Squirrel 999

Yesterday was fun.  I went to work and while at work, a friend of my daughter popped round to go for a dog walk.  Leia loves Darcy and the two keep trying to go into the drives of our houses when they pass the houses.  Quickly into the walk, the two girls found a bleeding squirrel and rescued it.  My daughter got a box and they made calls to vets to see what could be done.  My wife got involved and they ended up taking it to a local vet who said that they could do nothing for it and it needed to go to an animal hospital, in Grays.

My wife and the girls went down, her driving there with her knee was something I had not wanted her to do and I had offered to do it myself.  Instead, as we had guest coming round, she asked me to prepare some food, which I promptly burned!

Having Nick, Lyndsay and Hamish round though later was a nice end to the day and ended a relaxing bank holiday weekend. 

Lucca in Manningtree

Yesterday was a trip to Manningtree for lunch to celebrate my daughters results. Before that my son and I watched Grey's Anatomy. The episode "Who's Zoomin' Who?" was interesting, but the main error was with the size of the injection given to one of the doctors. When injections are given, a ten millilitre syringe is not needed as the amount given is not a 10ml shot.  We have yet to finish watching it, but it did bring back memories from when I worked in hospital and a few of the doctors were quite active with each other &/or nurses. Saying that, I cannot remember any stories about syphilis or other similar diseases spreading amongst the staff! 

Lucca was great. As we took Leia, we had to sit outside. I thought that this would be in the street which was in the sun but we where in the shade in the garden/patio in the back.  Leia had been fed beforehand and slept as she appeared to be quite tired from our busy and exhausting day yesterday. It was great to return there, we loved the food and it has been a shame we have not been back here sooner.

Later in the day we played House of Games which we all enjoyed.  It was a great idea of my wife for us to play it. That and a late evening walk with Leia and we relaxed afterwards, my son upstairs, my wife and daughter watching Blue Bloods and me watching The Boys. 

Arsenal 2-1 Fulham

That was a frustrating game. I was nervous before the game that things would not go our way with it being  a London derby, that and I have been asking the Spurs fans at work who is top of the league. When Fulham scored, I lost faith in the team, but I should have had more faith in them. Hopefully this will give the team more belief in themselves and resilience which will be needed when the team face top six opponents.

The Brightlingsea food festival

We went to the Brightlingsea food festival yesterday. We met up with friends, Nick and Lyndsay as well as seeing others such as Michelle and Sarah.

The weather was great, the food amazing and the company fantastic. The picture was taken on a walk with Leia.

Is the BBC biased?

I had posted about this before, many years ago when the only bias I could see was against Arsenal.  That does not appear to be the case anymore.  

There has been controversy over the way that they cover politics, but all parties claim that it is biased. When I made my original post, people moaned when UKIP are featured on panels, or complain when UKIP is not. In addition to this, there was the refusal of the BBC to air an appeal during a conflict with a large number of civilian casualties in Gaza. I did not agree with that decision, but I did see how most of the time, it is trying to be impartial (I accept that it is biased when it comes to reporting on Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine)   

I remember when the BBC was lauded for holding the government to account, and rightly so  before the Iraq war.  Apparently, under the Conservatives, that means speaking the truth is being biased.  Emily Maitlis has spoken out on her views on the BBC.  Things have changed in recent years from when John Humphrys attacked the liberal bias he felt was present.  

I do hope that things can return to the days when everyone had cause to complain about bias with the BBC, but to it being more balanced.  I hope it is soon.

The girl did well

Our daughter did well in her exams.  Much better than I did in my GCSE's.  I would love to say that her exams were easier than mine, but looking at the content she was examined on, it includes things I learned when I studied A-levels.  

We would have been proud of her no matter what she got as she worked really hard for them but her grades speak for themselves and she is happy with what she has got, mostly.  I say mostly as she just missed out on two even higher grades and she is considering an appeal over them. 

Right now, she has had friends over who have just left.  Hopefully she will not be as stressed as she was before which hopefully means a calmer daughter now!

Ambulance & A&E waits

Once upon a time, Labour was in charge of the nation.  That changed in 2010 when the electorate voted them out and since then, A&E waits have increased.  Targets were redefined to allow them to be met, but the government missed them.  I am not in favour of the four hour target for minor issues as A&E should be for accidents and emergencies, but the target was met when Labour was in power, and now it is not.

But things are even worse than that.  I have spoken to two paramedics and neither of them can recall having to wait outside A&E in 2010.  This is all too common an issue now.  An ambulance that is waiting at A&E with a patient inside it, is an ambulance that cannot attend to another patient who is at home, in the road, laying in the garden etc.  My mother was one of those people who were not able to be picked up by an ambulance a few months ago when she woke with central chest pain. That required a blue light attendance, but she had to go by taxi in the morning to A&E instead.  A patient of mine saw me the morning after she had chest pain in the night. She also called 999 but the ambulance did not get to her and she cancelled her ambulance once her pain went.  When I saw her that morning, her ECG indicated an issue with her heart. I had a patient in a nursing home who had a fractured hip and had to be left on the floor for over 12 hours before an ambulance was able to get to him.

I had blamed COVID for this before, but it is not COVID that is causing this.  It is government incompetence.

The Conservatives have been in charge of our health service and social care since 2010, and things have got worse. Despite them saying that they are to fix things, things continue to get worse.  While they can blame social care as an issue, they have been in charge since 2010 and Boris Johnson was elected in 2019 promising that he had a plan to fix it.