The National Health Service.

I had a bit of a scare recently. Well, I phoned the doctor's surgery this morning. There were no appointments available but the receptionist said come in after 11 and the doctor will see you. I went and saw the doctor. She gave me a check up, a prescription for some some tablets and a spray thing for under my tongue, arranged a blood test, and sent a letter to the hospital to arrange more tests and a walk on a treadmill. At 4-30 today I was given an ECG. Things were normal. I was very relieved to hear that. All this within a few hours. The NHS is always being bad mouthed by some people but I think it is bloody amazing. Just what happened today has made me feel a whole lot better and less worried. The doctors and nurses do a great job. This is a wonderful country. We are very lucky.

Dragonflies And Damselflies.

I thought you might be interested to see the wildlife pond. It was made by my Extremely Handsome Son George four years ago.

A bit disappointing that we have had no frogspawn or toadspawn this year. I am a bit mystified by this as there are definitely frogs and toads about. There are plenty of common newts and EHS George has seen at least one Great Crested Newt which is on the endangered list.

Here are some photos taken two days before the video. This shows how quickly the water lily's come into bloom.

Irises.

Who is that in the undergrowth? Why, it's EHS George! Something to do with tadpoles.

Broad-Bodied Chaser. Male. The female has a yellow body.

What Happened Was. Probably.

Once upon a time some ancient people probably stone age or suchlike were gathering nuts and berries and the occasional dead animal or fish or shellfish and they were thinking this is a good place to live and they were happy until some other people came along and thought they would gather food there too and the first lot got annoyed and said go away this is our bit of land we were here first and the newcomers said no we are not leaving and there was a horrible fight and that is when people first started owning stuff whoever won that fight thought they would keep that bit of land for themselves and claimed it and made a boundary and anyone who crossed it would be sent packing maybe even killed before that happened of course nobody owned the land you could travel wherever you liked eventually tribes of people were formed up and they all began making boundaries and fighting off strangers until nearly everywhere was full and there were boundaries everywhere some people had to go and live in harsh climates like deserts or cold places because that was all they could find but even they started defending their boundaries and so places became countries in their own right and strong minded people began to control the weak people and became the boss of the country and expected the weaker ordinary people to support them and fight for them if necessary and for some strange reason that is what happened and the bosses became kings and had lots of power and the people worshipped them and paid them money for little bits of land they could grow food on which in truth they had no right to do because the land wasn’t even theirs to start with and it is still like that to this very day and they are called the haves and the have nots and it isn’t right but nothing can be done about it except to fight each other but still the strong will win and the fighting goes on and on and on and even the innocent children who could not possibly hurt anyone suffer horribly because of boundaries let’s call them borders and so it goes on and the human race are called an intelligent species but it is actually them referring to themselves.

A Visit With Samantha And Ned.

Yesterday, I went to Samantha's for lunch and to work on singing some duets together. I allowed her the great pleasure of hearing how well I am doing with my cornet practice. I am not sure how impressed she was with my progress but Ned the Border Collie was certainly most appreciative.

Ned the Border Collie.