Today started with a blood test. I aimed for ten past seven to avoid the arguments we had last time and arrived at 7.16. Instead of the machine there was a box of printed cards, which didn’t inspire confidence. I took card number 18.
On a brighter note, there were only a few people waiting and when they called for Number 15 I realised some people were waiting for other things.
The day started to look better.
After a swift test I was able to get home quickly enough to take Julia for breakfast and then get her to work on time.
They are hoping to get the ticket machine fixed tomorrow. Apparantly it was chaos on Monday when it broke.
Taking things back to Monday night, the main news is that I’m booked in for a tooth extraction next Tuesday and a blood test on Monday – it needs to be within 72 hours of the extraction, though I’m not quite sure how it helps. I’m on anti-coagulants so I’m going to bleed. You don’t hear about too many people bleeding to death from tooth extractions so I’m not too concerned. If the dentist wants to worry that’s up to him. Or her.
They rang to arrange that just as I was leaving home for the monthly meeting of the Nottinghamshire Numismatic Society. The subject was The White Rajahs of Sarawak, and was very good. It was reasonably entertaining and I learnt quite a lot of interesting stuff. One of them lost an eye in a hunting accident when in his 80s. He was known for being careful with his money so popped down to the local taxidermist (he was living in Devon in the days when towns had taxidermists) and bought a job lot of glass eyes. His favourite, it seems, was an Albatross eye.
If he’d been poor he’d have been regarded as an idiot, but as he was rich, with a private kingdom, he was merely eccentric.
I learn some interesting things in these posts, Quercus! I had never heard of the White Rajahs of Sarawak.
Sorry you are having a tooth extraction.
I only knew of them vaguely, though the three daughters of the 3rd rajah were apparantly the 1930s equivalent of the Kardashians.
I like to think of myself as more eccentric than idiotic but checking on my bank balance, I see that I am probably an idiot.
Good luck with the dentistry.
Thank you. The dentist allows me to keep my trousers on and doesn’t insert unwanted cameras so while I’m not exactly looking forward to it, it could be worse. As for the idiot/eccentric division I may have to modify it to accomodate poor non-idiots.
Great observation about how poor people and rich people are judged by different standards.
Thank you. 🙂
An excellent piece of trivia!
Yes – there was some other stuff but that was the bit that stuck! 🙂
You do have a knack of making unpleasant processes amusing. Thanks for the White Rajahs link
I’m going to do more reading on White Rajahs – there seems like a lot more to learn.