Blind Dates

This week has been a weeks of ups and downs.

At the end of last week I went for a casting for "Waking The Dead' I was offered the role last Friday - two episodes in the new series. the role is quite a key role, though it would be wrong of me to say what function the character has in case there are any fans of the programme reading this. Suffice it to say they had found it a hard role to cast and were evidently pleased to get me.

Of course the filming day for the first of two episodes clashed with Wednesday 21st this week when I am already booked by my good friend Debbie Manship to do a corporate video for her company Rolecall. She was not willing to let me go, and I an understand that. the BBC seemed incapable of taking on board that I was not free on that day and my agent the gorgeous Amanda had producers ringing her and pressurising her and upping the money- though let's not get carried away here - the two episode fee would just about have been enough for a mini break in Madrid....flying Easyjet! in the end it wasn't possible to pull out of what I was doing, so I'll be sat in a room pretending to be a surgeon rather than sat in a room pretending to be a senior police officer.

Frustrating in the extreme.

Monday morning saw me at Kings Hospital for the preassessment for my eye op . I was diagnosed with cataracts at the beginning of the year and am going to have them removed.

A gorgeous delightful nurse, the NHS at its best took me through the preassessment and then told me that they would see me for surgery on...you've guessed it...Wednesday the 21st! I asked if they thought that informing the patient as to the time and date of their operation an option the NHS had ever considered, and then explained to her why the 21st wouldn't work as a date on both counts.
She continued to be a shining example of everything that could be great about the NHS by sneaking me into Eye admissions and letting me discuss a suitable date with them. I have gone for May 12th. So imagine my surprise when on Wednesday of this week I was offered a second television filming on...you've guessed it...May 12th. It was an easy decision. My eye has to come first so I kept the eye op and turned down my second television of the week.

The good thing is that after the op my vision will be much better, and it'll be so much easier to see how empty my diary is!


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