Category 2

Today I had my annual trip to Hammersmith Hospital to check my health as a former in-patient at the Catherine Lewis Centre. The appointment was made after the last one last year, long before we’d heard of “lockdown”. I rang them a few days ago to check if I was still expected or required to come in. I was told that appointments had now been ranked: Category 1 (dealt with over the phone), Category 2 (come in for blood test + follow-up over the phone), and Category 3 (needs treatment, so should be an in-patient). I am in Category 2, so I was up early to get the bus to Brixton then the Tube around to White City and walk the final mile or so around to Du Cane Road, passing under the Westway in the misty morning.

Once again, in to the Hospital and then the journey through the Subway.

The dolphin mural is still in place.

As I was there early, I went to the canteen. It had introduced a new circulation scheme, with one Entrance and one Exit. I think the big art works have changed since 2008, but the tapestry designs at the sides have always been there. The food itself is no longer available on plates and has to be taken in plastic cartons even if it is to be consumed nearby.

So I went to the Catherine Lewis Centre. I had my own mask on.

It’s the same as it always was, although the coffee lounge is now partitioned and I’m not sure if the coffee bar is still in business.

I was quickly processed for my bloods. I went in a treatment room near the main entrance which I’d never been in before, I notice they’d put a nice cloud pattern on the overhead lighting panel.

It was 3 vacutainers of blood, as usual. I don’t know if I get a COVID test included or even if those work from blood samples, rather than throat-scrapings.

Lots of leaflets on display, as usual, including some new ones relating to COVID.

I was all done and sent on my way again. Back up the Subway.

Once again, for another year, the mysterious vacancy of On Route by Georgia Wild. Was the painting stolen, or has it always been a conceptual void all along?

There are a few new art works, but not many. The ones near to the Centre are the same that I remember there from 2008. Those black & white works in the coffee lounge are of the same period.

Walking back towards the Westway, looking up at Eighty Eight Wood Lane in the mist.

All of that development for Imperial has been put up since 2008.

Travelling back through Brixton, I saw some CORONAVIRUS IS A LIE stickers on the escalator at the Tube station. Walking to the bus stop I also saw some of these: