Natural

I give thanks for the beautiful morning making it more pleasant than it might have been having to be up and presentable much earlier than I normally do. For arranging with my taxi driver that he'd text after finishing his previous job to say if he could pick me up at the unusual time...and that he had time to do so! For asking Peggy, an HCA  I'm rather fond of who is a similar age to me, if I could have a quick look outside the back door where the staff go on their breaks, as I was down that end of the unit and it was invitingly ajar. She knows I thrive on a bit of nature and took me on a quick tour including the pond with fish and frogspawn!

I'd been really grateful they'd managed to squeeze me in at a reasonable time before my vascular access appointment in the main hospital this afternoon, and didn't grumble when they didn't have a side room or chair spare, though the beds hurt my back and the bay I was in was too noisy to watch Netflix let alone have a snooze. It's the area where they train patients who are going to treat themselves at home and I give thanks for remembering to give thanks that this option is available for some (and transplants!) when the instructions and responses kept me awake. For also remembering to be grateful I'd be home even earlier than expected after a message that the surgeon had to cancel his afternoon clinic appointments due to complications in his morning theatre session. Getting up a bit early to suffer a few hours discomfort seemed a blessing compared to being on an operating table with things going wrong, or in a gown waiting and being told your procedure wasn't happening after all.

I give thanks for managing to arrange a different taxi and for it being a high up people carrier so I got a different view. For the driver not chatting so I could plot how to make a Superman style change of attire and accoutrements and make it back out while the sun was. For then accidently going on a stupidly strenuous walk (the map I have of a suitable scale doesn't show the contour lines!) and surviving to  stumble sorely pretty much straight through my door and into bed for that nap. I give thanks for more natural wonders to enjoy - darling dainty flower buds on a thorn hedge, the grey blue and soft pink shell of a snail, an ivy leaf in such bright red and yellow it looked like a butterfly and the glory of magnolia blossoms unfurling.