As its not reckoned to be safe for me to drive any distance I have to go to the hospital for my appointments by ambulance or the hospital car service . This used to be staffed by volunteers but is now a commercial service and although the staff are great you wouldnt actually call it a service . They seem to operate to a completely different timezone to the hospital or the patients . Consequently the Clinic tells them I have an appointment at say 8.30am but by the time that is passed to the driver the appointment time has been changed to 10am so it fits in better with the ambulance service workload but the ambulance service dont bother to tell the clinic or the patient what they have done . They operate on a 4 hour window as well so if your appointment is for 10am they may pick you up anytime from 8am to 12 noon and its the same coming back with a 20 minute journey allowing for waiting time taking anything up to six hours.

Everyone has given up complaining about the situation and now just accept if you use the service you will expect to be tied up all day and probably well into the evening as well . Personally I have left home at 0745 for a 20 minute trip to the hospital and a 15 minute appointment to see the consultant but not got home until 2200 that evening. Still it does save me paying the exorbitant hospital car park fees . I reckon if I was taking my own car my fees for parking would pay for a new ward on their own

On the plus side all this waiting around does give plenty of time to sit and cogitate on the next layout plan so I often have a notebook in my pocket to put down ideas or sketch possible track layouts and the day does not get completely wasted as far as I am concerned.