Putting out Fires

I’ve had a little bit of something hanging around in my chest since I got here and this morning I woke up to weezing like I haven’t done since I was a kid.  Between the hot weather, cold weather, no a/c, no heat, too much heat, I’m afraid England’s got the best of me. 

Thankfully, England’s health care system is a bit kinder than ours.  I’m having to go in for a ‘private’ consult, which means I’m not covered by insurance of any kind.  I’ve been terrified of $1000 bills, so I called to confirm and it is going to cost me a mere 32 pounds!  I am so relieved.  And thank you to S.O.S., the international emergency health number.  They managed to get me an appt in the village I’m in this morning.  Amazing.

Its just as well that I’m ditching out on work because it is miserable outside.  We’ve had thunderstorms most of the night, and they’ve been so bad this morning that the power has gone out 9 times thus far.  Usually if power goes out in the US, it seriously goes out.  Here it goes out for about a minute each time.  Just enough to be REALLY annoying.  And for some reason, when the electricity goes out, so does the running water. 

I really feel for the people at Glastonbury this weekend.  It is almost w/in walking distance from here and I can’t even imagine how all those people are suffering.  FYI, Glastonbury is one of the largest music festivals in the world.  People camp out for the weekend and some of the bands playing this year are Coldplay and The White Stripes.  If it wasn’t about $150 to get in, I’d be all over it! 

One other thing:  as my gym here only plays the same 4 stations, I’ve been watching a lot of cricket lately. I thought David Beckham was the yummiest thing to come from this part of the world, but lately I’ve found Andrew Flintoff.  Yumm.