It's a cold, dark Monday morning and I have a doctor's appointment at ten-to-eight.
I get up early, take a shower and then walk the half-mile to the surgery all rugged up to ward off the chill.
I go to open the door and it's locked. I peer through the window and see the lights on in the reception area, so I ring the doorbell.
I wait.
I check my watch. It's now ten-to-eight exactly. I ring the doorbell again.
A grumpy woman opens it, scowls at me and asks me what I want.
"I have an appointment at ten-to-eight," I say.
"Not here, you don't," she snaps. "Our first appointment is at eight-thirty."
"But I rang up last week and this was the appointment I was given."
"It wasn't this surgery," she insists.
Then the penny drops. "It's not ten-to-eight this evening?" I ask.
She's warming a little to me now. Perhaps I'm not the nutter I appear to be, standing on the doorstep in the dark on a bitterly cold Monday morning. "Come in," she says. "Let me check the book."
We walk down the passageway and into the reception area. She pulls the appointment book from its holder, runs her finger down the page and then looks up at me. "Are you Kim?"
I say yes, and then she confirms that the appointment is for ten-to-eight tonight.
We both laugh.
"Did you get up especially early?" she asks.
"Not really," I kind of lie.
"Oh well, at least you can go to work early and impress the boss," she says in that matter-of-fact British way.
"I am the boss," I mutter.
