A special keyring

Oh to be in England, now that April’s there”. I suppose that when Robert Browning wrote those words in Italy, he was thinking of all the signs of spring: nightingales singing, daffodils dancing, unfurling leaves on trees, snow-drops wilting while butter-cups and daisies emerge in the grass. Well, lucky me, apart from the nightingales, I might as well be in England – we have had all these signs of spring since last month!

However, I’ve just emerged from 48 hours in the A&E in Vic hospital; I had been sent there and expected to be kept in for longer with a weeping infection in my leg. Patients are regularly then sent on to Sant Jaume in Manlleu or to Santa Creu in Vic to convalesce. But, probably due to the expectation of the Coronavirus spread, I was sent home. Yay! I love my home!

The A&E department was very busy, although not with suspected Coronavirus cases – just the usual hurly-burly, doctors and nurses criss-crossing about, rather uncommunicative. I must say, I felt a bit irrelevant. There were two exceptions, a smiling male nurse and a Peruvian doctor. I asked the nurse how he could be smiling with all the apparent chaos. He replied simply: “I like my job.” I asked the doctor the same question. “I take myself to Lake Titicaca or Matxupitxu. Our ancestors lived there.” And he gave me a keyring with an image of the lake on it; it breathed calm and tranquillity. So the key to my ancient wooden front-door now has a keyring; a special one.

Unrelated, but worth mentioning to give you, dear reader, a laugh: an anecdote about my dear black cat, Ginger. This morning, as usual, I read the following by Thomas Traherne:

You never enjoy the world aright,

till the Sea itself floweth in your veins,

till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars....

My daughter was feeding the horses and as she heaved a big wedge of hay over the fence, Ginger darted past and was “crowned” with hay! She struggled out, leaving a trail of hay behind her! Oh Ginger! Always having adventures!