hi there ladies,

At last I find time to post. Of course, they had to aneathetise me and tie me to a bed before I did it! I was in hospital for 8 days - god that sounds a lot as a write it. In the end I became a bit of an old hand.. It's amazing what people had done to themselves - people who've stuck their hands in lawn mowers, people who have asymmetric breasts and are having them made symmetrical, tummy tucks, people who've cut their hands chipping ice, leg flab reduction and then a few people like me. i can't quite believe the current debate about the NHS, I think it's an amazing institution staffed full of people as or more dedicated than those working in conservation. My surgeon was in all weekend and did two consecutive days of 11 hours of surgery. i find that amazing. I'm also pleased I was on the table first rather than at the end of an 11 hour day!! I'm thanking my lucky stars I didn't follow through and become a medic when I was thinking about it ten years ago, there's no way I'd have a life outside work!

I met a lady who has cancer with a pretty poor outlook and we were talking about what she was planning to do. She's decided to go travelling to see places like Prague and Barcelona - places that international jet setters have been to loads. When she asked me my plans i found that there was nothing material I wanted, nowhere I massively wanted to do, i just wanted the little things - to watch a good film with Stu, to share a laugh with friends, to play with the puppy and to see our garden unfold with beauty as the years go by. Notice there are no birds in that list! Oh, and maybe do a bit of diving somewhere warm, tropical and relaxing....

Being half German i can't hope to be as lyrical in my writing as Zoe or Mon. but here's my thoughts for the week. I love Zoe's 'lessons learned' this week so I'm going to add a few:

- imagination is man's greatest asset and greatest curse, without it we would be nowhere near as advanced as a species as we are, but it ties us up in knots and wastes a huge amount of time and energy using it to imagine terrible things that don't actually come to pass - what I haven't learned is how to overcome this!
- never stick your hand anywhere near lawn mower blades when the lawn mower is on
- never chip away at freezer ice with a knife, just defrost it (that almost came out just deforest it!)
- people on the whole are wonderful

Things to do?
- have a glass of dry, chilled white wine in the beautiful evening light
- break a habit of a lifetime, if you're a work aholic (and that's all of us!) do less, if you spend to much time looking after others, look after yourself this weekend

Can't believe teh summer is beginning to fade. There'll be cherry blossom on the cherry tree again before we know it!

Lots of love and hugs
Lxx