They cannot be serious

My plea yesterday to the weather seemed to have been heeded this morning, as the sun was shining, the sky was clear and the wind had ceased. I set off across country to Cirencester for a hospital appointment to check on my hand which I damaged a few weeks ago. A friendly and rather elegant Hungarian doctor from Budapest attended to me in the NHS treatment centre, run of course by a private company now. My consultation took five minutes and the doctor told me he would be referring me again to a consultant orthopaedic specialist sometime in the new year.

The centre was in a special department on the first floor of a modern building, and as soon as I entered I noticed a much higher level of investment in their facilities. This is the way the NHS is headed, with services outsourced to the private sector. In Stroud earlier this year we managed to defeat this imposition from on high of a complete change to the way local health services will be provided. It needed protests, marches, campaigning and a judicial review at the High Court in London, for the plans to be seen for what they were and wholly rejected.

While I was in Stroud, I went for a short walk in Cirencester Park, the massive estate owned by the Earl of Bathurst, whose large house is situated right near the centre of the old town which was built by the romans and became the second most important roman city in Britain by the third century. The hospital I had been to this morning was built right next to the site of the roman amphitheatre.

From the park I wandered into the centre of Cirencester to do some shopping as Helena thinks it has some of the best shops in the area. I walked up a pedestrianised lane which has small shops built in the old Cotswold stone manner, mostly probably dating from the Georgian era. My eye was taken by this window and the old building's doorway and signage. I couldn't believe that anyone would call a company this, and wonder whether the shop window's mannequin exemplifies their style and strategy.