A Future Chat With the Pharmacist.

Alex looked concerned as she checked her prescription supply.

Alex: Sweetheart, can you pop down to the surgery and order another supply of Diazepam and Baclofen?

Frank: Okay no problem. As a matter of fact, my Warfarin is running low too. I have only four day's supply left. It's time to top up. How much do you still have left?

Alex: (counting) I would say four or five days.

Frank: Okay. I'll be back shortly.

As I walk merrily down the tree-lined path into the woods which makes up a corner of South Hill Park, I ponder on how fortunate as a nation to have the National Health Service. Being a short walk, I decided to leave the bicycle behind. By walking, I can look around our unspoilt environment and thank the Lord for his sustained Creation, as well as thanking him for allowing me to see another day in human history.

I approach our local NHS surgery. Ordering prescribed medicine is a simple task. Just tick the boxes printed next to each drug listed on the form, which came with the last prescription, and then to post it through into the renewal box fixed for the purpose next to the Prescription Enquiries window.

As I approached, I began to feel alarmed at the empty car park, which was never free from the four or five cars which were parked there during office hours. As I approached the main entrance, I was suddenly paralysed with shock! I continued to stare at the notice fixed to the glass-panelled door from the inside, which read:
DUE TO PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES, THIS SURGERY WILL REMAIN CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Further notice? What "Further notice?" It could be just for a few hours or days. But equally, it could be for weeks, months, years.

I was gripped by cold, naked fear. I broke into a cold sweat and even felt my long hair attempting to stand on end. How on earth are we to renew our prescriptions? Especially with my wife's Diazepam? With her neurotic disorder, without this vital drug, she can go into involuntary fits of muscle spasm, a convulsion of her body which cannot be controlled by the conscious mind. Her daily dose of the medicine keeps her from having such fits and therefore able to lead a normal life.

Quickly and panic-stricken, I make my way to the Drugstore, just less than 150 metres from the surgery. I then asked the Pharmacist what's on earth is going on. She then explained the current crisis of the NHS. Ever since the Tories had regained power at 10 Downing Street back in December of 2019, as well as leaving the European Union soon afterwards, there has first been a trickle of staff deserting the NHS, followed by a flood of those leaving to return to their home countries. She also explained that a large proportion of the Doctors, Consultants and Nurses were from Europe and India, the latter renowned for its children's ambition to qualify as Doctors through dedication to study hard at school and college, without such distractions such as television, play stations, football team support or pop music.

What? I asked. Isn't there a gene pool right here in England for training qualified NHS staff?

Not according to statistics, was her reply. But equally distressing, according to this Pharmacist, was the strangulation of medical supplies, especially from Europe, where a large proportion is made and shipped. Being outside the European Union, such supplies have now to pass through custom and tariff legislation. With such shipping held up and delayed, along with border tariffs, the price of medicine had to rise.

I responded that I'm not too worried about that, for Alex has a pre-paid certificate and since I'm over 65, I qualify for Senior Citizen's State-funded medical supply.

The Pharmacist gave me a rather drawn-out look, then reassured me that she now has the authority to sign for the medicine in place of the Doctor. What a huge relief! When I told her that we need our prescription renewed right away, she took the forms from me and with her fellow staff members, proceeded to prepare the medicines which we both require. About twenty minutes later she appeared holding two packets.

Disturbingly, she began to jab at her calculator.

That will be ninety pounds, please.

WHA-A-A-T!!! I cried. My wife has a pre-paid Certificate and I'm a pensioner. What's going on?

Pharmacist: You should know by now that since recently, the NHS had imploded on itself, it no longer exists. With that, pre-paid certificates are now invalid and every senior citizen has to pay now as well. Look, you asked for three packets of Warfarin, one of Losartan, one of Spironolactone, one of Bisoprolol, and one of Bumetanide. At ten pounds each, that would be seventy pounds. Then your wife wanted Diazepam and Baclofen, adding a further twenty pounds. That totals ninety.

Frank: My wife did not ask for Antidepressants, Oramorph, Co-Codamol, Senna or Laxido, at least not this time. If she had, then the whole shenanigan would cost us both 140 pounds! That's more than the 110 pounds she spent to buy her pre-paid certificate valid for a whole year. 

Pharmacist: I'm very sorry things turned out this way. But our NHS has been on its breaking point for the last several years. Sooner or later something had to give. Hence the closure of all our GP surgeries.

As I left the Drugstore feeling crushed and out of pocket, I was wondering how on earth are we going to manage all this. Fortunately, my Pension income is healthy, we should be able to pull through - just, without the need to tighten our belts too much, although it may mean saying goodbye to taking breaks away, whether it's in the UK or abroad. Or as long as we don't fall ill in need of hospitalisation. Just by calling 999 may itself cost us more than a hundred pounds.

On the walk home, I decided to take a longer route, so I can mull on my thoughts.

"Fear coursing through my whole being. Fear? That's an understatement. It was more like terror - frightened of the future. I guess it goes back to December 2019, the month of our last election. Boris Johnson leading the Conservative Party back into power, hence a majority Government back into Parliament. His new Cabinet also included Jacob Rees-Mogg as Chancellor and Nigel Farage as Health Minister.

"Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party? Once, yes. But not any more. The Press, especially the Daily Mail newspaper, advised his followers not to vote for a Brexit Party candidate, in case the Brexit issue was split and divided enough to let Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party into power. The result was that the Brexit Party polled so badly - it folded up, leaving its leader to reconcile himself with Johnson and joined the Tories. The Prime Minister saw Farage as a fit enough candidate for Health Secretary.

"How the Media had demonised Jeremy Corbyn! Nicknamed Jezza by the Daily Mail, his "extreme left-wing" manifesto was reputed to have terrified the middle-classes and the high earners into paying higher taxes. By contrast, the newspapers poured endless praise on the Tory Party. With the promise of "getting Brexit done" along for lower taxes for higher earners, Johnson also promised to pour "billions" into the NHS - but following Brexit, there has been a rapid rise of racial and xenophobic threats, with white, English patients throwing insults at foreign Consultants and Nurses, causing them to leave their profession to return to their home countries, along with being bogged down with the catch 22 situation. The more hours they put in, the more taxes they pay and their pension savings robbed.

"I wonder whether I must take a share of the blame. I did not vote for Corbyn's Labour Party in the last election and it was not because I was opposed to some of his principles, but because of his antisemitic stance, or at least reputed to favour the Arabs, including the Hamas, above the Jews. I can't be dogmatic about this, but if true, then I'm convinced that his lack of popularity with the electorate was spawned by his disregard for the Jews and for Israel's right to exist. It seems so ironic. Antisemitism was always the dogma for the far-right. Therefore what was it doing lurking among the Left? Especially when British political history has demonstrated that the Jews were always favoured by Labour, and in all past elections, the Jewish community had played a vital role in putting Labour into power. By contrast, for a long time, the Conservatives had a level of contempt for the Jewish community, and thus, failed to win their vote."

As I kept on walking, the Hilton Hotel came into view, giving me more time to keep pondering.

"As for this present Tory Government, their policy to restrict immigration to a points system which allowed only the most skilled workers into the UK has made me ponder: Does our PM really favour the better educated? Does he want only the professional to enter the UK permanently? Therefore for the plebs to stay out, they're not wanted? Hmm. This seems to have a smattering of eugenics. And what a surprise! Eugenics had its origins here, right here in England, of all places, and by two white, well-educated Englishmen - Charles Darwin and Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin.

Charles Darwin, the real father of eugenics.

"And the return of Dickensian England, so it seems. Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, a book which featured the young son of a poor family who was left to die of a curable illness while those who were wealthy enough to pay for treatment received it. As the family stood around the grave, watching their son's small coffin being lowered into the ground, who would ever think that it will be a Labour Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, would dream up the NHS centuries later. But by then, for that family, it's a little too late."

I pause to look around as I drew close to my home. Almost there.

"Perhaps it didn't take much of an imagination for Darwin to dream up his evolutionary theories or for his cousin to invent the idea of eugenics. Really, eugenics was already in action for centuries earlier - of some sort. Instead of Hitler's henchmen using it to usher in the Holocaust, it was Mammon which decided who was fit enough to survive, and those who were unfit (that is, the poor) who were left to die of illness. However, this was not Evolution - the development of higher organisms over generations - but man-made Natural Selection through wealth, the elimination of the weak."

I arrived home, dumped the medicine on a nearby table and told my beloved everything that has happened. Then I broke down into tears and wept copiously. While in her arms, she encouraged me to have faith in God, because he knows exactly what situation we're in, our state of health and how the three of us - God, Alex and I will deal together with it like a threefold cord.

Slowly I came to. She is right of course. Having faith in God is the only real solution to all of life's problems.

Is My God Too Small?

I am now too afraid to travel.

Yes, you have read that right. I'm talking about travel, whether over a long distance across the UK or even abroad with my wife Alex. Or a more local trip alone by train across thirty miles to London or even just twelve miles to Reading. Indeed, what has happened within the last few years, and especially within the last six to twelve months? After all, as my regular readers are aware, I love to reminisce on my past journeys, whether it's a cycling trip to the coast, walking through the Medieval and Roman streets of Jerusalem Old City, Hiking the Grand Canyon or snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef. Or how could I omit such an unforgettable moment when I stood at the foot of a waterfall as it cascades within the midst of a rainforest of Blue Mountains National Park?

One of several waterfalls I saw Down Under, 1997.

But now the very thought of travel is sending shivers down my spine. What is it which has transformed a spirited adventurer into a mass of quivering jelly?

Fear.

But fear of what? A heightened chance of harm? Being mugged and robbed? Even stabbed in the back? Or falling ill due to a bug or even a snake bite? Or breaking a bone in an accident? A need for hospital treatment while abroad? No, it's none of these. I was prepared to face such risks during my backpacking days, and praise to God, I managed to get off very lightly. Rather, it's the worsening of my wife's illness, despite her dependence on strong painkillers. 

Like the time a couple of weeks ago, when I was having a Cappuccino at Costa Coffee at our hometown of Bracknell. The mobile phone rang. It was a distress call from my wife, urging me to come home quickly. Fortunately, I was just a twenty-minute bike ride away from home. Once home, I found her on the sofa, her phone next to her, and unable to move. I managed to administer the medicines which were out of her reach, and by adjusting her position, successfully brought her out of her crisis without the need of an ambulance. But supposing I was in Reading or London when the phone call came through? With the need for train travel, there was no way I could arrive home in good time. There was no other alternative but for her to dial for Emergency Services Ambulance.

Sounds simple? Until she realises that she cannot get up to open the door for them. Yes, what then? The trouble is, there is no need for any kind of prompt to trigger such an attack. It is always imminent. And that is made worse by the fact that it is just us two living together. We have no offspring old enough to take action if their mother was to suffer an episode whilst I'm out. This is the terrible result of our society's brutal attitude towards a parent or both parents suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. This is a mental condition when the sufferer finds group socialisation difficult but has an obsession with a particular interest, maybe two or even three. Can you tell what my principal obsessions are? However, in our case, both of us are sufferers. And because of this, we lost our daughters through State intervention, to be adopted into another family.

Our eldest daughter is about to come of age. Unless she is enrolled for a university, she would have been a useful asset to our home. Even so, our second daughter, also being a teenager, would also have been very helpful in such a crisis. Our third daughter, although not yet a teen, would have still been old enough to contact Emergency Services. No doubt, the loss of our family through means of knowledge by the "experts" is a real and terrible loss indeed. Furthermore, such academia held by these professionals was originally written by psychiatrists and psychologists who have engaged in the Occult and held occultic connotations. I believe that to destroy a family without a proper justifiable reason is a wicked thing to do. I never believed that Asperger's Syndrome has any cause for our children to be taken. After all, history would reveal many parents with Asperger's and other disabilities who had successfully raised their children. 

I firmly believe that the loss of our beloved daughters for adoption, together with our being on the autism spectrum has been the dual-cause for my wife's illness. Back in 2013, she spent as long as four months as an inpatient at Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, after a series of gradually developing periods of a backache had finally taken away her capacity to stand upright and walk. Four months in hospital with the appropriate treatment has only partially restored her mobility to where a wheelchair is necessary for all outdoor trips. A now severe muscle-tightening backache comes and goes, and this is often caused by a physical jolt, the shaking of a vehicle such as a bus or a train, or by negative thought patterns, or even if she is in a happier mood.

Fortunately, I'm not ignorant of this issue, for I have studied it in a book written by a Christian doctor.* Formerly known as Psychosomatic Illness (meaning upset mind-sick body), it is easy for me to relate her present condition to the tragedy of losing our beloved daughters. Therefore it came as no surprise to me that after reading of the possibility of short supplies of medicine after Brexit as well as a possible takeover of the National Health Service by American private companies, the sheer anxiety she felt afterwards, resulted in a major episode where she not only suffered a severe backache but the tightening of her neck muscles causing a possibility of asphyxiation and her lips began to turn blueish. There was no other choice. The ambulance was called, which arrived promptly, as her threat of asphyxiation has put her as a First Grade category patient.

We spent much of a sleepless night in A&E. By the small hours, she was well enough to return home. I didn't get into bed until five o'clock in the morning. The following evening a friend called over the phone. Although an Arminian, he does have a genuine care for our welfare. He then kept rabbitting on about our overwhelming concerns about the news and current affairs. How are our concerns about the aftermath of Brexit has, according to him, obscured God from the reality of our lives? Simply because God is never acknowledged in the news. According to him, it's not enough to believe that Jesus is the Christ, and so I must keep on exercising my faith to experience any fullness of God. After several minutes of uninterrupted talk, I finally hinted for him to wind down. He seemed disappointed as if he had failed to edify me, and I put the phone down.

In other words, to him, salvation must be maintained by works. The snag with such a worldview is that the Arminian Christian can be prone to judging another person or group of people. In my case, my obsession with news about Brexit shows that according to my friend, I have little or no faith in God.

But could he be wrong, or misinformed?

Because while we were in the hospital, I leaned over Alex's gurney and prayed hard, saying that God is my refuge and strength, my rock, my fortress and a strong tower, into which the righteous run into and are safe. (Proverbs 18:10). I was convinced. It takes an occasion like this one to realise the powerful truth in those words. Before I thought about them, I was feeling very low, depressed and wallowing in self-pity. But when I declared aloud those words from my heart, over and over again, the depression lifted, and I felt far more hopeful.

The strong tower illustration is a good one for the name of God. During ancient times, the Canaanites, as well as Israel, had built walled cities which includes a thick-walled tower with a small doorway. When the city was under threat by an invading enemy army, the people of that city fled into the tower, and they were safe.

A tower in ancient Jericho, visited June 1976.

I do wonder, however, where is God in all this. Perhaps my friend over the phone has a point. I'm constantly living on a knife edge. I panic if her medicine runs low. There was even a case over two years ago when a female GP suggested for her to come off one of her main daily pills. When she arrived home, Alex burst into tears, leaving me to call on the prescription secretary at our surgery to explain that to come off this particular medicine would revive some of her previous symptoms, mainly of involuntary convulsions and further back pain as a direct result. The GP had not only rescinded on her intention but left our surgery altogether for another location, and my wife's medication continues as always. When I shared this with another church friend, he eventually asked me,
Where is your faith in God?

Oh, so easy for a man who is financially secure, has a healthy wife and healthy grown-up children. But for someone such as myself who had lost all three of his precious daughters for adoption, and to have his beloved so much younger, suffering a neurotic disorder which has no apparent cure - well, to have faith can be a little more challenging!

Therefore, if I were to say, as any spiritual-minded Christian would say - that I have full joy in the Lord - well, I wouldn't be telling the whole truth, would I? There are times when I literally tremble with fear of the future, like a boat which had lost its rudder, drifting aimlessly and without direction in the vast ocean. Then to hear on the news that a no-deal Brexit could jeopardise our medical supplies. Just thinking about Alex walking into a pharmacy for a renewed prescription, but instead receive an apology, causes me to tremble with fear. It really does. While all this is going on, there are Christians - yes, Christians, the ones who attend church each Sunday, who are also jumping up and down in rage over our Prime Minister's latest deal with the EU, bidding us to write letters to our MPs to vote down the deal in the Commons, and to go for a no-deal exit from the European Union.

Maybe my friend over the phone was right after all. It does look as though I am not the only one who lacks faith in God. It seems like most hard-core Brexiteers have no faith in him either, or else they wouldn't protest so loudly as they do. And it seems to them that leaving the European Union is far more important to them than the idea of Heaven and Hell, and for the sheer vanity of life under the sun as so well expressed by King Solomon. We are going to die. We are all going to die. There is no way of escaping this truth. Isn't it much more important to be concerned about other people's eternal state than to fuss over the sovereignty of England?

I could ask: Is my God too small? Is your God too small? Even Isaiah was faced with the dilemma:
Behold, The Lord's hand is not shortened, that he cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that he cannot hear...
Isaiah 59:1.

But the prophet answers his own question by listing the multitude of sins committed by the faithless. And really, none of us is less guilty. But seeing us in such a state, he sends his Son to make atonement for our own helplessness. And as the later verses of that same chapter foretells, this same Jesus will come again to rescue all believers and set up his throne in Jerusalem. Israel will then be the true sovereign nation, not England, which itself will be subjected to Israel. Brexiteers, do take note!

Jerusalem, 1994. One day England will be subject to its rule.

These are great promises we both can look forward to. But as I admit, at this moment it does feel as if God is too small, and his arm too short and his ears too dull to take any action. Yet history is filled with Christians who have suffered, imprisoned, and died for defending the truth of the Gospel. Maybe that's it. If I suffer the affliction of the body, my faith in God could well remain strong. But to watch my wife suffer an incurable neurotic illness afflicting her beyond any form of control, well that is another matter.

I need to grasp that well-known verse written by Paul to the Romans:
And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28.

That means Alex's neurotic ailment and my care for her both play an important role in working for the good for us who loves God or wants to love him. Too often, the reality of life, the stormy ocean of the political world, huge tsunami-like waves battering the ship, and threatening to sink it, makes us forget that God has only to speak, and the waters will flee away, or as Jesus spoke to the storm over the Sea of Galilee, and the air had immediately become calm and the water smooth. Just by a command from God's mouth. The same can apply to our situation.

But instead, he allows these episodes to happen. Not because his arm is too short, but because these are lessons for us to learn to trust in him for physical as well as spiritual life and salvation of the soul. Chances are that God will not heal us on this side of the grave. But until we step over that line and enter into glory, God will use these experiences to make us a more Godly couple, strengthening our marriage bond and made partakers of his holiness.

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*Doctor S. I. McMillen, M.D. None of these Diseases, 1963, 1980, Lakeland Publications.

The Joys and Regrets of Autumn.

Autumn. Well at least according to the Meteorological Office, which makes September 1st the start of Autumn. To me, the season begins at the Autumn Equinox, when the sun is directly over the Equator, on its way towards the southern Tropic of Capricorn. Thus making the day and night exactly the same length around the whole globe, with the exception of the Polar regions, where there is a perpetual twilight of dusk at the Arctic Ocean in the North, and an equal dawn over Antarctica. And that happens around September 21st or 22nd. Not September 1st. Therefore, while this is being written, technically it's still Summer. 

And so the world turns. And at the same time, it flies through space at a set path around the Sun, its axis remains at a constant 23.5 degree tilt from vertical, giving us the seasons, essential for life. Indeed, who would ever think that this is a well-designed cosmic mechanism? Back in the 70's, I was sitting at a G.C.E. Geography lesson in an evening class when the lecturer challenged us with a question: What do our planet and a spaceship have in common? No one could answer, including me.

Of course, both fly through space and both are crewed. Damn it! Why didn't I think of that? The only difference is that the crew of the spaceship has full control of the speed and direction of the ship. As for our planet, no human has any control, despite its large population of seven billion. However, he should have added a third. That is, both are designed. After all, nobody would bat an eyelid with the idea that the spaceship was designed and built by human (or even alien) hands. But the thought that the Earth has a Designer? That is a different matter altogether. Somehow, we seem content that our planet, with its dizzying complexity of life, had come to be by absolute chance, the result of a condensation of gas and dust floating across a vast cosmic expanse, and all by sheer coincidence as well.

And so, back in July, it was a joy to see many cheerful faces walking the pedestrianised streets, to watch them relax at a Starbucks or Costa Coffee, lightly dressed in casuals. Some of the younger men showing off their chests and bare arms through a tank top, others wore crew-necks, still others with open collars. The tie was more difficult to find than an oasis in the desert, such a well-to-do cloth status symbol looks to be confined to school children, news anchormen, estate agents and insurance brokers.

Newspaper photos show beaches packed with sunbathers, many daring to venture to their waists into the sea. Meanwhile, businesses thrive with high sales of ice cream, popsicles and seaside rock. Further inland, theme parks boasting gut-wrenching roller coasters, spinners, rifle stalls and water chutes, are all experiencing overcrowding, with long queues snaking from the gates to the more thrilling rides. But as with all things, there is always the underbelly. Many who were too pessimistic over our British climate headed to the airport for a flight out to Spain, Majorca or the party island of Ibiza. 

They tell us that they fly to the sunshine to escape the wet and windy British "Summer" but really it's little more than a booze cruise, with a touch of sunburn to complement. Most make it back home in fairly good form but not without the reported minority who had to pay a visit to a hospital or even banged up for the night. There are even reports of assaults, even murder of our tourists by the locals or by other tourists.

What has happened to travel, real travel? Like the trips I made which involved hiking the Grand Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail to stand by the fast-flowing Colorado River and then looking up at the fantastic display of stars on a clear night. Or snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef followed by time spent gazing up at the Southern Cross constellation with the whole sky streaked from horizon to horizon with the hazy band of the Milky Way. Or wading through a 2,700-year-old tunnel hewn out of solid rock deep beneath the ancient city of Jerusalem, a work of a team led by an Old Testament Biblical king. Then not forgetting the sub-tropical zoological gardens of San Diego with its spectacular canyon, nearby Sea World where I got thoroughly soaked by an orca, watching seals relax at San Francisco's Pier 39, and even admiring Vaillancourt Fountain, considered by many to be the city's ugliest monument.

Vaillancourt Fountain, San Francisco. Visited 1995.

Sure, I was not a teetotaler. I did allow myself an alcoholic drink or two, but never to excess. I did not find drunkenness to be a necessity. The sights I came to see were enough to blow my mind without the need for any stimulant! For me, just a mere sight of palm trees and cacti thriving in their own environments, the latter especially around Phoenix, Malta and Lanzarote; along with the mangroves with their roots underwater at high tide at the Pacific coast of Australia. All of these reminds me of such a beautiful world, rich with variety, which God had made for a combination of his own glory and as an inhabitation for mankind, for whom God the Son himself allowed incarnation in order to rescue us from our shortcomings.

Although when I was Down Under during June and July 1997, their "Winter" meant that it was slightly less warm, and wetter than had I gone in January, although it was in the thirties Celcius in North Queensland, but considerable cooler once in New South Wales. By the time I reached Sydney, I had to dress more heavily. But such a change in temperature from cool to hot was noticed immediately after stepping out of San Diego airport, after an overnight trans-Pacific flight to Los Angeles from Sydney. I was back in Summer. The point of all this is to emphasise the real joy of travel without the risk of drunkenness, hospital visits, a possible imprisonment, or even suffering from an assault.

And now, as I write this, another UK Summer is about to end, and Autumn is soon to begin. People have already begun to wear heavier clothing, the kids have taken their school uniform out of their wardrobes, and in the Press, reports of parents' displeasure over their school's overstrict discipline on what to wear and what not to wear begun to appear in newspapers. As some people have already complained, these articles keep on appearing around early September year after year. I guess this is part of British idiosyncrasy, this obsession with school uniform. Perhaps if I was able to rejuvenate myself to a teenager without losing a single strand of memory, I would like to walk into a school minus a tie and watch the reaction from the staff. And then if challenged, point to a nearby office and ask why most, if not all employees, can come in with their own freedom of expression. I would love to hear what the teacher or headmaster would have to say to that. 

But for me, Autumn has a wider meaning to life as a whole. It means the latter part of my life after retiring from work, a gradual decline in health, and for that matter, a greater restriction of travel. No, not quite housebound, at least not yet. For example, my original plan for this year was to take Alex to Marseilles on the south coast of France. Throughout the season, Eurostar runs trains directly from London St. Pancras to Marseilles St. Charles, passing through the Channel Tunnel. The idea was to visit the fantastic cliffs and rock formation of nearby Calanques National Park, with spectacular views delighting any landscape photographer.

But with Alex experiencing excruciating back pains, which are imminent, such a trip would be ruined, as I have to constantly monitor her condition, constantly looking out for any sign of distress. Not that the hiking trails are easily accessible to wheelchairs anyway. 

Therefore we enjoyed a train journey to North Wales instead, as this was her choice. Although feeling much safer staying in a country where any NHS hospital is free to the point of use, nevertheless, towards the end of our return journey into London, she was in agony with excruciating back pain. We left London Euston for a taxi ride to a nearby hospital where she eventually made a good recovery. But the dreadful thought of, for example, having to alight from the Eurostar train at Lyon for a dash to the city hospital, then face a mountain of French bureaucracy, and still be landed with a huge bill - this cannot bear thinking about.

As for me, in my present condition, I cannot imagine attempting another hike down into Grand Canyon. Now diagnosed with heart failure and on a lifelong course of Warfarin, this 19.2-mile return trip to the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch could do me in, especially at the last three miles up Jacob's Ladder, the series of tough switchbacks up the South Rim wall. Yet I still have some regrets. I have never tried the nearby South Kaibab Trail, which offers even more spectacular views. But as with the Calanques National Park, such a loss is something I will have to live with.

With me being well into my sixties, I always consider how fortunate I really am. Past generations were fortunate to reach this age, and if they did, it was normally visualised as a white-haired gentleman smoking a pipe, confined to his armchair in front of a blazing coal-fire and surrounded by his grandchildren. Rather how one in his mid-eighties would look like in our present day. The Beatles even released a hit in 1967, When I'm Sixty Four, in their album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, depicting the typical character that would befit an eighty-four-year-old gentleman of today. It was a song I thought much of after my 64th birthday, however, I do not think that a weekly routine of lane swimming, long walks, gym workouts and cycling over five miles each way were any part of the Beatles' equation for one of my age.

And I am thankful to God for my being, the ability to reach an age of retirement, yet still regularly swim, cycle, walk and use the Concept 2 rowing machine. These exercises were the advice my Doctor delivered to me at the end of my convalescence following my heart surgery in 2015. But not all for nothing. I have a job to do, a job which I believe God has assigned to me to last throughout retirement. And that is to love, care for and look after my partially disabled wife.

If it takes sacrificing that which I love most - international travel - then so be it. I know it hurts, it hurts me quite badly, but with God's help and through his grace, my love I have for my wife will triumph. However, I do believe that God can and does work in mysterious ways, who knows, one day we could be on board a Eurostar train once again or even, heaven forbid, heading for the airport. But these things I leave in God's hands. I am aware that he knows best, and he wants to have the best for us. Indeed, to have the National Health Service free to the point of use is something to thank God for. Whether we ought to believe in divine miracles or not, the NHS is certainly a very useful, life-saving channel, and I thank God for giving us all brains capable of retaining knowledge no other animal species can retain, and then putting such knowledge into such good use.

I'm lucky to be alive! Sure, so very true. And as God keeps me breathing, the breath of life entering my nostrils which then passes through the trachea to fill the little alveoli which make up my lungs, with oxygen, which in turn enters my bloodstream pumped by my heart - indeed, the moment God withdraws the breath of life, my spirit and soul departs from my body, leaving a corpse ready for burial...

Suddenly, everything falls into place, I'm in the autumn of my life, only God knows how many days I have left to live under the sun. But it is my hope, my prayer, that I fulfil God's will in my life, whether I will ever travel again or not, for the remaining days I have left.

In Him We Have Our Being.

Another working week done. The apocalyptic weather the Met Office had forecasted for Friday did not arrive until twelve hours later than predicted, allowing me to complete the week's scheduled round of work and finish for the weekend. Then earlier today (Saturday) I was off for my weekly dose of the sauna, a wonderful antithesis to the stresses of the week.

 

Such as when my General Practitioner (medical doctor) decided to reduce my wife's prescription. Whether this is normal procedure in the treatment of patients or, as the Media has been suggesting, a money-saving scheme as a result of National Health Service reform imposed by our present Government, I cannot say. However, an appointment with the doctor for next week should, I hope, clear things up. A normal procedure to wean the patient off drugs should, of course, be the norm for any doctor to carry out. However, with a reduced intake of prescribed medicine, my dear beloved has suffered relapses in her illness which I have found particularly distressing - and wondering whether she will end up being taken by ambulance back to Accident & Emergency at Reading Royal Berks Hospital once again.

 

No doubt, the NHS was, and is, a brilliant idea. For the benefit of readers outside the UK, it was started by the Labour Government in 1948, it is funded by National Insurance, a tax paid by every income earner to form a national public purse to enable those who cannot pay for private hospitals to receive treatment. Over the years, both my wife and I have much to thank them for. Yet, with her present prescription reduced, together with her relapse, I have been wondering if they were putting money above her welfare as a patient. This, after reading the papers as well as watching news bulletins that certain types of drugs are withheld or have limited use to save money. And what I find so annoying is that a rich person can make just one call to a private hospital and he will be instantly admitted and given hotel-rate accommodation, not to mention all the constant attention from the medics. Likewise with any celebrity, whether sportsman, actor, singer, writer, performer, or a member of the Royals, they will always be given preferential treatment.

 

It is with these things that I can feel discouraged and down-hearted. This, I think, is why I let out a blast at the English class system so often in these blogs. Preference. The bestowing of greater importance on one person over another. In our language we even have the initials VIP - very important person, and I couldn't help feeling bemused a few years ago when I walked past the entrance of London Zoo at Regents Park, and I saw the VIP entrance separated from the main entrance used by everyone else, and I have wondered whether if any of the animals in captivity would be any more impressed if, for example, the Mayor of London was gawking at them as he sauntered by! 

 

Although I have wished I have done a lot better at school, and found myself working as a microbiologist in a research laboratory instead of as a self-employed window cleaner - I am thankful to God that he has given as all magnificent brains with not only to make decisions and solve problems mathematically - various things no other species of animal has the capacity of doing - but with the ability to store up information long after we had left school and passed our final exams. I have to admit my gratefulness to such academics for making the results of their research and discoveries public. One of the branches of science I find so intriguing is the study of the cell, particularly its nucleus and the genome.

 

We have discovered that the nucleus of every cell in the human body (except the red blood cells) has a nucleus containing 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent, each one containing deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, which resembles a long winding ladder with each rung, or nucleotide, consisting of pairs of nucleobase - guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine - with adenine pairing up with thymine, and guanine with cytosine. In a human cell, Chromosome 1, the longest being over 80mm in length, has nearly 247,200,000 nucleotides, that is the "rungs" of the "ladder." Each nucleotide must be arranged in a certain order in very much the same way as a binary code runs a computer program. If one of the nucleotides is malfunctioning, or at a wrong place, the cell will die.

 

This is a very simplified version of what is otherwise a lengthy study. But the reality of DNA which contains the genetic code inherited from our parents is absolutely staggering! It is a vastly complex structure, each nuclotide being in its correct order and sequence that is needed for the cell to live and function. I, for one, can't help but give glory to God our Creator. Surely, evolution by chance coming up with such a vast complexity as this would be a stretch of the imagination, not to mention that the age of the entire Universe cannot wait for such a structure to develop without divine intervention. This, I think, why God has given us the capacity to learn about ourselves -to recognise that we have a Heavenly Creator whose will is for us humans to partake in and enjoy the love existing between Father Son and Holy Spirit.

 

It looks to me that our very cellular makeup with its highly complex genome system testifies of God's love for us as individuals, and as we are all equal in his sight, yet everyone of us is born with a sinful nature which deserves judgement, yet he commands everyone of us to repent, that is to say, to change our minds about Jesus Christ, and believing him to be our risen Saviour and Lord. The Gospel is here at one with science. Just as the complex genome system found in all human cells have no respect for social class or status, so likewise the Gospel is the same for all classes - to believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and be saved from the penalty of our sins.

 

Although the English in particular generally adore their Majesty the Queen, and no doubt, if anything happens to her health, the doctors will rush at her aid without delay - yet it may be surprising to some that God allows the monarch to exist because of our sinful natures, as well as establishing authorities as a means to keep evil in check. The truth is, after existing for several hundred years as a Theocracy - that means under God's direct rule - the whole nation of Israel approached the seer Samuel to ask for a king to lead them and fight their battles (1 Samuel 8.) God was actually displeased with Israel's request, but after bidding the prophet to warn the nation of the consequences in having a king, at the end God complied, and Israel became a kingdom for the first time in its history, with the annointing of its first king, Saul. 

 

In later years, Israel's kings were particularly hard on their subjects. King Solomon, the son of David was very demanding, according to 1Kings 12:12-16, when King Rehoboam, Solomon's son and heir to the throne, announced to his subjects that he will be much harsher than his father was. Israel's period as a kingdom was a trying time, which pushed further home their distrust in God as their King, and towards their eventual ruin by exile into Babylon under their new pagan ruler Nebuchadnezzar.

 

Our Queen, of course, is nothing like Solomon, Rehoboam or Nebuchadnezzar. Instead, for the last sixty years since her enthronement, she has served her country well, earning the respect the nation owed her. But although she had served the country well, as a nation, the attitude of her subjects shows the same lack of trust in God as ancient Israel demonstrated. For centuries, the British had always looked to their monarch as not only the nation's leader, but also as an intercessory between the nation and God, very much as the Pope is the in-between before God for the Catholic Church. I believe that it is having the Queen as Head of State, and the pageantry that follows every time she steps onto the street, or is seen in public sitting in her coach, that acts as a base rock for the social class system with its pecking order of preferences.

 

But our intricate body structure, with our magnificent cell and genome system, our health and wellbeing testifies of the universal creation and love of God, who has no favouritism, no pecking order, no national or cultural class stratum. This is endorsed in Scripture which says that whoever despises a poor man despises the God who made him. Jesus himself had always respected the poor and needy and had no hesitation to minister to them and to meet their needs - as well as proclaiming to them the Kingdom of God, and their willingness to enter.

 

And also knowing how much God loves the church as a corporate body, each congregation making up the body and bride of Christ. Therefore isn't it most important that every individual believer within the Body of Christ should treat each other as equals, without any pecking order of any kind. In the church there should be no snobbery, no academic preferences, no social class, no nationalism, no preferences for any political party, no greater respect for those in the professions. We as a body of believers are as equal to each other as each cell is equal to each other in our bodies, regardless to what part of the body the cell is serving.

 

And maybe it's time for the NHS to learn the same thing about discrimination between patients. After all, their doctors and staff know about the workings of the genome than most of the rest of us.