I don't visit my doctor very often, does that make me typical man? Well if I'm not ill why bother him?

But, I recently received a letter inviting me to a man's health check, which was inconvenient for two reasons; it was on at 9.30am Sunday morning, which is when my body understands it can rest a little more than usual and (as I discovered on arriving at the surgery) 30 other men had the same appointment time as me.

Block booking also involved block waiting, now I'm a patient man, I can happily wait for most things, good food, sex, death, sex, Guinness and sex, but having to read a well thumbed 2004 copy of Woman's Own magazine while waiting to be called for an examination can be a little testing.

Luckily there were more that 6 nurses carrying out the examinations so we moved swiftly along.

I was called in to a smaller room that had 5 other men having their heath checks done (I was most relieved there was no prostate check taking place) and we were all able to nod understandingly to each other when our height and weight checks revealed we were all a little over weight – BMI I'm sure that is an invention of a svelte Swedish doctor wanting to strip us of our 'love handles' so we look more acceptable in the sauna.

I was given a seat by a 'nurse' understand I use that term lightly here, who proceeded to prick my finger (without the aid of a spinning wheel) and extract blood to test my Cholesterol, glucose levels etc, (which can out fine by the way), while the machine was testing this she proceeded to take my blood pressure.

Now, this is where the fun starts, she took my blood pressure on the same arm she had extracted the blood from, why then was she so surprised that my pricked finger began to spurt like old faithful when she pressed button on the blood pressure machine?

To add to the fun after a few cotton balls had been soaked in my precious vamp juice, she looked at the machine giving my blood pressure result and said "Oh!"

"Oh? Oh what's Oh mean?"

"Oh!"

"Yes, I caught that bit, but Oh what?"

"Did you drive here?

"Yes"

"Oh!" - There is was again! – WHAT?

"You reading is a bit high, let me take it again"

"Wait, Wait, let me put some pressure on this finger prevent and spurting"

Reading number two and three can back similar, which prompted the stupidest question of the day; "what job do you do?" (No, not that one)

"Sales, I'm in sales I am an Area sales manager"

"Is it stressful?" (yes, that's the one!)

"Not any more than having your blood pressure taken then followed by an OH!" She sensed my sarcasm.

"Well I would recommend you drive to A & E and explain the situation and get them to check you over"

"Really, Is that bad?"

"Well, not great but go anyway"

"And drive there, despite you having concerns when you knew I drove here?"

"Mmmmm, well you should be ok"

"Thanks for the reassurance" And off I went, with all the other guys nodding sympathy my way.

I found the Accident and Emergency department of my local Hospital completely empty – result, quick service! I gave my personal details again explaining I thought I was neither an accident nor an emergency but was told to attend by the 'nurse'.

The receptionist agreed with me (where upon I did remark that some people had commented I was an accident waiting to happen), she directed me around the corner to the 'Walk in centre'. There I found a waiting room full of people with various states of problems, the problem I had was five minutes in to the wait discovering the receptionist was re-entering my details that had been printed off by A&E less than 5 minutes ago (have they not heard of data file transfer?), add to that she was training another person (on a Sunday?) and it took them 20 minutes to complete the task (good old NHS huh?).

During that time another man came in with a similar form I had given over, so I asked "Have you just been to the health screening?"

"Yes"

"High Blood pressure?"

"Yes, are you a doctor?"

"No, mind reader……No, I've had the same thing"

"Was it the blonde nurse in the white blouse?" He asked,

"Yeeess, now YOU'RE the mind reader"

It turned out no coincidence, on getting to see the doctor he asked why I was there, I wondered that but followed 'nurse"Oh's" instructions. He took my blood pressure and informed me that it was only a little above normal, there was no worries and with an air of 'I've got more important people to treat" advised me on ways of getting it to lower. I had a few ideas myself; avoid men's health checks for one!