Pit........still too COLD! This is Florida where folks move to, to get away from cold weather. Don't care of the cold here last one day or a week, it's not suppose to be this way. Peak........wife took me out for dinner last night and taking me out for breakfast this morning. Why? I packed up all of our Christmas décor (inside and out) and made four trips to our garage (up the driveway from our apartment) in 40 degree weather to put the stuff in. She was totally surprised when she found out that I took down our artificial 3-section, 7 1/2 foot tree, put into it's box and took down to the garage. She said to me, "Sure is nice to have a husband that is retired."
@Holly Saunders sorry to hear your in such pain. Back pain is really bad for so many people -even in my family. Hope all the meds treatments bring you some relief .
ooh bless you gloria, but unfortunately my back problems are now something I have to live with since they can do no more for me unless they perform major surgery. These recent meds and my need to see the neurologist are for another serious problem I have in my face , neck and throat...
Nope Cody....the only medical insurance we have here is very expensive private insurance... most people can't afford it, so we have to rely on the NHS (national health service)... which for many years was the envy of the world which we pay for out of our salary from the time we start work until the time we retire....and means that we essentially get what the rest of the world thinks of as ''free'' medical treatment. despite the fact that every working person pays for this, those who have never worked or paid into the system are entitled to the same medical treatment as those who have always paid. In recent years we have had a huge influx of immigrants to our very small country, who are using our essential services although they've never paid into the system which have caused the infrastructure of those essential services, Doctors, hospitals and the like to be unable to cope...so now we wait weeks to see our primary care doctor and months in many cases to see a hospital consultant....unless of course it's a dire emergency in which case you go to the Emergency room at the hospital and sit and wait potentially for hours to be seen by an already overworked doctor..or doctors' aide..
It's such a shame...because when it works it works well... it's just that we don't have enough hospitals and doctors now to cope with the huge influx in population in recent years.. so people like us who have paid into the system all our lives expecting good medical treatment in our older age, are now finding a very different scenario That said Cody...if ever you were to come to the UK as a visitor or tourist and became ill, you would have no need to worry about receiving a huge bill..your treatment would be free..
@Holly Saunders We who have worked did pay into our Health Care System too and we still pay with part of our Retirement payments. Yet from what you have said I think our Health Care is in better shape than what y'all have. As for what you said to Cody about visiting the UK and our treatment being free...it seems the problem would be hoping we could wait long enough to obtain that care?
Our youngest son caught the flu and missed a couple of days from his Playgroup when we lived in the village of Somersham,UK The Doctor from the local surgery stopped by and asked how he was feeling. We explained that I was in the US Air Force and he stated 'No Problem, You live here, so you can use the services'. The teachers at the Playgroup had mentioned to him that their 'American Child' was under the weather, so he just dropped by. We still talk about how much we enjoyed our time in the Village.
No you misunderstand @Babs Hunt , what I meant was any visitor to the uk if taken suddenly ill, can have immediate treatment at our hospitals, (no waiting) and completely free. ..unlike visitors to the USA who would be charged a hefty bill for any treatment so therefore have to ensure if visiting the USA have themselves very well covered by insurance. .
Yep tim that's how it used to be until this recent influx of immigrants....now even the village surgery can't cope with demands on services. Most surgeries now only allow 8 minutes for an appointment, and that's after waiting up to 3 weeks to see the GP..(although if it's very urgent you will be seen the same day).. In our surgery now, we've just recently been informed that we're now only permitted to ask the doctor about one ailment.. which is a farce because sometimes the reason for one ailment may be what's causing another, but we're not permitted to ask about that..we must make yet another appointment to talk about the second ailment potentially another 3 weeks hence...and bear in mind I live in a village near a small market town and this happening here...so I can only imagine the horrors ( well I don't have to imagine I hear about it all the time in the media) which are happening in surgeries London and all the other Large towns and cities in the whole of the UK..Doctors and nursing staff are under the most immense pressure ever in the history of the NHS...and are either leaving to go into the Private sector or are leaving the job altogether..and being replaced by foreign nursing staff who can barely understand much less speak English ( I'm not exaggerating )..this is fact. My last stint in hospital just last summer I witnessed it for myself and it was shocking to watch patients ask these ''nurses '' or nursing aids for even the simplest things, and not be understood, and the wrong thing brought to them.. ..Oooh I'm sorry I could go on at great length about this..but I won't this is not the place... but yes Tim, a great deal has changed in a very short time, I feel that you would notice this if you were ever to return to live here again.
@Holly Saunders Yes, that was the late 80's and a very small Village. On Wednesdays, the wife and youngest would walk down to High Street with their baskets to do the shopping. The last stop was always the Bakery for bread and the youngest always got a treat from the lady would owned it. On Saturday morning I would go out and sweep the entire outside front of the house. A treat for our family was a sit down dinner at the local Pub. Great food prepared by the wife of the couple who ran the place. My oldest and I really liked the Sheppard's Pie and my youngest liked the burger with an egg on top. Wife always had a 'special' the two ladies came up with. Indeed a different time and I'm sure things have changed a lot.
Tim sorry I meant to get back to you with this. yes there are a few villages which are still similar to what you describe but they are in the larger villages. here where the villages are tiny, we no longer have any shops at all, nor a post office. We all still tend to go to the pub on Sundays..for lunch, all the villages still have pubs..in fact some had 2 or 3 ( even the small villages and hamlets).. and of course we're British so the w/e is very much a day for cleaning outside the house and mowing in the summer. The cities have changed beyond all recognition since you've were living here tho'..not sure if you ever ventured into the cities..but I'm glad you have such good memories of here, especially as you were roughly in my area..so you know what it's like here in the South East..