On Birds, Bees, and a Bit on Blood.

The grass on my lawn has been growing strongly this year and needing frequent cuts. I’ve been unable to mow it for several days because the occasional rain showers have been keeping the grass damp and my mower doesn’t work too well on damp grass. But yesterday we’d had a long enough break from the showers to leave the grass dry enough to mow, and so I got all the equipment out of the shed and was ready to do the job.

And then I noticed something incongruous on the path beside the lawn. It was a baby blue tit – looked fresh out of the nest – sitting there looking confused and unsteady, so I performed my duty. I picked it up and cradled in both hands to keep it warm while it rested uncomplaining, occasionally blinking at me and looking around. We stayed like that for about ten minutes until I felt some movement. Five minutes later the movement grew into something like a struggle, so I opened my hand. The bird perched on my finger for another five minutes, still regarding me with apparent interest and blinking a lot. I began to wonder whether it simply didn’t know how to fly and considered throwing it up into the air, but decided that was risky and so I kept my patience. And then, in little more than an instant, it was gone – into the branches of a nearby tree.

Good. Job done. Now to get on with mowing the lawn. Problem: one of the blades of grass on the lawn had a bee on it looking (yep) confused and unsteady, and there’s no way I would mow over a bee. Another rescue was called for, but this one was easy – encourage the little creature onto my finger and place it on a leaf. It seems that bees are much easier to rescue than blue tits.

Now to get on with mowing the lawn…

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Remember my post offering the opinion that nurses should be regarded as equal partners with doctors? Well, yesterday I met the new nurse at my GP’s practice when I went for my blood letting (which wasn’t ‘blood letting’ at all – I just like being melodramatic sometimes. It was to have a blood sample taken in preparation for my next CT scans. It appears they have to check the condition of my liver so they can be reasonably confident that it won’t explode and cover the walls in yellow matter when the contrast dye is injected. Or something like that.)

Anyway, I related my opinion to the new nurse and she said ‘Ahhh, thank you.’ She was quite lovely, actually. And my only reservation was that she has some way to go in learning how to insert needles without causing a sharp pain (which the best nurses are very good at.) And then she told me that I have ‘good veins, but they’re a bit wiggly.’ I suppose if she can tell the difference between wiggly and non-wiggly veins, she’s doing OK.

So what did I see on the BBC News when I came back? A news report to the effect that NHS nurses are currently voting on the latest pay offer from the bounders in government. The junior doctors have been offered the highest percentage rise, the senior doctors and consultants a little lower, and nurses the lowest of all. Maybe I should send my blog post to the Chancellor.