Count your blessings

Monday 20th July, 2020

I've been resting as ordered. Actually I've probably been resting too much as I have an excuse to be on my bed and read. Also an excuse to be on my bed and letter write. Also an excuse to be on my bed and stream television programmes. Whatever, I am, I am sure, healing. Not yet fully recovered I had a telephone call from my local GP medical centre. They had received my discharge from hospital papers. I was told to stop taking a particular drug as I had been already told at the hospital. An appointment date in about three months would be arranged with the urologist Consultant and I would receive a letter about it in due course.

I am sleeping well.

I am eating too well.

I am feeling well.

I have had half a dozen letters, always a joy. How mixed and varied is life. One letter from a Jehovah Witness, one from an art auctioneer, one from an ex pupil in a mental hospital and the others from friends living different lives. All of them interesting, all of them with insights and thoughts to consider, all with value judgements to puzzle upon and chew over. Life....and that is before looking to the news outlets.

I spent half an hour in the garden. First the courgette plants to be inspected, then the failing squashes and the multi coloured rhubarb plant. Then I lent on the garden wall overlooking the Tay. I watched the Haar advance. I watched the clouds brooding and collecting over Angus and threatening to invade Fife.

The bees really prolific and working hard on the lavender and some glorious purple/white flowers on a shrub I cannot identify. The lawn with abundant clover and a baby thrush puzzled by my invasion with a semi cocked head and beady eyes and an ear to the movement of a worm, a meal.

Then the drizzle drove me indoors.

It is just a joy to breathe the fresh air. Then a taste of my home made elder cordial, a taste of late spring. Then planning to pick leaves from the multitude of salad leaves growing on the terrace and to have a pitta bread sandwich with them.

How fortunate am I. And I have just heard of a friend rushed to hospital in Hereford and having an immediate operation on a bowel constriction. May he be as fortunate as me.

As my Mama always said: 'count your blessings'...and I do. Also she told me never to forget the less fortunate. I do not but frequently wish I could do more to help.