I don’t know who came up with the idea of February, but frankly they deserve to be fired. It’s not the month I object to, it’s the fact that it’s exactly four weeks long. It means the days of the week are the same as for March. And that means all my patients turn up a month early.

I had an 84-year-old lady this afternoon who sat outside in the waiting room for almost an hour before complaining that she hadn’t been called. Having checked her appointment letter, I had to break the news to her that she was unlikely to be called for another four weeks. Needless to say I added her to my list and screened her anyway, so ultimately there was no harm done, but on top of giving me extra work, it caused a lot of embarrassment for the lady when she realised her mistake (she turned redder than a retinal haemorrhage), and that was in addition to her being kept waiting for an hour.

As for the chap I saw yesterday, let’s just say he had form. I was barely an hour into the new working month, when he turned up insisting that he had an appointment for 10:20 that morning. Needless to say he hadn’t bothered to bring his appointment letter, but that didn’t stop him being adamant that he was there on the right day. It’s always the ones with no proof who are the most confident of being right.

Anyway, the moment he complained about the short notice of his appointment, it was pretty obvious what had happened. And sure enough, a quick check on the computer told me that he’d arrived a month early. But as they used to say on all good 70s cop shows, the man had previous. When I got him back in for the photos, he admitted to me that he’d done it before, “only worse”. When I questioned how much worse you can get than arriving four weeks early for your retinal screening, he said “I once turned up for a hospital appointment in the wrong year”.

I admitted that was slightly worse.