Hello, and how has your week been? Life usually has lots of good things and difficult things–and as long as I remember to notice the good things, I can cope with the difficult stuff. At the moment, I am noticing lots of good things.

The main thing I’m thankful for is my health. I have now had the results from the heart and liver scan (actually, they seemed to check just about every internal organ!) and all is good. No iron deposits were seen, so I can start having venesections and that should prevent any future trouble. I also had my most recent blood test at the hospital where they’ll do the venesections, and it was a very good experience. Unlike the nurses who often take blood or put in a tube (usually related to scans for the brain tumour) this nurse quickly found a vein and didn’t leave my arm looking like I had been in a fight. The hospital space is also very nice, with big comfy chairs to relax in (ready to stop wimpy people like me fainting!) and staff who were really kind, and very reassuring. I came away feeling confident that venesections are something that will soon become ‘normal’ and I felt so grateful for the medics and feeling safe in a hospital (when I know that in some countries, this would not be my experience). I sneaked a photo to show you— not sure if taking photos is allowed in hospitals so don’t tell anyone. I don’t yet know when the venesections will start, but I am ready!

It’s also Spring, and that is a wonderful time of year. I love all the colour, the warmer weather, the busyness of insects waking up and birds nesting and lambs in the fields. Goose decided to sit on her nest (the better one she made, with hay stolen from the chickens–not the rather pathetic 6 sticks thrown on the ground affair that she started with!) I had collected her eggs as she laid them (just 8) as I was hoping she wouldn’t go broody, but she did. I left her with one egg, and have given her a couple of fertile chicken eggs from my old black hen (because she might die soon and she lays lovely big brown eggs). I have also found a few random duck eggs abandoned on the bank, so I have given her those. She seems to accept anything, so we’ll see what hatches. (It won’t be her own egg, as that’s infertile.) Probably she’ll step on the hatchlings and squash them, because she’s very clumsy, but we’ll see.

Maverick, the cockerel, is being a pain. He’s obviously full of Springtime hormones and has started to attack people when they go in the garden. I pick him up and carry him around, but other people are less happy doing that, so he has to stay locked up when we have visitors. The thing is, he’s so beautiful, and at night he snuggles onto the nest with Goose (who he thinks is his mother) which is so cute, and I don’t think I can get rid of him. I’m hoping he will calm down again after Spring.

My other news is that my dissertation has been submitted. I now wait 8 weeks for the mark, and that’s it, my MA is complete. I have started to read about cognitive linguistics, which is really interesting, and hope to write a proposal about death for a PhD. (I think the evidence in the Old Testament shows that death of an individual is a good thing, and was always part of God’s design — otherwise a ‘tree of life’ would never have been a thing. Losing someone else to death is definitely bad, and taking a life is bad, but dying oneself is, I think, good. Otherwise when God killed innocent people–like King David’s baby son–he was acting badly, which is not the nature of God.)

There has, of course, been a fair amount of nasty things too. Friends dying, sad funerals, bad news, family being unhappy, and housework — always there is housework, which is very irritating.

Hoping your week has a balance of good things to help you cope with the rubbish that happens. Thanks for reading. Take care.
Love, Anne x