Let me start by making myself very clear. Unfortunately, I have a couple of friends who have serious health issues, and I know that in comparison with the challenges they face, any health issues I have are trivial. So, I am well aware that what I’m writing here is very subjective, but, hell, this is my blog, and if I can’t indulge in a bit of angst here then what’s it all for?!

We moved to Ma’ale Adumim in 1996, and until around 2000 I had no idea what our family doctor looked like. Now, of course, we are old friends, and I have spent many long and mostly happy hours in his surgery reviewing my many, but, I stress, largely minor, ills.

Last week I made an appointment to see him, because I needed a number of referrals for regular check-ups with specialists, and I also had to review and renew my prescriptions. I hadn’t anticipated an 80-minute session, but that’s what it turned out to be, including a WhatsApp consultation with my cardiologist to discuss a change of medication.

A brief aside to say that we have what may well be the best family doctor in Israel, and I still find it amazing that when he sends an ECG printout by WhatsApp to my cardiologist, he gets a reply within ten minutes and the issue is resolved on the spot.

I was, understandably, feeling a little depressed that covering all of my various complaints and ailments had taken almost an hour and a half. However, it was heartening to hear my doctor jokingly expressing to me his disappointment that I had brought to his table nothing particularly interesting, and then assuring me that he would much rather be bored by my list than confronted by something more stimulating but also much more worrying.

Armed with multiple referrals, I made an appointment for the following day for the pharmacy in our local health fund clinic. Arriving 10 minutes before my appointment, I had enough time to trade in all of my referrals for the corresponding commitment-to-pay forms from the clinic secretary, before collecting my meds.

Depending on which pharmacist is on duty, and what the stock situation is in the pharmacy, I can sometimes persuade them to give me three months’ supply of my meds. This day I was lucky, and the pharmacist was happy to give me three packets of each of my meds. As I was about halfway through packing them into the plastic bag supplied, the pharmacist said: ‘Hold on! I’ll get you a bigger bag’ and returned with a medium size carrier bag.

Yes, folks, I have turned into the person I used to resent as I stood behind him in the queue at the pharmacist. To make matters worse, one of my medications is included in the basket of fully subsidised medications only for patients who score high enough on one of those nightmare-inducing scales to assess your likelihood of suffering a stroke. I am, of course, delighted that my score does not qualify me for full exemption; I have to pay half the cost of the medication, What this meant, on this occasion, was that, when the pharmacist confirmed that I wanted to pay by debiting my account, he wondered whether I wanted to split the payment over two months.

With perfect timing, as I was writing that last paragraph I received a call from a representative of the Health Ministry. It is just over a year since my second hip replacement, and she had a number of questions about the success of the operation and my general health. Having publicly declared that the operation was a total success, I am in no pain, and I am suffering from none of her long catalogue of illnesses, I feel much better, so let’s talk about something a bit more upbeat.

For you, the transition from the last paragraph to this was seamless. I, on the other hand, have spent twenty minutes trying to think what there is upbeat to write about. It’s by no means clear that the acrimonious dispute over teachers’ pay and conditions that is a regular feature of late August in Israel will be resolved in time to save the start of the school year; it appears that the disastrous so-called nuclear deal with Iran, on the other hand, will be signed; no end to the Russia-Ukraine war seems even on the horizon. Thank goodness for the cricket, is all I can say (and even that needs to be cherry-picked)!

I can at least recommend an astonishing novel to you: Claire North’s The Fist Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It is a science fiction novel, but in the same way that John le Carre’s novels are espionage novels: in other words, the author has chosen a science fiction premise as a framework for exploring serious questions about the human condition. Without giving too much away, the premise is that we all live our life over and over; every time we die, we are born again into exactly the same circumstances as exactly the same person, with no memory of our previous lives. However, certain people have perfect memory, and in each life they are able to build on the experience of their previous lives.

North brilliantly explores the possible consequences of that premise, for the individual, for the community of those who remember, and for humanity as a whole. Her novel is an exploration of human nature and character, a philosophical treatise on the nature and meaning of life, a chilling thriller, and an exploration of human relationships. It also features a central narrator in whose company it is a real pleasure to while away several hours. Bernice and I have reached the point where we are reading shorter and shorter sections every day, because we really want to relish every nuance.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going downstairs to administer today’s carefully measured dose of Harry August.

I’ll leave you with two phots from Portugal, taken just before we left a couple of weeks ago. From here on out, I’ll be relying on Micha’el to supply me with up-to-date photos.