Saturday I was awake in the night with facial itching and sure enough I woke to a face that was red and bumpy and very itchy 🙁 I took piriton which did ease the itching and stayed out of the sun and hoped it might go away on it’s own (the itching, not my face).
We worked on clearing out the pumphouse, a room within the swimming pool building which houses the pool pump and various other pool related stuff but also a whole heap of other junk and lots and lots of dust! Ady and I worked together for most of the morning dragging stuff out, deciding whether it was rubbish, charity-shop-donate-able or for keeping and dealing with it accordingly. The stuff to keep (mostly crockery, cutlery and other kitchen stuff for cottages) was all in need of a good clean so I was running it through dishwashers in unoccupied cottages while Ady put stuff in the skip / recycling or pile for the charity shop. A delivery of a sofa from the charity shop arrived, we loaded them back up to take the stuff for them we’d already gathered and then Jonathan came back from some errands in town with a huge platter of sandwiches from Subway, drinks and cakes so we broke for a big communal lunch in the sunshine :).
After lunch Jill & Shirley (resident manager, masseur and all round lovely person) went to the campsite next door to introduce themselves, make an offer of discounts for coming and using the pool & steam room here when booking massages for their guests and arrange to have a couple of the farmers sheep to graze on the field here. I was left in charge of the office while they went on alert for some arriving guests, who very conveniently arrived just moments after Jill and Shirely came back so I didn’t need to check them in after all. Meanwhile Jonathan took over helping Ady in the pump room.
At 5pm I had another massage with Shirley as she wanted to practise a different type, so my payment was feedback and comparing the two. Seemed like a good deal to me :). After a quick bath to get the oil out of my hair we were all off (10 of us in all; us, Jill, Jonathan & Thomas, Norman & Kathleen – Jonathan’s parents, and Shirley) for a meal out, to celebrate the inspector’s visit, say thankyou to us and generally enjoy being with each other away from the cottages. It was J&J’s treat and a really nice evening at a local restuarant :). We went back to theirs for coffees afterwards so it ended up another quite late night.
Sunday after another fairly bad nights sleep with itchy face I woke to find it hard to get my contact lenses in as my eyes had swollen up and started to close. At that point (I think it was day three before I went to the GP last time) I decided I needed to do something so went to find Jill to say I’d walk down to the hospital at the end of the road which is tiny but does have an A&E unit. It’s only about a mile or so but Jill very kindly ran me down there and told me to ring when I’d been seen and she would come and get me and take me to a chemist. I was seen really quickly and the nurse was very sympathetic and interested in what we are doing this year but said she didn’t think they’d be able to help as I was not an accident or an emergency 🙁 Sure enough after about 15 minutes another nurse came along to say they couldn’t give me anything other than more anti histimines. I knew I needed steroids to stop the reaction having tried various antiH’s last time. When I tried to justify it as an emergency as in time sensitive and with me about to head to another county tomorrow I was told I’d need to register with a GP either here or in Devon tomorrow :(.
I was torn between appreciating that’s how it works, feeling really pissed off about not being helped and really upset at the prospect of a fight and a long drawn out pathway to getting steroids so walked back to the cottages to stamp out some of my frustration. I had been given the number of the out of hours emergency GP and told I could try them but the nurse suspected they would not help as it was not a health threatenining proper emergency so I almost didn’t ring but I did, explained to a very nice woman what the problem was and she promised to get a GP to ring me back. Once I’d stomped back up the hill (all the time thinking it was cheeky even calling itself a hill after the hill I encountered at Steward Wood!) and ranted at Ady and made a cup of tea the GP had rung back, totally got my angst and wish to get some steroids quick, and why I needed to be seen asap before I moved on and made me an appointment at Shepton Mallet A&E with the resident GP there for an hour later, giving me a postcode and directions to the hospital.
Jill kindly offered to take me there too so we drove along there, sat chatting in the waiting room for half an hour and I was then seen by a very lovely GP (who reminded me lots of Jan, both generally in being very peaceful an easy to talk to and specifically in what I suspect Jan’s doctorly manner is) who empathised, listened to all I had to say, agreed a 10 day steroid course was the best solution in view of previous experiences but said to stop at 5 days if it has completely gone, advised taking one a day non drowsy antiH from mid-March through til the end of summer as a precautionary measure to avoid repeats and wrote down the specific active ingredient and told me to get the cheapest ‘Boots own’ version and then gave me directions to the nearest chemist. Faith in the system 100% restored 🙂
We went into Shepton Mallet, via a fancy farm shop where Jill bought us a sandwich each and parked up, realised SM is indeed a dead high street that the TV show failed to revitalise with probably only a quarter of the shops trading while the rest are all boarded up :(. The reason became clear when we asked someone where the nearest chemist was and were directed to the big retail park at the edge of town boasting Boots, Tesco, New Look, Next et al which was heaving 🙁 I did get my drugs and Boots had their own brand on BOGOF too though.
Back at the cottage I made lunch for the others, took steroids and had a quiet afternoon inside out of the sun, getting a roast dinner on as Ady was doing gardening work and the kids were off watering plants. I rang our next but one hosts to confirm and after a brief scare when she didn’t know who I was or what I was on about that all sounds nicely in hand. We all had a last swim before dinner, sat down together and ate while having a debrief chat about being here, how we’ve found it and what happens next.
After dinner we’d been invited over to J&J’s for a last night beer so we had an hour or so with them chatting and then back to our cottage for bed. I’ll do a proper round up tomorrow as I have lots to say but it’s been another amazing, utterly unexpected and very enjoyable time here. We have an unconditional offer to return at any time when there is an empty cottage, several possible job opportunities with J&J, an invitation to go and stay with Jude, the previous owner who is still here doing a handover for a month, back in her home in Canada any time we like and various people all following our blog with interest to see what becomes of us.
Tomorrow we start all over again, arriving at the next place and telling our story a-new, making new friends and working out how it will all pan out there.
oooh Canada!
Shame your last days had the hospital visits, and a shame that Shepton Mallet isn’t revived, I did wonder if you’d go there since it was so near (once I looked on the map to see where Glastonbury is!).
Hoping that the next host isn’t a shock to the system 😉 and looking forward to hearing your proper round up 🙂