A grizzly surgery today. Four people cried. I sometimes despair of the misery that bedevils lives – from illness, to mental illness, to bullying by neighbours, to impossible housing situations, to being unable to leave the country to visit a daughter having a baby in a dangerous country from which you have fled for asylum.

I rush afterwards to have a quick lunch with a local journalist from The Muswell Hill and Crouch End Times in Crouch End – which is very pleasant. It is good to put a face and humanity to people you speak with often but haven’t met. I like the paper – as it reports news intelligently and is well-balanced. I don’t know how these reporters manage to get the paper out at all really. They always operate on the energy and ambition of young journalists hungry to get somewhere who will work incredibly hard on their path to future careers. Well – we all do that in those areas where working for little means that one day you get a chance to work at what you love.

Make a home visit to a disabled lady who has had an upsetting experience at the Whittington Hospital I will write to the Chief Exec to find out their side of the story and raise the issue. The bit I really find astonishing – without going into detail – is that traffic wardens (not sure yet if employed by council or hospital) actually burst in on a consultation when the woman was with the doctor. That seems slightly OTT whatever the dispute was about. We will see.

Anyway – I’m off now for a week! I may comment on what takes my fancy – but am not ‘doing’ for once.