chatted for a long time about medical history and the history of my feet until, eventually, he announced that he wanted me to see his electrician friend who will determine if the connections in my body are working properly. He doesn’t want me to go for an MRI scan (as the GP thought I’d need) until he knows what the likely cause is. He tutted the suggestion away with disdain.

So, I now have to ring his ‘secretary’ (that’s what he called her) on Monday to get an appointment with the ‘electrician’ before returning to see Dr Trend within the next three weeks.

I then went home and collapsed. I think I managed more walking today than I’ve done for a long time.

* Actually I said ‘Gary’ but, in retrospect, ‘Captain’ would have been quite funny and I wish I’d thought of it.