Not quite what I expected

I have a hospital appointment next week and knew that they'd want a whole lot of blood results. Over a week ago, having heard nothing, I phoned my GP. Although my hospital appointment was on my record, there was nothing to trigger the GP to do anything in advance. Nor was it on my record what the hospital needed. I phoned the hospital who said they'd mail out envelopes. When I told them that we get mail in my postcode only once every 3-4 weeks they agreed to email me a list of tests to be done. I took it to the GP surgery straight away, who told me they didn't need it - just bring it to the blood test, which they booked for this morning.

Astoundingly, it turns out that the hospital doesn't use the same codes as the GP surgery so my paper didn't enlighten the nurse about what was needed nor how much blood to put into each of the different-coloured vials. She was very apologetic, and promised to phone the hospital to check (though I had to find and give her the phone number for the relevant department, which luckily I'd saved on my phone after my call to them last week). The vein that has always before given as much as anyone needs, stopped flowing, so I had another needle in the back of my hand. The nurse was absolutely lovely, and as the tubes slowly filled, we ended up having quite a personal conversation that neither of us expected. When I'd gone in she was already running 20 minutes late, and she will have been quite a bit later after the confusions of my appointment, but I have every faith that she will take the time to find what needs doing and organise it to the best of her ability in a system that is clearly broken.

My flu jab was a doddle by comparison.

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I've had one intense, sour-sweet strawberry every three days or so for months. For most of that time they've been all mine but now there is almost nothing under the perfect top, demolished by slugs. A metaphor?