Impressed

Most local Manx people we meet here seem to have a very low opinion of the health service on the island, but our experience is that it is pretty good (and very good compared with spain) and very proactive (so thats how the NHS spends all its funding).

As an example, I received a letter about having a new vaccine for a respiratory virus - and I phoned the number to check if it was available on the day when I drive Gill into the hospice. It wasn´t, but the girl suggested I should send our vaccine history to them so that our records could be updated. A bit of a pain, but I dug out the ´photos of screenshots (really) from the spanish system and entered them in a spreadsheet and emailed them in.

Within an hour, I received a phone call from a guy asking me for a couple of extra details, then offering us both the covid booster jabs, and specifically at our local health centre, and in a couple f weeks time - and even setting up flu jabs at the same time. Amazingly pleasant, efficient and helpful (and I told him so).

Apparently the extra jab they were offering in the letter is a brand new thing that is only available to people between 75 and 80 (no older or younger - go figure) and not done in conjunction with any other jabs.

WIth two arms likely to be full, I told him I would sleep on that one.

On the house-hunting front, we are still looking, but have pretty much exhausted all the ones that fitted our original (and then expanded) requirements - so I am casting my net further afield. A bit too far last week, as the cottage (newly built and even with underfloor heating) was a bit too rural for G, who thought the "village " services were a bit lacking (post box and phone box - not even a pub or corner shop) and the bus services were a bit sparse (3 tiimes per day to Peel - a bit like the one above Casa D which was 3 times a day to Coin or Fuengirola).

Despite my particularly liking the shed in the grass patch at the back (shed with a bench installed already) it was voted a "no".

(Actually I was a bit wary after seeing the spider´s web near the shed - a web which was full of midges - I hadn´t realised it was that close to Scotland).