A bit of a waste of time

Had to get out early today for various reasons, finished my business fairly quickly so decided that it'd be a good day to go and give blood.

What I'd forgotten was that the usual clinic is currently closed for some renovation, so it was being run out of the Royal College of Nursing a few hundred yards away. Eventually found the place and managed to get a booking for only 20 minutes later.

Except that the system was not working very well, due to the clinic being in a temporary site, and it ended up as an hour or so later.

At which point I had the usual quick blood test, waited some more, then went to be drained of my precious bodily fluids. There followed the usual prodding and poking, with a couple of different nurses trying to get blood, and eventual admission of defeat - for some reason they just weren't getting blood flow, and due to new regulations they couldn't try again with the other arm.

So they took the needle out and patch me up - then discover that one of the tubing clips that is supposed to release when the donation starts was stuck closed, which is why the blood wasn't flowing. And no, they couldn't put the needle in again.

So now I've got to wait a couple of weeks to go again, which puts me squarely in the run-up to Christmas which I was trying to avoid...

Never mind, I got a few other things done, so the day hasn't been a complete loss.