Rosie - discharged finally

 All tests and obs have come back clear so far.  Tam said that they are doing another blood test so has to wait for results from that.  They are being very thorough, but poor little Rosie, being jabbed again and again.  It is lunchtime now and they've been there nearly 24 hrs.  Update: bloods came back clear and they are discharged now.  Phew.  That was a long 24 hours, esp. for Tam who had hardly any sleep.

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To distract me, I will share another extract from The Old Ways, this time about the place which fascinates and terrifies, the Broomway, a footpath which leads into the sea in a loop.  It has claimed many lives.  "It's a weird world out there on the flats," said Patrick (the acknowledged expert who knew every inch of it).  "Nothing looks  the same as normal.  Gulls can seem as big as eagles.  Scale and distance change.  It's very easy to lose your bearings, especially in dusk or dark.  Then it's the lights on the Kent shore that often do it.  People think they're walking back to the Essex coast, when in fact they're walking towards Kent and so out into the tide.  The mud's the thing to watch, too: step in the wrong places, and it'll bog you down and suck you in, ready for the tide to get you."  "Patrick had a final warning: "The Broomway will be there another day, but if you try to walk it in mist, you may not be.  So if it's misty when you arrive at Wakering Stairs, turn around and go home."  It was, of course, misty when McFarlane and his walking partner arrived, but they decided to risk it anyway . . .

"We stepped off the causeway.  The water was warm on the skin, puddling to ankle depth.  Underfoot I could feel the brain-like corrugations of the hard sand, so firmly packed that there was no give under the pressure of my step.  Beyond us extended the sheer mirror-plane of the water, disrupted only here and there by shallow humps of sand and green slews of weed." . . . . . . .  We walked on.  I could hear the man whistling to his dog, now far away on the sea wall.  Otherwise, there was nothing except bronze sand and mercury water, and so we continued walking through the lustrous air, onto onto the flats and back into the Mesolithic."    From The Old Ways - A Journey on Foot, by Robert Macfarlane, publ. by Hamish Hamilton, 2012.

I have had a walk of my own this morning, whilst the sun was shining.  Just along the old railway line, a mile each way.  After yesterday's heavy rain, there was quite a lot of muddy water in the Wye.

  Someone has planted lots of Daffodils on their section of old railway line slope.

I'm not sure if this was a Witchazel?  Just a few yellow stamens were its flowers.

Anyway, when I came back it hailed (I was still in the car).  I had just begun to put my key in the door when there was an angry buzzing and I quickly withdrew the key and a very disgruntled bumble bee exited the keyhole!  Never had that before :)

I did some of the brim for my bobble hat, but am now sure if 25g was enough.  If not, it will be a short (inner) brim.  The colour is proving impossible to match and I can't find this particular wool anywhere so it was probably remaindered.  Ah well, if it does fall short I will have to replace it with 100 g ball in a colour I like.