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Up a lot of the night with my poorly daughter and then woke up just before 7am so I could ring the doctors and book an appointment for this morning. There are a limited number of slots available if you ring as soon as the surgery opens and then it’s like trying to win a radio station competition by dialing and redialing until you are lucky enough to get through. Then you find out if you’ve won the coveted prize of saving your daughter’s life. Or if she must battle her illness via the power of prayer.
After five minutes of trying the phone line rang, but I was put through to an ansaphone with a number of options and when I pressed 1 for appointments I was seemingly disconnected. Or at least there was a burst of music and then silence. Was I still on hold? Did I wait and see if anyone picked up. Every minute I delayed was another four or five precious slots gone. But if I had got through and this was just the way they made you wait your turn then I could also be giving up my chance to save my baby.
It happened maybe three times and every time I left it slightly longer before realising that clearly there was no one waiting to pick me up from the dead zone. Finally after about 12 minutes I got through to a person. But the line was a bit bad and I have picked up my daughter’s lurgy and so it was hard to make her understand who I was ringing for. Finally she found Phoebe on her computer and said I could have an appointment at 10.40, 11 or 11.20. Not too bad. Sadly in the time it took her to give me those choices, all three of those slots had gone, so I snaffled up 11.40. It was the equivalent of grabbing my hat just as the trap door closed. My baby wasn’t going to have to rely on a fictional man in the sky to save her.
My wife drew the short straw of going to the appointment. She was kept waiting for 90 minutes. The appointment system is very fluid. But we have some drugs for our daughter now, even though she resolutely refuses to take them. Hopefully they can permeate through her bib and cure her that way.
In spite of her illness, Phoebe is largely good humoured. She did a brilliant dance involving lifting each shoulder in turn. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Mainly because she looked so happy doing it. Show business is in her blood.
Somehow I managed to do a bit of work on AIOTM. Not too much but enough to make me think that show 2 is not going to involve us just looking at the floor and apologising. I like the free form nature of writing the studio bits. I more or less let my fingers do the improv and see where it leads me. It’s nice to keep the spontaneous nature of the show for the filmed version, even if the filmed sketches are a little more considered.
I’ve started posting out the limited edition “The Best” programmes to those who were kind enough to pay some money to SCOPE to get their name in. I think I’ll be doing them in dribs and drabs over the next few weeks.
Oh and we’ve got some new badges for one off and monthly contributions. What grade of badger will you be?
