Battling the odds to get a flu jab booked

What with Covid and Brexit and all manner of related madness going on at the moment, it’s often hard to remember that what passes for real life is still stumbling along in the wake of all this mayhem.

Stumbling and often falling by the wayside, it has to be said, although there are many people in offices, organisations and public life struggling rather heroically to get highly necessary things done against increasingly perilous odds.

Now, we’ve all heard about the carry-on with this year’s flu jab procedure; hardly a day goes by without another revelation or complaint or difficulty.

Getting in touch with the right person (if, in fact, real people are actually involved at any stage of the process) has taken on a scary similarity to trying to make first contact with aliens from outer space.

Even ET managed to phone home eventually, however, so take heart…

It’s no joke, obviously, but I thought, in this climate of simmering annoyance, I would share with you a tale told to me by a chum in Edinburgh.

As an aside, her and her husband’s jabs were cancelled because it was too rainy last weekend to allow the staff to go outside and deal with the line of waiting cars. Which sounds somewhat akin to trains being cancelled because of the wrong sort of leaves on the line, but there you go.

One of her friends, to get back to the point, was becoming increasingly frustrated with attempts to book an appointment.

At one stage, she was advised she could go along to a local chemist and have the jab there, which she would have to pay for.

She was unwilling to pay twice and said so, in no uncertain terms.

The earnest and doggedly helpful bod to whom she was speaking then asked the somewhat leading question: “Do you know about drive through?”

Herself thought about it and gave a somewhat hesitant response in the affirmative, all the while silently wondering what the world was coming to.

“Well,” said the keen-as-mustard phone functionary, “There’s one at So- and- So College and This-and-That Hub and in the car park at Here-and-There Hospital and…” The list went on.

Silence on the other end. “So,” my pal’s pal said slowly, “You don’t have to go to McDonald’s, then?”

It just shows how far the golden arches have permeated even the older generation of Brits, who have probably never ingested a quarter pounder or considered the health-giving properties of a Filet- O-Fish. Talk about finding yourself in a McFlurry? Me, I think she might well be on to something – all together now: “Old McDonald’s had a pharmacy, e-i-e-i-o…”

Meanwhile, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, we hear that Spain, hit particularly hard by Covid, has suffered the escape of gallons of vino tinto via a broken vat in a long- established winery in the province of Albacete.

Some 50,000 litres, no less, and obviously at a fair rate of knots, as nobody was even quick enough to get round there with every bucket, pan and storage utensil in their possession to scoop up the damage.

Me, I’d have been throwing every towel and piece of bedding I could get hold of at the deluge, on the principle that wringing it out might only save a fraction but that to let it all go to waste – especially in the current climate when we need all the help we can get – was nothing short of criminal.

It sounds like the apocalyptic version of what goes on in our house every Saturday night, when the wobbly hand leads to inevitable but not irretrievable spillages .

That’s followed by the application of finely- honed lockdown skills of mop/ wring/squeeze/ filter through a cotton hankie/drink before it makes a bid for freedom again. You have to make your own entertainment these days, you know.

This follows in the flash- flooding footsteps of thousands of litres of Lambrusco coming out of the taps and shower heads in the Italian community of Castelvetro earlier this year and the loss of 367,000 litres of Cabernet Sauvignon in a Sonoma County vineyard in California.

Obviously, we winos need to be quicker off the mark when disaster occurs.

It reminds me of a childhood story my late mother told me about the neighbours hurrying out after the milk delivery via horse- drawn cart in the streets of the teeming metropolis of Lesmahagow, to pick up the regular deposits made by said cuddy. Wonderful roses in that neck of the woods, of course.

But maybe with the wine equivalent, we could manage a good year for the rosés?

Even ET managed to phone home eventually...