A pointless drive and money wasted.

go to the doctors practice  for the first thing after waking today, walk down the Kirchgasse, then up the Neustadt and finally to cross the Bischof-Sailer-Platz . At the door to the building don the mask and climb the stairs , enter the practice after pressing the door buzzer.

Go to the reception counter to get stared at by the Iranian woman, the practice manager according to her badge. Tell her the name, give her the card and leave her to mutter to herself whilst she is trying to make sense of the things that appear on her screen. Then, at great speed a young oriental woman invites her new patient into the laboratory, sit down upon the seat as demanded.

Bare the arm, roll up the sleeve. The young woman comments that this patient is a regular, the last time blood was taken was only two weeks ago. Say that there is plenty of blood there, especially if all she needs is the little bit to fill up that plastic tube. She laughs. Then in almost one motion the arm is needled, the tube attached, then filled with, as she says, that very red blood. Then in the second part of her routine sequence the tube is numbered, the plunger broken off, the tube is put in a rack and the pin is covered by a small white pad. Hold the pad down whilst the needle, the plastic piping and the plunger belonging to the sample tube are all disposed of in three separate bins.

Leave the practice with a small plastic plaster covering the hole left by the needle and an appointment for the twenty-second of the month.

At home, all is unsatisfactory. Go out to find the car in the huge municipal car park where the son left it yesterday, and decide to go for a pointless drive.

At Landau in the Isar enjoy a coffee, and return to the car to find that there is a fine for parking incorrectly. A pointless drive and money wasted.