Nuisance Call - Not!

 We rarely answer the phone these days.  

A quick look at the phone's screen tells us if it's a nuisance call and we let it ring out.  Ones that start 097 are the worst.  Usually they are trying (still after two years) to sell loft insulation for one euro. On the rare occasions I do answer I say "Hello" loudly in an English voice in the hope that they just hang up.  I've given up trying to practise my French on people who hesitate as they try to say our surname.

Yesterday, Tod was out all afternoon at the Skoda garage and, not certain whether they might need to keep the car overnight, he took his mobile phone in case he needed to call me for a lift.

I, meanwhile, was having fun in the garden with our latest new toy - a battery driven Stihl mower. So when I came in at five pm I thought I'd better check for any messages.  

And there it was, from the morning, an 097 call.  Only it came, not from a call centre, but from our doctor's surgery.  They had (as we feared) cancelled our Astra Zeneca vaccination appointment. But, instead, were offering the option of Moderna jabs - for THIS SATURDAY - and would we get back to them immediately (by phone) because if we didn't want them they would give them to someone else.   

I phoned - to hear a message that the secretariat was shut. Knowing they were probably there for another hour (curfew starts at six pm) I leapt in the car, threw Bertie back in the kitchen and locked the door - he thought he would come with me - and hurtled round the back roads into town praying that they hadn't given away "our" slots.

Visits to the doctor and the pharmacy in France require the patience of a saint, which I don't have at the best of times and certainly not when I want to jump up and down saying "we'll take it, we'll take it". An elderly gentleman two in front in the queue for the desk, with a mask (of course) half way to his chin, collars one of the receptionists and a long conversation about his ailments ensues.  The other receptionist is called away by one of the doctors and those of us waiting, wait, and wait and wait.  

I begin to hop from one foot to the other - better than yelling at everyone - but that just irritates the people behind me.  "She's English" one of them says to the general assembly in explanation (that was after I'd muttered FFS, I thought under my breath, but obviously not).  "And speaks French" I snap, in case she decides to expand on my qualities.

Finally, finally, the receptionist turns to me, takes my carte vitale, finds the doctor and, joy of joys, offers us two appointments for six pm Saturday. We are to come to the surgery first to be checked in, then go across the car park to the tent where the vaccines are being done, then come back to the surgery for our paperwork to be completed and to wait 15 minutes in case we are anaphylactic. 

I skip out of the surgery cheerfully wishing everyone a "bon week-end" (I briefly think it is already Friday) thus confirming in the minds of those still in the queue that I am a mad Englishwoman. 

A friend told me she burst into tears with relief when she had hers.  I know how she feels.