So I look up and another twelve days appear to have gone by just like that. (Doffs fez and does the Tommy Cooper wobbly hands thing for emphasis).
I dunno where they went I’m sure. Ok at some point in those days yours truly got “another year older and deeper in debt” as the songsmith might have it, but the boat wasn’t actually pushed out that much so there’s no excuse there. It must be one of those Agatha Christie type lost week thingies, only without the mysterious hotel in Harrogate or wherever it was supposed to have been. Who knows. Perhaps in years to come there will be a great “Dr J’s Lost April” urban myth. Or perhaps not.
Moving on, we have noticed, here at the Ambridge Surgery, that there was a definite upsurge in “The Madnesses” over the past couple of weeks. Literally two of our long term but stable psychotic patients chose this past hot spell to drop a few of their collective marbles of their respective trays, to end up in need of hospitalizing. And there’s a whole couple of others who are simmering under.
Suddenly Ambridge begins to feel like New York (only with fewer bagels and homicides). Temperatures soaring into the thirties and all at once the entire population gets the seven year itch, cracks up or otherwise goes to pot, and we poor soles, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, and, increasingly, sisters, are here manning the barricades and manfully (er – and womanfully) picking up the pieces.
Thank heaven for the past day’s rains. Perhaps that will help dampen their ardour and we can get back to proper General Practice*. In the meantime I’m off to buy an almanack just in case. After all it might pay me to know when the next full moon is due. And whilst I’m at it I think I might invest in some garlic and silver bullets.
* you know the sort of thing, peering into sore throats, doling out verruca creams and prying into peoples sex lives….
5 comments:
Trying again...
the lovely Shinga has just pointed out to me that in trying to turn off moderation I instead turned off comments for everyone but me. Well there's more than enough internal monologue here already, so, hopefully, you can all now get back in to play.
A shame-faced Dr J.
You are correct Dr. J. Harrogate was indeed the place Agatha decided to disappear to - The hotel which you name as mysterious, was in fact "The Old Swan" a fine hotel and well chosen by Old Aggie! Even though I only live 20 miles away from it, I have enjoyed a stay there from time to time - especially the murder weekends they arrange.
Oh, and by the way - you mention New York and Homicides in the same sentence - Naaah.... That's old hat now - The Big Apple has been cleaned, zero tolerance and all that - no, the place for all the best homicides and drive by shootings these days, is Flint, in Michigan! (Gulp! That's where my wife hails from!).
Take Care
Steve
I remember attending an Apothecaries conference in York. The subject was indeed something of the order of "Lunar induced vagaries of the human psyche extant primarily in the English spring time" but I don't remember any homicides.
My friend Arthur Wolmesly did however burn his hand on the furnace plate of a locomotive at the railway station and we headed off to casualty but were diverted by several glasses of Tetley's en route. Arthur said his hand felt fine after three pints. It was cheese sandwiches too since we weren't in the Yiddish sector of the city at the time. Bagels are jewish aren't they? Arthur reckoned that doughrings and bagels are one and the same but you need to add sugar to one of them. I told him that Ethne Frobisher used to use icing on hers - but he wasn't impressed.
I'm not too sure why you were talking about bagels. Was it something to do with verruca creams and bedroom antics?
And that's another thing. If in Ambridge your temperatures recently soared into the 30F range, you should jolly well ask those people at the Climate Change Office to pop round and get you connected to the Warming Phenomonon that is apparently almost in full swing.
Mind you it was hot that Springtime in Yorkshire when I was enjoying a short break in Harrogate back in '62.
The full moon's tommorrow.
It's astrology.hence the earthquakes,fires,explosions,brutal deaths,sudden break ups and so on everywhere.
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