Quackers

Actually, these are not ducks. My friends and hosts are now deeply embroiled in settling up a new high-tech digital phone, so I'm limiting questions lest it is suggested I actually assist them rather than sit here like a typing lump. 

Aha! I snuck in a question. You birders out there will smirk at the uninitiated, but these are moorhens. The little morhenlings captivated me. The care of their parents did, as well. The RSPB website says that they eat water plants, seeds, fruit, grasses, insects, snails and worms but wholly fails to mention that they also enjoy the odd greasy chip. It's amazing what you'll eat when you're hungry and have little mouths agape for more more more! This is from our picnic lunch the other day in Elgin, sandwiches and wraps courtesy of Marks & Spencer on the High Street.

Early this Tuesday, Tony and I will drop Ali and her classmate Irena off at the Moray School of Art in Elgin, then continue on another 75 miles to the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for my 11 am appt. with the head heem guy. I will also meet with someone who will discuss with me what I may, might and cannot expect from the British health care system, the NHS. They want to help me and I can feel that. Oh right, almost forgot. I'll also get another bone marrow biopsy! I believe that this will be my 6th since November of 2007. 

I asked Dr. K (yes, another Dr. K) at the local health centre about my blood test results from the other day. He explained that regardless of what they were, the Tuesday appt. in Aberdeen was still on. So whether the rogue blast has committed hari kari or is doing the multiplication tango in my bloodstream, I'm going forward and learning what more intensive medical procedures are available to me here. Ali has her art class all day Tuesdays. Tony is self-employed with more work than time, so bless him for accompanying me. Two other friends here have offered, as well. (Stacey, you thought the drive from  Mill Valley to Berkeley was a lot!). I'd sort of hoped that I could find some oncological support in Inverness, which is 26 miles to the west versus 86 miles to the southeast, but there you have it. 

I'm sitting in the garden now as Tony & Ali are watching a cooking show and my ADD tendencies can't write and hear about food simultaneously. I hear bird calls, sheep (mums and lambs) and the low wshhhhh of the River Findhorn. It's 8:17 pm and a hazy, long neo-dusk. Today there are over 15 hours of pure daylight here in Forres versus 13-1/2 hours in San Francisco. Twilight in this northern latitude (57º38'58"N) lasts much longer than it does in the Bay Area of California. By the summer solstice, the differences will be far more striking. I won't think that far ahead, though. I'm in radical Be Here Now time. Thank God the Now is so sweet. The hardest thing at times is feeling that I'm trying to arm-wrestle with God to get what I want - which is as much time as I want. I can't control that, even if I follow every last dotted "i" command of the modern medical world. I might get it; I might not. The nots glower. 

Now I can breathe and hear the birds. There is a slight breeze on my cheek....