Tractor action

The Ranch:

It’s Sunday and I’m just back from the ranch.

The snow has all gone in the town but not up there.

I didn’t want to go but I forced myself. It’s my discipline. It’s my routine. My deluded self thinks that it somehow protects me – that there’s something health-giving about being out and about in all weathers.

I couldn’t resist trying to get the tractor going. No way on earth would it normally start when it’s below freezing, but the magic cold start device that they fitted to Spitfires is working.

Phut phut phut – I’m off. Driving round the field like a dick.

I spot two people waving at me from the top path and I wave back. I can’t tell who they are without my specs on. I do a lap and and they’re still waving. As I ascend, I see that it’s Helen and Ruth walking their dogs Nancy and Jampa.

Helen films me on her phone and I jump off the tractor and run towards her in an M C Saga stylee.

I invite them in for a brew – I have the stove lit. Obvs, we obey t’govt’s rules in case they ascend on us with a Copter and put us in prison. I remain at the top of the field and we communicate by shouting at each other through rolled up copies of Ferret Fortnighly.

It’s lovely to see them and catch up. They’re two of my oldest friends. I don’t mean that they’re old – they’re younger than me. I mean that we’ve been friends for longer than just about anyone else I know.

Our conversation is suitably Burnleyesque – as gritty as it gets and very refreshing. Ruth was my feminism monitor when I wrote the book – like woman’s hour, no topic is off bounds.

‘Is this OK?’

‘Yes, it’s fine.’

She asks me what she should be doing gardening-wise at this time of year and I give them my little spiel about the value of seed saving and open pollinated seed. I’ll be helping them with their little gardens hopefully come spring.

The other ranch:

I remain incredulous that there are still folk out there who accuse front line health workers of lying about what’s happening in hospitals. It just shows the power of social media bullshit. The guidance that my acquaintance produced (below) is proving very popular on Twitter.

I was at work yesterday, and from where I was standing (in charge of a busy Emergency Department), Covid is worse than ever before. Critical care have let us know (Emergency medicine consultants) that there are nursing slots available for us to help out. Our critical care capacity has expanded from 22 beds at the beginning of the year to 54. 

We’re seeing a lot more younger people getting sick with it. Yesterday we had a couple of elderly frail patients who had got sick a couple of days after the vaccine and I’ve heard two accounts of young fit nurses who caught Covid a week after getting the vaccine – probably purely coincidental.

We’ve also seen a massive increase in mental health attendances.

I’m just feeling grateful to work with such a wonderful bunch of folk.

It’s just impossible to describe how surreal it can be. Yesterday, we saw a character who put M C Saga in the shade. It’s also impossible to describe the magnificence of the NHS and the travesty of the posh knobs selling it off in their latest bill, passed through parliament this week.

Maybe I’ll put it in (another) book one day.

Rock & Roll:

Is sweet. Beatles deconstructed vids remain my inspiration. The individual tracks are raw and ragged but the finished product is perfection.

Sam and I have been finishing recording the track that we spontaneously started last week and it’s sounding good. We’re going to make a vid for it. and I’ve started recording one of my songs. The kitchen becomes a secondary recording booth.

Yesterday, I was talking a fellow all round muso, one of the charge nurses at work, about the absorbing enjoyment of visualising a song, then recording all the separate tracks, to bring it all together.

There are quite a few of us about – medic musos. My anaesthetist mate has been banging out tunes all through the pandemic. I’m thinking that after the shitshow, we should write and record a song. It will have to be good though and it will have to stand up on its own merit – we won’t even mention the medics bit.

I’m getting tired of M C Saga. He’s getting very uppity. He won’t even do any house work. I think he’ll have to go.