Easy Saturday

I’m sure that folk will be pleased to know that Sally seemed quite reassured today when Elanor came across to give us a lift to Betty’s Farm to get some meat. She’s pretty tired, so wasn’t too worried about having another run in the field. Elanor plans to come across again tomorrow to make sure Sal is well exercised before the start of the working week.

Apart from our shopping trip, we contented ourselves with an amble round the marina before lunch, stopping to natter with various characters on the way.

I’m going to try the new roasting tin this evening – I’ve got a nice piece of pork leg to try it out.

I’ve had a query from regular blog readers Malc and Pat about getting repeat prescriptions whilst away boating. My first attempt to reply directly to them got bounced by Tiscali on a 554 error, that is the originating server has a bad reputation for spamming. This is always a bit of a risk with mobile servers and some receiving ISPs seem to be more sensitive than others. I’ve tried sending it again, but thought I would repeat my reply here in case that doesn’t get through and for general interest.

Their main concerns were that some surgeries won’t allow temporary resident registrations and that it’s hard to get more than one month’s supply out of their home GP. Here’s what I said:

NHS GP practices are obliged by their contract with the commissioning group to accept temporary residents, but receptionists will sometimes try to put you off.  Similarly, it's a practice decision as to how long a supply to include on a prescription. Willington here does both 28 day and 56 days, for example.  Take a look at the Association of Continuous Cruisers website for more info, especially this page. 

In our case, when away from Willington, I send a repeat prescription request to the surgery and enclose an SAE for a pharmacy convenient to our travels (it's a good idea to check with the pharmacy first, but I've not yet had one refuse; it's all custom as far as they are concerned). Most surgeries are happy to let you do this. 

If you have trouble with the reception staff at your home surgery with this idea, simples: make an appointment to see your GP and tell him or her of your problem. The GP is almost always more accommodating than the receptionist! He or she may well be prepared to give you several post dated scripts as well.

There’s a section about doctors in Sheila’s Kindle book A Boater’s Commonplace Book.