D.O.P.-T.

Walking past it to a doc appointment for this wretched cold - I called in sick for tonight because I am inaudible and keep having to cough disgustingly every few minutes - I got a good look at the new building my HMO is putting up on the site of their old one. I miss the old one. It was low-slung and unassuming, and had ramps all over the place inside because in the 1970s they apparently didn't realize clinics get wheelchair patrons, and the wings of the building folded protectively around the entrance, with overhangs under which vines ran up the walls beside the windows, and at one point the wall itself formed a niche for a cherry tree (which continued bravely blooming after they left the place derelict). There was a lower level with an eyeglass store and some of the offices, so at the back there was one of those Western sunken courtyard gardens, which you looked down on as you joined the queue for 'flu shots once a year. The new one presents a massive wall to the street - not just multi-storey, but tall, and it snakes along seemingly endlessly in all sorts of geometric shapes, all with roofs flung out proudly above and clad in red brick veneer with a perfunctory stripe of cream brick between the windows, like a reform school. There's even a guard tower at one corner. There used to be a large parking lot with rows of flowering trees - one of those has been left, but they've excavated too close to its roots and it looks unhappy.