July 1st to September 10th

[DracoM]

Family circumstances have made me realise the colossal seismic and geological shift the UK goes through every year between these two dates, a mere 12-13 or so weeks:
1. Degree results
2. GCSE results
3. As / A-level results
4. University acceptance etc results
5. Change of school at 5-ish, 11-ish, 16-ish, 18-ish to college / job / life
6. Empty nests passim
7. Last ever holidays with parents maybe?
8. GAP years.

I mean............quietly, or maybe not so quietly, so many emotional / relationship networks change, end, renew, begin.
But somehow, UK goes on. I suppose because we all know it happens does not lessen the impact nationwide.

[Alain Maréchal]

I'm very sorry to hear that Sparrow. I assume therefore your planned trip to these parts was cancelled - but only deferred, let us hope.

The annual intake of new registrars and the game of musical chairs was always an upheaval. The number of diagnostic tests increased sevenfold, until consultants could take them each by the hand and ask them why they requested every test known to medical science (the answer, as you noted, was timidity). I was seconded into the NHS from my French employer, and never understood why the lessons had not been learned, although I admit that custom and practice is difficult to overcome.

Give thanks that your incident occurred on a weekday - the NHS shuts down at the weekend, hardly any diagnostics are available between Friday and Monday, and I regret to say patient outcomes are worse because of that. Caveat - five years have passed since my secondment, and all may have changed.

Get well soon - and recover in Auvergne.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Oh dear, how misleading of me, my apologies - I didn't want to go on at length. That was over 10 years ago. Took me 18 months to get back to work, but I have been pretty well since! Yes, let us all hope things have changed for the better.

The holiday in Auvergne. Well, until Saturday, we have encountered cold and sometimes rainy weather, as you must know. Our usual stamping ground is our comparator - like a poor day in Edinburgh in Autumn. However we dodged the worst of the rain and enjoyed the churches of Clermont F., the Puy de Dome (itself and the area), St Nectaire and now we are based in Besse. Weather improving and Mrs CS has enjoyed some significant walks.

[Alain Maréchal]

The holiday in Auvergne. Well, until Saturday, we have encountered cold and sometimes rainy weather, as you must know..

For the whole of August I was on the southern coast of Brittany for the annual obligatory holiday with Mme. M's extended family, so I have been enjoying good sun tempered with sea breezes. Vichy has its own micro-climate and the weather there touched 39 on occasion, and is usually stiflingly hot. Odd to to think that in its heyday wealthy North Africans (French administrators and native aristocracy) spent the summers in Vichy to escape the Algerian heat.

I am sorry I misunderstood your post. I am never quite comfortable with past tenses.

DracoM - the upheavals you number apply just as much to France, but with the added entertainment of the national cross-migration from one region to another, enforced intimacy with families, two major public holidays, long drives, queues at the péages and the worst road death tally of any European country. Oddly, in spite of what must be a punitive exchange rate, there seemed to be more Britons than usual (including the Sparrows) this year. Perhaps a last fling.

[DracoM]

Oh yes, I'm sure the same tectonic plate shift / cycle is common to many parts of Europe and USA. I was merely relating it to UK because that's the system I know!!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'd ever considered this before, but it has always been my worst time of year, beginning with the hay fever season, and this has often been followed by the things Draco mentions or periods of illness, injury or depression, all of which miraculously evaporated when term-time began in September.

[vinteuil]

.

... tho' I think the key period for suicides / depression / divorce / separation and the like is actually Jan/Feb, following Christmas / New Year jollifications and -

enforced intimacy with families.

.

[Richard Barrett]

Those of us whose work involves higher education are at our least stressed between July and September!

[Alain Maréchal]

.

... tho' I think the key period for suicides / depression / divorce / separation and the like is actually Jan/Feb, following Christmas / New Year jollifications and -



.

From about 0100 on 25th December I am usually insulated by alcohol, so am able to retain my equilibribiliumulium...oh hell, my absence of mind.

[DracoM]

But I was rather thinking of families, relationships within families, and how the dates I used seemed to mark tidal shifts.
It's that rather than individual crises I meant - altho' of course there might well be individual crises of all kinds a quo / ad terminen.