On May 12 NHS Haematology told me that I needed an iron infusion. Remembering a long wait for one in 2023, I contacted a private hospital in Reading who offered  me an appointment with a consultant in mid-June with a view to an infusion in mid-July. So last Friday I emailed the Oxford Iron Clinic which uses facilities at the John Radcliffe Hospital in NE Oxford. I had a telephone consultation on Tuesday and the offer of an infusion this morning (Thursday).

I indulged in an excess of working out the best way to get there. Three years ago I'd taken the train to Didcot and then a bus direct to the hospital that took about 50 minutes through some boring industrial estates and then the centre of Oxford.

I even contemplated driving to the John Radcliffe, but its car-park can get very full, and I remembered my cousin, a former commander of a Royal Navy ship, collecting me from there three years ago.  "Why are we driving through Oxford," I asked (rather than joining the Eastern ring road) . "I took the wrong turning," he admitted.  And he was using Satnav, which eventually took us on a ridiculous route, including crossing over the Whitchurch toll-bridge (luckily he had a few coins with him). 

So I considered other routes, including parking in Dorchester-on-Thames and waiting at the bypass  for the Rapid Rivers X40 bus into Oxford (it starts in Reading and spends two hours winding its way through villages.)  Then I realised that it was half-term and that I could very reasonably park close to the school on the old main road in Crowmarsh Gifford and catch the X40 from a stop a hundred yards away.

An hour after I'd concluded that was my best and most pleasant option, a letter arrived from the NHS offering me an infusion on June 10 at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, served by a convenient bus route from Tilehurst. So I cancelled today's appointment and await a promised refund.