Cardiac discharge & Seafront strangeness

A day of two halves, really: good news to begin with, followed by work-related frustration.

Today saw my long-anticipated appointment with the cardiologist who began the whole business last year by not letting me go home after he did the angiogram. The confirming letter stressed the need for a ECG to be done beforehand, and specified last Friday for this to be done. I'd actually been in touch with Beaumont hospital without reference to the letter and had made an ECG appointment for Thursday. When I contacted them to change it to the friday I was told I could leave it until this morning and save myself a separate journey. So I took them at their word and aimed to be in Beaumont for 9.00, leaving plenty of time for an ECG before my 9.50 appointment.

The ECG bit was plain sailing, and I was at the cardiology clinic before 9.30, which was when the long wait began. In fairness, I suppose it wasn't all that long really, though it seems so when you're faced with every chair being occupied and names being called with alarming infrequency. Eventually it was my turn to see the nurses and have blood pressure and pulse rate and weight checked. It wasn't too long after that before my name was called by the man himself. He really is good, with an excellent manner and a reassuring no-nonsense approach. I've been experiencing some well-known side-effects with the medication I'm on (muscular aches caused by Lipitor and cold extremities caused by the beta-blocker). I'd been taken off the Lipitor during cardiac rehab, and now the cardiologist suggested suggested waiting until winter time to see if the cold hands and feet and nose continued to be a serious problem, in which case I was to ask my GP to switch me to a different beta-blocker. That was until he whipped out his stethoscope and had a listen. 'You're a bit wheezy', he said. 'Do you smoke?' I told him I haven't smoked in over twenty years, and he decided to do the beta-blosker switch now rather than wait until winter time, and wrote me a prescription. After that he basically told me he didn't need to see me again, so that's that. I'm now out of the system, discharged, and back in the hands of my GP.

I was back home before 11.00 and turned immediately to work. I finished off the preparation of print-ready artwork and began uploading to the printer's automated InSite system at 3.30 or so. My upload speeds are ridiculously slow - as little os 60 kB/sec at times), so the upload process took for ever (eight hours, to be precise!). At least I got a chance to grab some more sleep while it happened in the background, and even managed to get out for a breath of fresh air later on. The weather improved all the time during the day, and it was gloriously bright and sunny by the time I made my way to the seafront at Clontarf. I got in a good walk and came back with lots of blip-possibles. This strange-looking Easter-Island-style sculptural piece has long intrigued me, but I've been unable to find any information about it.

It was almost midnight by the time things were finally sorted out with the automated pre-press thing. Bed was most welcome.

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Once again, I've allowed a bit of a blip gap to develop, but that unsightliness has now been rectified: Father of the Railways and Evening light with wires.