Watersheds

England is apparently bereft of audiologists. An efficient practitioner vacuumed out (their term) my ears, gave me a hearing test that included listening to speech in a language I did not recognise (vaguely germanic, but not German), programmed and fitted new hearing aids, installed an app on my phone to drive them with and taught me to use it. They explained without hubris that they could put their CV online and expect 10 phone calls within an hour, if they wanted to move job, and have their pick of anywhere in the country.

I was tempted to ask "Why on earth did you choose Banbury", but I shouldn't be unkind, Banbury has been good to us over the years. It's struggling now though, like many provincial towns. The loss of BHS, Debenhams and M&S from the centre in quick succession have left it hollow and quiet; a textbook example of the questions posed by the perfect storm of an explosion in online and retail park shopping, the defunding of local government, energy prices and central government by the landlord class

A morning ride on my new bike as the Met Office promised sunshine. What I actually got was dull skies, dull photographs and rain. The clouds stayed put as I discussed the NHS meltdown with the audiologist. Only in the last half hour before sunset, as I drove home, was there this sudden burst of light to make it worth stopping the car and looking back north at this stand of shrubs and trees. They are planted by a householder who obviously appreciates their strategic position in the landscape, perched as they are on the watershed between the Thames and the Severn-Avon catchments, with the land falling away quite quickly either side of them, leaving the house and its land highly visible from below, and picked out by the low, late sun

It is not only audiologists that the NHS lacks, of course. The whole service is depleted, demoralised and, I think, still traumatised by the memories of Covid. I think the prime minister said something about it today, but I couldn't really hear him