Four days ago it was a doctor day, and I was hoping to be able to discontinue my daily visits to hospital.  From that point of view, it was a disappointing day. I had my cannula replaced (it was swelling badly), was told I had five more days of IV antibiotics, was given another seven days of oral antibiotics and had my hand wrapped up like a boxer’s as they have run out of good places to put cannulas. It seems that the antibiotics are quite aggressive as chemicals and the cannulas only last two days on average, before blocking/inflaming/hurting. I have had a couple last for three days and one last for three hours, so I am about average.

Cannula is Latin for “little reed”. This knowledge, unfortunately, seems to make them hurt more.

Peacock

I have had four poems accepted recently, bringing my score for the month to nine submissions, with five acceptances, one rejection and three still waiting for decisions. Things are going quite well in that direction, though I am fast running out of material, as I haven’t been writing much in the last few weeks. I’ve been finding it hard to keep up with some pretence of blogging, so poetry has been beyond me.

So far this year I have had 30 pieces accepted. It soon builds up. However, keeping it in perspective, some of them have only been three lines. It’s not like I’m writing Paradise Lost or The Wasteland. I’ve made 45 submissions and still have five decisions pending, so it’s not too bad. I’ve missed a few submissions because I haven’t been well, so if I work a bit harder I think 100 submissions is within my grasp.

I have recently amused myself by imagining the NHS under a government headed up by Nigel Farage. He’s against “foreigners” and would, I believe, stop letting them in to the UK to work. That would mean the department I was in would lose its cleaner, most of its nurses and all of its doctors. Two receptionists and three nurses (one of whom has a bad attitude) would remain, but are unlikely to keep the department running. Meanwhile, 90% of the patients are not only white British, but are, judging by the accents, Peterborough born and bred.

Red Kite

One of the doctors is from the Gulf and is in his first week in the UK. He loves the NHS, says we are lucky to have it, and is enjoying being here. He also added that he considered our current heatwave to be “winter temperatures”.  Sometimes it’s good to see what other people think of us and to count our blessings.

Julia and my sister are going out today. The Nene Valley Railway are running a postal special today and will be demonstrating sorting and picking up/dropping the mail sacks. They won’t, unfortunately, be able to use a steam train as they are suspending steam services until the hot weather stops, having already had several grass fires along the line. They will be catching a train from the local station to connect with Travelling Post Office. I suggested that we should watch Night Mail and learn the poem.

However, we had a cup of tea and watched Person of Interest instead.

We had a positive cloud of Peacocks on the buddleias during the week – well over 40. I’ve been doing butterfly counts but apart from the Peacocks we have had very little about – a few whites, a Red Admiral and a couple of Small Tortoiseshells.

Small Tortoiseshell

Birdwise, we have seen the wren and goldfinches more frequently and had a high count of 7 long-tailed tits one morning. We also had a record number of blue tits when ten immature birds appeared on the feeders. This coincided with a lack of cheeping from the nest that appears to be under the garage roof so we deduce that this is the family that hatched in the nest. We also had a kite down to about fifteen feet over the roof, a buzzard only 100 yards away and a flyover by 16 parakeets.

It’s all happening, but I am just too tired to photograph or appreciate it.

Pictures, I’m afraid, are just general pictures for illustrative purposes.