I've Been Waiting So Long

The fiestas and fairs of Mallorca are often the signal for the appearance of "giants", the peculiar models that often have an air of American Amish or puritan about their appearance. There is another type of giantism. It was on display at the fair in Muro at the weekend and will be at the prestigious "Dijous Bo" fair in Inca tomorrow (Thursday). In Muro there were giant pumpkins; indeed the fair itself was dedicated to the pumpkin (they do some strange things here, that's for sure). The winner of the competition to find the largest pumpkin had one that weighed in at 93.5 kilos. That's a whole lot of pumpkin, but with so much of it knocking around, the local restaurants were able to prepare dishes of a pumpkin nature. So if you don't like pumpkin, best to give the annual Muro fair a miss. This was the second year that the pumpkin had taken pride of place, and doubtless there will be the hat-trick next year.

If, on the other hand, you prefer something comprising sugar and fat then the Dijous Bo gig will be just the event for you. There will be one huge great ensaimada to feast your eyes on and presumably also to feast on. It will be some 15 metres in diameter. 15 metres in diameter of something that will do you no good. It is a curiosity that for all that healthy Mediterranean diet that one is supposed to enjoy here, there is a local delicacy as junk as the ensaimada. And they make such a big deal of something as dull and unhealthy as it is. If you have not sampled an ensaimada, my advice is don't bother. Just look at it - all 15 metres in diameter of it.


It is how long, a year, since the Alcúdia hospital closed? It may not have been perfect, but there were procedures that it was very good at. Take the simple one of having a blood test. Since Alcúdia closed, those of us who fork out for the not especially expensive private medical insurance that is available here, go to the hospital in Playa de Muro. Just up the road, for me at any rate. Shouldn't be a problem, but then there is this business with the blood test.

At Alcúdia, it was the case that you pitched up before ten in the morning and handed in the form at the main reception. The nurse, who was in a room more or less opposite the reception, would come and collect the forms of the patients as they had been presented, i.e. in order of arrival. Not that there were ever that many patients. You might wait ten minutes and ... you might feel a bit of a prick, sir (not that they say that here of course), apply a plaster and now get out. Very simple and very orderly.

Contrast this with the Muro hospital. Go to reception, and you are instructed to head off downstairs. There, there are numerous people milling around, some standing, some sitting. You head to the laboratory reception and a kindly Mallorcan woman who speaks perfect English stops you and says that the chap will come out and collect your papers and that there are these other people before you. (You realise that many of those milling around, including the Mallorcan lady, have already had a visitation from the chap and that they are, therefore, all before you.) You thank her and go and stand around for some twenty minutes, trying to ignore a child who is staring at you, during which time more people turn up and are told what is happening by this Mallorcan lady patient. You see, it's not just stupid Brits who have no clue, no one has a clue. Then the chap appears and of course everyone who is in the second wave of chap-visitation rushes towards him. You calculate that you should be third in the queue, and so you push yourself into that position - with success; that Mallorcan lady has told all those after you the same thing, so they do at least have an inkling as to where they should be in the non-existent order of things. Then you sit down, and sit down next to a gentleman from Puerto Pollensa who you have overheard talking to that same helpful Mallorcan lady and who you heard mention the fact that he was from Woking. And so you talk to him as Woking used to once be part of your manor. He says that really it would be just as easy going to the national health hospital in Inca, this is all chaotic. You agree, there is no system. You sit, and sit, and among the patients before you are one and then a second family with a young child. The first child screams the place down from inside the laboratory. It goes on for an intolerably long time. What on earth are they doing to him? He finally emerges red-faced and red-eyed, and everyone looks at the poor little mite who was the same one that had been staring at you. And then the second family, and the boy screams his head off for an intolerably long time. A third family, who are to come after you, sit there, and their little girl stares towards where the screams are coming from. And eventually it is your turn, and it takes all of a minute and it is done. But you have waited an hour and a half and reckon that maybe it might indeed be better to just go to the national health hospital in future instead and also to reckon that Clinica Juaneda, the operators of both Alcúdia and Muro hospitals, have cut their service levels since closing the Alcúdia branch. That wait though. Enough to make you scream.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Fifth Dimension, "Wedding Bell Blues" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMhWQgkZ8c). Today's title - a line from a mega blues trio; lick your lips, kitty - it's warm.

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