We're still expecting a couple of items in the post to Elanor's, so don't want to leave the area too quickly. Accordingly, we've had an easy trip to Fradley today, leaving Alrewas at nine, and arriving here by half ten. Sheila was lockwheeling, and as Sanity Again rose in Hunt's Lock, she walked ahead to set Keepers, all the locks having been against us from Alrewas.
When she came back to close the top gate of Hunt's, she looked grimly at me (can't blame her, really) and observed that there was a problem on the visitor moorings. My heart sank, as it would have been a real bind to have to go on to above Shade House.
She then said "We've got to choose; moor above the boat that's already there, or below it?"
There was indeed just one other boat here. Quite a contrast from our arrival in January, when the moorings were crowded with lurkers.
We settled down above the other boat; there's been a bit of coming and going since, and I've dispensed an old bread crust (high quality multi-seeded, good for them, not like white Spontex type bread) to some of the amazing range of ducks that hang about here.
They all have mallard in them somewhere, with a varied admixture of Aylesbury and ruddy, I reckon. At any rate, it makes for an interesting variety, that's for sure.
We've spent the rest of the day catching up with emails and the like. I chased up one of our expected packets, the International Paints High Strength Cleaner, and it's on its way, hurray.
Now: I don't often mention political type stuff here; it's not that I don't have firm views on some things, but this isn't that sort of blog, and anyway, all are entitled to their opinions and to advice about living on the cut, but I am seriously worried about this government's plans for the NHS, which seem to me to open the back door to a creeping privatisation.
If any of my readers in the UK feel the same, there's a petition you can sign on the 38 Degrees website. This is the organisation that mounted such an effective campaign against selling off England's forests, so they do achieve their goals at least some of the time.
1 comment:
As an American I can testify to the horrors of private health care.
My employment provided health insurance costs me $60.00 a month;my deductible is $2500.00 annually; my co-pays are 20% of the cost of the visit/procedure (a CT scan is $3800.00 for the procedure--you do the math); prescriptions are a $20.00 co-pay for generic and out of pocket for anything not on the insurance company formulary.
Four surgeries in four years cost me out of pocket $5-8000.00 per annum; in addition to alternative cancer treatment which cost me $890.00 a month out of my pocket for two years and not covered by my insurance, although my insurance company would have happily paid the drug company $10,000.00 a month to inject me with Cisplatin--the chemo of choice.
If I ever leave my job I will never be insurable in this country--ever! I am a cancer survivor and that marks me as someone with a pre-condition allowing insurance companies the right to refuse me coverage, but then, they can refuse somone with a diagnosis of acne under this same ruling.
Fight for your NHS--your country has been providing nationalized health care since 1911--and doing a good job. Americans would die for NHS type coverage--they certainly have died without it.
Feel free to repost this if it will help inform others about the dangers inherent in private health insurance schemes!
Jaqueline
Cloudhouse
Pullman, WA USA
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