Waiting

I've had several NHS appointments where waiting seems to be the norm & is just taken as routine. Fine, I suppose, if you are retired like me, but patients do have lives to live & places to be. A patient being kept waiting for a long time may well have a knock on effect on work colleagues, friends & family.

I've also waited interminably for buses which don't arrive because of the horrendous traffic problems in and around Oxford. It is literally gridlock in all directions.

I had to chase up an order for made to measure curtains & a pole from a well known UK store. Quite a long delay & then the pole doesn't fit the window, despite being measured by them. I'm now waiting to find out what they are going to do about it 2 months after the initial order.

My new, under guarantee, second hand, car, supposedly MOT'd & serviced by a national dealership was very noisy at speed & then made a loud noise from the rear going over bumps. Again I had to chase them up & am now waiting for the repair at the beginning of November.

I could go on, but what's the point? I'm sure we can all relate to this. It is the new normal to have to wait, for something or someone. The thing I find tiresome isn't actually the waiting. I take a book if I'm going to a NHS appointment & enjoy having some downtime to read for example.

What I find irritating is the casual acceptance that it's OK to keep someone waiting for something. Plus the fact that it isn't routine to keep people informed as to why there is a delay & how long it will be.

I can be calm & accepting if I know what is happening. I can be very reasonable & understanding if there is a mistake & an apology. What I can't be is anything other than very irritated if those considerate & polite behaviours are conspicuous by their absence. Then I can be a force to be reckoned with!

Of course I am in God's waiting room & who knows how long that will be.

   

Moving House - Again?

I'm currently living in the 6th house since I got married at 21, having lived in 2 houses before going away to college. So, 8 houses in total in my life. That apparently is roughly the average, which is 7 in the UK.

Most of my life I lived with my nuclear family of 3 in four of those houses. For the last 10 years I've lived alone in 2 houses. Although I think women have the biggest say in which houses are purchased at any stage, this current house is the only one that has been truly mine.

The process of moving is time consuming, stressful & costly at the best of times. It is far more difficult if you are doing it alone. You have to have the energy & confidence to do it. As you age the energy, unsurprisingly, diminishes a lot.

Currently the British house market is dead on it's feet & has been for about 3 years. Over the last year property prices have fallen, even in the hitherto "special" bubble of North Oxford. Houses are languishing for sale with very little footfall of prospective buyers. Setting a realistic price is difficult & buyers expect to be able to offer much lower than the agents price. Sellers, especially those who have only owned a house for a couple of years, don't want to accept that their home may not be worth what they paid for it.

There needed to be a re-adjustment in property values, but so long as you are buying & selling at the same time it probably doesn't matter much. There is so much political instability & market volatility that you have to be brave to risk renting for any length of time before buying. Property prices can go up as well as down.

The house I wanted has finally gone, after months on the market, to a cash buyer. There doesn't seem to be anything much available,& certainly not anything that appeals to me. So what to do? I'm never going to be in a position to move if my house hasn't got a proceedable buyer. However I don't want to rent & have to effectively move twice.

There is absolutely nothing you can do to control buying & selling houses. You have to be prepared to accept the situation. I'm really lucky - I can do that. It isn't as if I have to move for employment reasons. There is little confidence around because of the political, economic, ecological world situation. It isn't just Brexit - Our world is in turmoil.

Travels in Romania

I just got back from 10 days in Romania, a country I knew little or nothing about, apart from the notorious rule of Nicolae Ceausescu's communist regime from 1965 to 1989.
https://rolandia.eu/en/blog/history-of-romania/romania-under-nicolae-ceausescu-s-communist-regime

That made an impact because of what we discovered after his overthrow. Particularly the abhorrent conditions for thousands of children in state orphanages. Overall, it is estimated that about 500,000 children were raised in orphanages & some still exist today, but the children are much better cared for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_orphans

I know a lot more now! Romania is a wonderful country to visit, with much to interest tourists. The varied & stunningly beautiful landscapes, the very different regional vernacular architecture, the beautiful churches & monasteries, wildlife, traditional food, costumes, music & dancing....

Romania is right in the middle of major migration routes & is surrounded on all sides, by Ukraine to the north, Hungary & Serbia to the West, Bulgaria to the South & Moldova & the Black Sea to the East. So it has been the centre of skirmishes & wars causing border & name changes over the years. Some places have names in 3 different languages. There are still tensions about who actually has a rightful claim to various parts of Romania today. To be honest the history is so complex you would be bored to tears if I attempted to give you a flavour. If you want to know read the Rough Guide to Romania.

There are Stone Age remains in the Carpathian Mountains dating back 35,000 years. Todays Romanians are descendants of Roman settlers from 106AD & local Dacians from 82BC. They are very proud of their culture & heritage & welcome tourists.

Sadly all that most tourists have heard of is Vlad the Impaler & Count Dracula, who are in fact one & the same person. (Dracul means Devil & Vlad was certainly that!)

 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/vlad-the-impaler

But there is so much more to Romania than Vlad/Dracul.

There are 6 regions & the country is huge. I only visited Wallachia, Transylvania & Moldavia & still covered approximately 2,000 miles in a really exhausting trip. But it was a trip of delights. I really recommend you to go.