It is cold and windy, so no outside jobs completed today, instead a lazy day today consisting of cooking lunch, watching Formula One, reading and knitting.
I took today’s picture of this female Bullfinch, through the conservatory window quite early this morning. We hardly ever see a Bullfinch, except when there is blossom on the trees, which they like to eat.
Today’s picture is of a Blackbird on the feeder tray, taken after I arrived home from a long day at Addenbrookes Hospital.
We were up at 0430 hours and I had to feed Bo, our neighbour’s dog before we went; it was still dark. I also had to defrost the car which took ten minutes as there was quite a hard frost last night, but then we do live in a frost hollow, so this is not unusual.
We arrived at the ward at 0645 hours and my husband went to theatre at 1020 hours for his left-knee to be replaced; he returned to the ward just as visiting hours began at 1500 hours. Visiting on this ward is rubbish 1500 to 1700 hours and then again in the evening from 1900 to 2000 hours; I shall not visit in the evening. While he was in surgery I waited on the concourse, but then Nicola, our daughter, collected me and we went to Scotsdales for lunch and a look round during her lunch break, which was infinitely better than sitting on the concourse for five hours. I have also included two pictures taken at Addenbrookes Hospital, one before the operation and one after.
This morning my husband took the large bulky bandage off of my wrist; today was the first time it was allowed off. It looks good and has been photographed and two views have been included below as a record. My husband put on a new small dressing so that the steri strips remain in place. Today’s shower was much better with just a rubber glove on rather than a huge plastic bag!
Today’s main picture is of a Goldfinch, the first one I have seen in the garden for at least two years. I only saw it briefly, just as it was about to fly away. Today has been warm and sunny.
Yesterday when I returned home I found confirmation that my nomination form, to stand as a Governor for Addenbrookes Hospital had arrived safely. If you want to vote for me you need to be a member of the Addenbrookes Trust, you can join here
https://secure.membra.co.uk/CUHApplicationForm/
A lovely sunny day, but I have spent most of it working as I wanted to get everything finished this week. Tomorrow I am at Milton Keynes all day at a Staff Development Training Day when means catching the 0643 hours train to London, before travelling across London and then out to Milton Keynes.
Today’s picture is of a Squirrel and a Crow. The Squirrel came down from its nut box and chased the Crow away; it was getting too close to his nut box.
Thanks for all your good wishes on yesterday’s blip, for a speedy recovery. Surprisingly I slept quite well waking up only once. It was an Addenbrookes hospital day today, one of the long ones in clinic fourteen. We went first thing on the train and then got the guided bus to Addenbrookes. It takes about four minutes from the railway station to Addenbrookes on the guided bus and with the current road works, can take anything up to thirty minutes or more using a conventional bus. We got home at almost 1900 hours.
I took several pictures before I went out, including this Magpie, as I did not think I would have time when I got home. It was foggy first thing, but turned out to be a lovely sunny day.
After a frosty start the sun soon came out and melted the early morning frost.
It is that time of year when I have marking to day and with a busy week looming I decided to start today. It is of course the Formula One season so I stopped in time to watch the Qualifying.
Today’s picture is of a Robin, which was singing in one of our trees.
As rain was forecast today I decided that I would defrost the fridge and the freezer. All went well with defrosting the fridge until I bent back the nail on my left-hand. As I have had acrylic on my nails for a while they are very soft, so they bent easily. Unfortunately it was hard enough to make a gash in my thumb. First aid was rendered by my husband, but I decided to finish defrosting the fridge and leave the freezer for tomorrow.
After lunch I read some of my book and tried to knit, but the pain and the dressing on my thumb prevented me from knitting, even something as simple as a six-inch square.
Today’s picture is of a male pheasant, I think it is James, as he took off from one of our small walls in the upper garden.
It was dry during the morning, but rained during the afternoon and evening.
A morning of catching up with work, emails and various jobs, which have been neglected for a few days.
I also walked to our GP surgery to hand in my husband’s letter and to make an appointment for the nurse to “access his wound”. Addenbrookes were quite specific that it had to be done on Thursday 23 February. The surgery has no appointments available with the nurse or anyone else on that day; it cannot be looked at until 24 February. Addenbrookes said before he left yesterday that if there were problems to go directly to A and E and not bother with the GP.
Quite early this morning I was looking out of the kitchen window when I noticed an unusual movement at the bottom of one of our shrubs, just outside the kitchen window. The shrub has some bird feeders hanging from it. I grabbed my camera and took three pictures; as it heard the camera click it flew away. It is not a very good picture, no time to focus properly and taken through the window, but it is the first time I have seen a Sparrow Hawk in the garden. I often see them and some Buzzards flying over the marsh. I am assuming that it was looking for dropped bird food, which makes me think there is not much small wildlife about. However, Dougal, let out for the first time since my husband went into hospital, caught a mouse. He let it go while he came in for his Dreamies treats and then went out and caught it again. This time he killed it before coming in for more treats.
It is a dry day and does not feel as cold as it has been.
It was frosty and very foggy this morning, throughout the morning it cleared a little and then the fog returned; it has not been completely clear all day and the sun did not put in an appearance. I did some more ‘Spring’ cleaning this morning, although clearly the weather does not think it is Spring; it seems it will get colder.
This afternoon I did some admin jobs including sorting out whether our prescriptions were ready. Since the brilliant pharmacist left Newport Village Pharmacy last year there have been a lot of problems, not just with our prescription, but with many others in the village. It took them two weeks to get some of my items before Christmas and on at least two occasions my husband has had to wait while the prescription was made up, even though we ordered them a week earlier; on the last occasion he waited for over an hour.
When I ordered the prescriptions on Thursday 19 January I requested that they go to Boots in Saffron Walden, they cannot be any worse! Today when I rang Boots to see if they were ready they had not received our prescriptions even though they collect from our surgery everyday. I rang our surgery and after six minutes they finally answered their telephone, they apologised, but the prescriptions had gone to Newport Pharmacy. I rang the pharmacy, yes mine was ready, but they had not received my husband’s prescription. Back to the surgery I went, where they answered their telephone quite quickly this time. His prescription was printed on the same day as mine and sent with it to Newport Pharmacy; they offered to fax it immediately to Boots in Saffron Walden. I will collect mine from Newport probably tomorrow and then we should get the other items in Saffron Walden by Saturday.
Today’s picture is a Robin, maybe the same one as my husband blipped recently, although we have several pairs in our garden, so it might be a different one. Two Pheasants were in the garden, but pictures of them were not very good.
It was raining when I took this picture of one of our male Pheasants, he was down at the bottom of the garden near the pond; this was taken through the end kitchen window. The leaves of one of our apple trees frames him slightly and I was surprised that I had managed to get him in focus.
Then I went to Saffron Walden with my daughter to have my nails done and after returning home for lunch, did some work. Other than a few drops of rain this morning it has been dry, but quite cold; this afternoon it has rained again.
Arkensiel 
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