Once he’d waved off the Pickford’s lorry, Harry groaned happily as he sank down onto his sofa, glad for a rest from unpacking, with a glass of red wine in-hand and looked contently around his new living room. He had to admit it was pretty gorgeous as living rooms went. It wouldn't look out of place in a high-end glossy interior-design brochure. With a huge stone fireplace and real wooden beams spanning the ceiling, deep red and cream walls and a dark wooden floor, it was enough to make any homeowner jealous. Harry’s half-unpacked modern furniture just served to bring an extra element of rich style too the room, turning it from classic to classy modern.
He really had struck gold with the package deal. Not only did he now own a neat, modern little surgery (complete with parking spaces!), all of his own, in the centre of a picturesque village, he also owned this charming 3 bedroom house a mere street away – all for just £399,000 inclusive! Considering just one house in Devon averaged the £300,000 mark, getting both the house and the surgery was almost too good to be true. So the question was… what was the catch? Seriously, what was the catch? Sure, this kind of job usually inherited a surgery as standard and it wasn't too unusual for a house to be added on at a reasonable price but they certainly weren't available together for such a ridiculously low price - especially given the area. The only thing he could think of was that they were desperate to get someone young in - someone likely to have decades of service to offer - and were willing to slash the price accordingly.
All he knew about the situation was that the previous doctor had suddenly died about a month ago, leaving the community scrambling for someone to fill his shoes. While the house and the surgery had been immediately put up for sale, one of the doctors in the local town of Kingsbridge temporarily took over the practice until a full-time doctor (i.e. Harry) was put in place.
It had been Harry’s boss – the manager of the Manchester health centre he’d been working in prior to this – who had informed him of the opening. Supposedly the doctor who had died had been his mentor at Barts and Greg seemed to think the job would be ideal for Harry. Having just gotten out of an unhealthy relationship, Harry had been vocal in his desperation to move. He had wanted a fresh start. His ex would just not leave him alone and was always popping over to Harry's house with the pretence of ‘collecting’ something that was supposedly his. In fact, it was always just another attempt to seduce him back into a relationship with saccharine words and nauseating reminisces. Coupled with the awkward situation of having some of his ex’s friends living on the same street… things were uncomfortable to say the least. Mind you, Harry had only been planning on moving to a different area of Manchester, not 250 miles south to an isolated village where Virginmedia Broadband was only a myth. However, he had taken a serious look at the offer and found it oddly appealing. The only specifications on the purchase were that the buyer had to be a general practitioner and they had to keep the practice open in the village. Having worked inside a large health centre for the past two years, Harry wasn’t exactly experienced with the particulars of looking after a whole parish. But still… it couldn’t be too hard right? There were only nine hundred people in the area and half of them were fit and healthy farmers. Okay, so there was also a large percentage of pensioners too but half of the time their ailments would simply be aches and pains augmented by loneliness.
What truely drew him to the offer, though, was that, not only would his pay increase to £45,000 a year but, his working hours would be slashed dramatically too. In Manchester he was working 8-5 Mon-Fri and every second Saturday, 8-3. In Devon, his schedule would be: emergency appointments 8am to 11am and non-emergency appointments 12-3pm - except on Wednesdays when he work until six pending appointments. He was expected to make house calls on top of that though and attend to out-of-hour emergencies Mon-Thurs, whenever necessary – hence why another specification with the buy was that he had to have a sturdy road vehicle.
