Wet this morning. I'm the only customer at the good bakers. Lingering pandemic caution means I stand at a table outside.
Three years since Angus fell off a ladder in the garden. The hospital sets up an annual appointment to check on him. The wonders of the French medical system. All sorts of amazing equipment the like of which I've never seen during an annual medical in the UK. The staff all highly proficient but there is no small talk. You are allowed ten minutes for each procedure. The equipment is clearly 'sweated' to provide the maximum return on the capital invested. In France the doctors are the specialists and you only talk when spoken to. The top to toe check-up costs me the grand sum of E70. Efficient but impersonal. I guess the British system is the reverse.
It's stopped raining by the time I'm back at The Rickety Old Farmhouse. Sophie is ready for a long walk. Down the hill , past the flax field ( which is starting to flower and which I hope will be even more spectacular than the sun flower fields that surround it ) and onto the old Roman road that runs along the valley floor. There are a number of small bridges across the streams that dissect the fields. The bridges have been freshly painted and Sophie is determined to get up close and personal with the updated scents. I explain there's a chance she'll get paint on her nose but she won't be dissuaded. Miraculously her nose remains pristine.
The churchyard has a mole hill. Sophie excavates it. Any mole has had ample time to make its escape. The lack of moles doesn't in any way dampen Sophie's enjoyment.
Arles is a rather quaint, very hot ( in summer ) and somewhat sleepy place in the south of France. This has just gone up there :https://www.luma.org/arles/
11 comments:
It looks like Sophie is having a blast with that molehill! Not quite sure about the New Christy Minstrels for the 4th of July. Seems that things are changing in Arles. We visited a few years ago and saw an entirely different sort of attraction - Camargue-style bullfighting where men chase the bulls around and try to grab ribbons from their horns. Sort of like Sophie's molehunting in that no bulls were harmed, but it was . . . unusual.
I think you are looking back at the U.K./Scottish system of healthcare with rose tinted glasses. My OH has something..... very bad. Diagnosed after a series of seizures and an ambulance ride to the local hospital. The seizure was in April. From the GP, not a dicky bird. I'm not suggesting that tte medical care has been poor-quite the contrary- but absolutely nothing personal about it.
Hopefully the miserable weather didn't detract from your enjoyment of the croissant?
Another hot day here - 25ºC in the shade when we went out on our walk just before 8 a.m. Very humid, and we were glad to be back home again, with the windows on the sunny side tightly closed and the shutters down. Swimming definitely the order of the day. Inca moves every so often to find a cooler place on the tiles.
This morning's walk sounds delightful for both dog and owner.
IMHO the French medical system has just gotten better and better. I was stunned by the efficiency at the Covid vaccine center (where the administering nurse was very funny, so they aren't all business-only). My first vaccine was before the QR codes were established and the QR code arrived in the mail without having to ask. Now have my vaccine passport. Haven't been to the hospital in a while but for much of the past year I've been a regular because of having dislocated my elbow. No waiting anywhere, follow-up appointments set up, prescriptions for kiné all prepared. Really frictionless.
Re Britney, check out "I Care a Lot," a movie on Netflix. Interesting.
Sophie manages to have a 'blast' with most things. Must be a PON trait.
Weather here has been so much cooler and wetter than usual. Of course earlier in the year it was abnormally dry and hot. Guess that's what climate change means.
Delightful in a 'watch out for the wet paint' type way.
Couldn't believe the level of technology at the hospital in the departmental capital. Real Mayo Clinic type stuff.
I fear your experience has become the standard.
Hari OM
I recall visiting Arles (way back more than half a century ago) for all things Roman and Van Gogh; it's interesting that of that whole two week family holiday in a converted (by my dad) VW campervan (all six of us), I recall precisely two things clearly: the Arles adveture and the cheese and wine fiasco in Normanndy (there's a book in that tale if I could only extract it...)
Having recently had cause for dealings on behalf of said father with the NHS (which to that point had really failed him, but he was also not one 'to impose') at the Edinburgh Infirmary, I could not sing their praises highly enough... YAM xx
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