So okay, last night was not the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. Around about the time when most people are so deeply into REM sleep that their eyeballs are doing somersaults, I was scraping little bits of vomit off the kids’ ladder. My son had not told a lie when woke me to say he had been sick everywhere. It was all over his bed and on every rung of the ladder both kids use to get to their high rise beds. He had fountained from on high and liberally splattered the floor, including quite possibly the cat as I have not seen hide not hair of her since.

After a quick that’ll-have-to-do type clean up and bundling the little guy back to bed with me, I maybe got a half hour shuteye before he rocketed out of bed clutching his mouth. He just made it to the loo before Vesuvius struck again. Poor lad. He wasn’t well at all and so the night went on. When he finally dropped off into a deep sleep I thought I could at last get some sleep myself but then it was the turn of my daughter. “Mummm..” she said shaking me gently, ‘…my throat’s sore.”

Brilliant. By morning I had saddlebags under my eyes that John Wayne would have found very useful but I at least had the opportunity to test Dr. Deadpan’s immediate medical appointment promises. Turned out he was true to his word and rather than be subjected to the disgusted tutting and head-shaking reserved for those who have the nerve to take their sick children to the clinic as an emergency I was the smug owner of two back to back appointments for this very morning.

I wondered if the grumpy doctor would actually smile upon me as he presented me with my two green cards as a reward for following the system. Unfortunately, I shall never know if Dr Deadpan is capable of an impish grin because it seems he has gone. Sitting in his place behind the doctor’s desk was a wee plump lady that looked as if she’d wandered in off the street in search of a cup of tea. No doctor’s jacket and a bit of a slap dash way about handling the instruments between each child had me a bit concerned.

Later on I saw her with a colleague in a local cafe. I couldn’t decide whether it was worse that the doctor had not worn a jacket for the consultation with my kids or that her colleague was wearing one now – in a public place. That’s not right, surely? But it was when I saw the stethoscope coiled on the cafe table between the two that I really thought ‘Come back, Dr. Deadpan. All is forgiven.’

The man might have been a grumpy sod but he was on obsessively clean grumpy sod with a sparklingly white jacket. I’m quite sure he would not have been seen dead gadding about in a public cafe, slinging his stethoscope about willy-nilly. On the other hand, the new doctor seems to have done away with the manic red-yellow-green appointment card system so she can’t be all bad.

That section of Mahon which deals with blood tests and samples opens at 7.30 am. It has to open early because all the people there who are waiting for a blood test have had nothing to eat and tempers are running high.

I got there at about 7.20 and was delighted with all the polite smiles and nods. One man helpfully pointed out who was last (and therefore who I would be after) and everyone nodded and smiled at me again. Little did I know that this show of civility was but a thin veneer and as soon as the door opened any thought of an orderly queue forming was out the window as the mob stampeded through it in a mad rammy to get the first ticket.

Swept along in the crowd I did not to badly and settled down with yesterday’s crossword to wait my turn. When my number was called I went to the desk where I received a clutch of test tubes and was prodded down the corridor to wait in another queue. The pressure was obviously on down this hall as polite smiles had given way to stony-faced attention on the lab doors.

The test-tube nurse was cracking through her job while the blood-taking nurses were backing up quite a bit. More people began to fill the little corridor and those inside the blood-letting chamber seemed not to want to leave. We all glanced at each other nervously when one woman let out a chilling groan. Dear God! What were they doing to her?

The man beside me started to sweat and I was reminded of an old friend, Jeff who fainted at the birth of his son. Jeff didn’t go bottoms up at the good bit though, oh no, he hit the deck when he saw the nurse inject his wife with a mild sedative. He was papped out of the delivery room and spent the rest of Anne’s labour in a spare bed down the hall.

At last there was some movement at the door and a couple exited. A dapper little chap in a crisp white shirt was out his seat and through that door like a bullet out a gun. He certainly came right out of left field as he’d been so quiet and relaxed no-one was prepared for him to make his bid for the blood room. The man next to me let out a great sigh and shook his head. He obviously felt he should have been next but fear had welded his bottom to the chair.

By now the hall was getting quite claustrophobic but through the wall of bodies barreled an enormous woman who breenged into the blood room demanding she be seen to next. As one woman up the corridor rose to her feet to protest, an elderly man shooed her back to her seat and took the arrogant queue-jumper to task himself. Just at that point there was a loud crash and through the door to blood room number 2, I could see a pair of finely turned ankles as my dapper little man from before keeled over like a felled oak. One male nurse grabbed his ankles and another his shoulders and they humphed him past the door and out of sight but not before I noticed the poor lad’s skin. He’d gone a startling primrose yellow which might be a pretty colour for the front room but is not such a good look on your face.

By now the queue jumper was bellowing back at the elderly man, “Diabetico!”. She was obviously laying it on thick about being diabetic and having no breakfast but the crowd were not impressed and the large lady ended up stamping off in a huff.

By now I had completely lost track of who was next but I suspected that if I didn’t go into action soon I’d be pushed past by the growing mob at my back. As the groaner finally exited Door number 1 I leapt to my feet waving my little pink ticket and through into the little cubicle where a pretty nurse sat unruffled by all the drama. She chatted away at me obviously totally unfazed by all the shouting and fainting.

As she stuck the needle in I glanced away and there on the other side was the once dapper, yellow man beginning to come round. I was glad to see his colour was coming back and that he would be alright. Finished with me now, the chatty nurse tapped my wrist and waved me off with a big smile. It’s always nice to see people enjoying their jobs but I suspect she was always enjoying the morning’s entertainment and I wonder if it is always quite so lively at the Mahon blood clinic.

If you have to go, get there early – before 7.30. Take a ticket as soon as the doors open and after you are given your test tubes go right up the corridor to the far end. That way you are right in front of the lab doors and queue jumpers can’t get past you.

The telephone number 012 is your best friend if you are living in the Canary Islands. With that number you have access to a sheaf of information about government services including education, emergency, social and family, energy and transport and perhaps most importantly make your social services doctors’ appointments.

The equivalent number for those calling from outside of the Canaries is 902 111 012.

Unfortunately if your Spanish skills are as bad as mine eliciting any kind of information or appointment can be quite nerve wracking depending on the patience of the person at the other end of the line. Happily the Cita Previa page on the Gob Can website makes booking a doctor’s appointment so much easier. Just visit that webpage with your health card in hand and follow the easy to understand instructions. Press the button to confirm the date and time of your choice and remember to print out the details.