Reasons why Fran's crossword isn't finished

I went for a blood test on Wednesday at my local hospital's Phlebotomy clinic. I've been before, and learned my lesson, having had to wait up to an hour. This is so annoying, but more so when you've not taken a book with you/had a cup of tea/had a wee. You dare not leave the department for any of these reasons in case you miss the test. You're trapped, without hope of release, like wind in a sluggish colon. All there is to do is to look at other bored people. You're wondering what happened in Chapter 4, you have a tongue as dry as cardboard, and your bladder's like a sausage on a high heat and ready to pop.

The Phlebotomy department system is that you take a ticket with a number on as you arrive. It's the same kind of ticket that you get at the meat counter queue at a supermarket, and that in itself doesn't bode well when you're awaiting a blood test. 

So, prepared for a long haul on Wednesday, I went prepared with a crossword puzzle book, a copy of The Tempest which I'm teaching, and a novel.

I took my ticket - number 137 - thankfully not 666 or I'd have been out of there, bugger high cholesterol - and at exactly the same moment, a disembodied voice said, 'Number 137. Please come to door No 2.'

My spine went 'tingle tingle'. It was like an episode from 'And Then There Were None'. I'd barely grabbed the ticket, and there it was, the voice of God calling me to my fate. 

Already? What about my crossword puzzle?! 

... but won't give you time to get the answer to 4 Down 

I pushed open door Number 2. 

'The age of miracles is not dead,' I said to the young medic as I sat down and rolled up my sleeve. 'I was hoping to do my crossword.'

'We've got targets now,' he said. 'We're not allowed to have more than three people waiting.'

He was a fast worker, I'll admit. No sooner had I exposed the inside of my elbow than he'd swabbed it, jabbed in a needle (I notice they say 'a little scratch' these days and not 'a little prick') and taken fourteen pints of blood. 

He slapped a piece of cotton wool the size of a sheep on my little scratch, taped it to my arm and said, 'Press hard on that.'

'I don't need that,' I said. 'I'm not a bleeder. Never have been.'

'Press hard on that,' he said, like a robot, quoting Section 3 Sub-section 4.3 Sub-sub-section 99.6 of the Health & Safety Precaution Against Haemorrhage Necessitating Attendance by Emergency Team Who Have Other Things to Do Regulations.

It reminded me of when my milkman husband rang me at the hospital the day I was being induced to give birth to my third child. 'Is it safe for me to go on my round?' he said.

'Yeah,' I said. 'It'll be hours yet. Go ahead.'

Twenty minutes later, I'd delivered the baby, while he was still delivering milk to the nice people of Richmond in South West London. Two hours after that, he turned up at the birthing room. 

'Say hello to your new daughter, Mr Hill,' said the midwife. She looked down at his bag. In it was Monopoly, Scrabble, and Ludo, which he'd thoughtfully packed to get me through the long labour. 

'You won't be needing those,' she said to him. 'I've never seen such a fast birth. I didn't even have time to get my gloves on.'

'That baby came out so fast,' she said to her friends that evening, 'it was like being shot at.'