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!