An update for Ann

 Ann had yet another 'routine' hospital appointment yesterday. She has had them every week for a long while and, although keen to support her, the doctor seems to do nothing more than I did as a general practitioner - he orders an ECG, talks a while asking how Ann is, then tinkers with the tablets and tells her to "come back next week". But the atrial fibrillation does not improve, and Ann's health has not improved. She is constantly tired, breathless every time she gets up to do anything, and can feel her heart fluttering. This time, the new tablets certainly slowed her heart - from over 120/min to sometimes less than 50 beats/min, but still in AF and Ann has felt terrible. This time, they kept her in outpatients to await the opinion of a cardiologist, who finally agreed to send her up to the ward again to try to stabilise the heart. I came home to sort out the dogs, then went back in the evening to take her things in. It seems they want to attempt cardioversion on the ward today, to try and return the heart to normal rhythm, so we all hope this works. When I went into outpatients to find Ann, the consultant came out to talk to me. "She is determined to go home Friday," he said, "she said she'll discharge herself if we don't let her out!" Yes, knowing Ann, she will for she is determined to go to Florence to meet Andre's parents, who have invited us to share a house there. 

The consultant's name was Dr Flynn, but when I looked him up online, I kept getting references to Dr Flynn who is grandad's doctor in Mrs Brown's Boys. He was very chatty, asking me about my career, and then telling me of all the problems AstraZeneca was having at their new Cambridge site. Seemingly, five streams run underground off the Gog Magog hills, but were dry when the AZ survey was done. Once the building was up, the basement flooded as soon as heavy rains came. Also, the glass roof they planned was too heavy, causing the roof to collapse. But he did also assure me he'd spoken to the cardiologist and explained that Ann had to leave on Friday, "come hell or high water".

A new entrance - our badger hole

The Back-To-Nature campaign, with its emphasis on rewilding, has given we armchair gardeners the perfect opportunity to indulge in the type of gardening we love most: creating a nature garden. In the case of our front garden, this is developing well with high grass and wildflowers filling every space. It is certainly good for insects and wildlife, for only yesterday I had a call from our neighbour to tell us there was a large hole under our hedge and offering to meet me outside to show me. He didn't need to show me - coming round the corner towards him, I nearly fell in it. A great cavern of a hole, delving deep beneath the hedging and turning to twist round a corner into darkness. Outside, a huge pile of earth with stones, tree roots and general debris heaped upon the grass and scattering across the path. This was without doubt a large animal - presumably a badger. It had disturbed a nest of bees in the hedging, and the confussed and angry things were buzzing round the hole and attacking the spade when I tried to fill it in. Sam too had seen the hole when walking his dogs, and said there was another one further down the road; he is a true country man and says the badgers deliberately target the bees for their honey.