My elder son has woken up with upper respiratory symptoms and a cough. He is asthmatic and he always has a cough when he gets a cold, which almost always happens on return to school so I am not actually particularly concerned, especially as we are in an area with a low incidence of Cobid at present. But obviously I can't send him into school whilst he is coughing like this, so I thought I would book a test.
What a palaver! After multiple attempts over the course of the day that resulted in me being told to "try again later" I finally got the option of booking a slot at a walk in centre. Then I entered yet more information, went to complete only to get a message "No suitable venues available. Some walk in centres are for over 18s only". My son is 17.
So why the hell, given that I had to enter his date of birth and our postcode fairly early in every single one of my attempts to book a test, does it not tell you this from ths outset? I have wasted half a day trying to book a test and now have to book a postal one which I could have just done right away this morning if it had been clearer. 
Apparently that will be with us "within 48 hours" and then of course we need to post it back and wait for results, so I am guessing that the even best case scenario is that he will be out of school for most or all of next week even if its negative, as will his younger brother. Fortunately I am off work at present and DH is working from home so we can self isolate relatively easily but its very frustrating. To add insult to injury I passed the walk in test centre yesterday and it was completely empty. Not even any cars in the car park.
Has anyone got any experience of postal testing? My younger son was tested as part of a trial and it took nearly 2 weeks for his result to come back so I am really hoping that its a bit more efficient for clinically indicated testing.