Tuesday 28 July 2009

Through the 10lb barrier

14st 12lb, 8.2 units (me), 10lb 3oz, zero units of alcohol but lots of milk (The Baby). I stayed at home this morning while Mrs H went off to the hospital for a glucose test as a follow-up to her gestational diabetes. They turned out to have invited her to the wrong part of the hospital for the wrong sort of test, but apart from that it all went with the exemplary smoothness I have come to expect from the NHS. When she got back we pushed The Baby in his buggy around to the doctor’s for a “drop-in baby clinic” where a surprisingly normally sized health visitor checked his weight and dispensed sage advice. Then we used him as a shopping trolley as we wheeled him around the local butcher, greengrocer and delicatessen to assemble the ingredients for lunch.

I spent the afternoon writing a couple of press releases while Mrs H and her sister delivered two trade-in convertibles to the Audi garage, and finally returned in possession of Mrs H’s new car. I have to concede that it looked very smart, and had even been correctly fitted with the sort of plain number plates I requested, omitting that little EU flag which is always inclined to induce apoplexy. I once told an Alnwick car dealer that I’d rather drive around in a car with swastikas on the number plates, and was surprised when he rang me a day or two later to say that they were sadly unobtainable.

Later in the afternoon we were joined by a visitor who is also an Audi driver, and who confirmed my perception that their local customer service is truly dreadful. I did not dare to ask whether she had made the mistake of buying a car from them more than once. Though it is no doubt too much to hope that I am finally learning some tact.

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