WHAT MADE YOU GRIMACE & GRIT YOUR TEETH TODAY?

Bugger!

Yes!!!

Thankee!

Can't hurt.

Phooey. Want you to be well. Glad you caught it early.

I'm sorry to hear that, deb. But I'm also a little envious that you can see someone so quickly. What is a "locum"?

Well, generally it's someone who comes in to do a professional's job when they aren't there.

Most doctors' surgeries here contract their after hours work to a locum service...they pay doctors to cover after hours.

And...the service my doctor uses takes medicare only, no gap!!! So it's free to me.

You still wait a long time, but I could do my waiting comfortably at home with my leg elevated, which is kind of crucial,

have they already tried the leeches, bun?

Prolly help if they did!

depends...




do you float?

Waiting at home would be more comfortable no matter what medical problem one had!

So...let me see if I understand. A "locum" is another doctor(?) who works for a service that covers for your regular doctor?

Wonderful that you can wait at home and that they will treat you at home!! They better take good care of you.

Yes.....after hours only.

Today is Saturday, so hours didn't begin!

He just prescribed antibiotics! I have to go and get them. Well, he gave me two to go on with, so I could go to the chemist when it was cooler.

And it was free.

That socialized medicine sure is evil.

Yes, isn't it terrible?

There is a huge tree next door. Far too big for the site location, actually. But it is home for an extraordinary number of birds. (You should hear them all twittering away when it's "settling down for the day" time!) I awoke this morning to the sound of chain saws. Looks like the big tree is coming down. I can understand the reasons for removing it, but feel quite distraught for the birds. When we did something similar at my previous home the displaced birds flew around & around in confusion. Poor birds. So much vegetation is disappearing from the inner-city. I could weep for them.

Ooohhh, something similar happened next door to me. Some huge, beautiful old white pines had been were a murder of crows set up neighborhood observation posts. I loved the raucous noise of them. Sometimes I wonder if the neighbor didn't cut the trees down just to be rid of the crows.

Now I've seen two people in my life use murder of crows.

Aw poor crows, k.
We are in the middle of an insane building boom in my city. Seems every spare bit of land must be built on as population explodes beyond belief. (A lot of quite inappropriate development to be seen around the place.) But it's meant a lot of trees that have been home to these birds have vanished. Very short sighted, I think. I see a lot fewer birds than I used to, say just 5 years ago. Sigh.

Glad to be one of them, Roger. Who was the other?

Olga, I am lucky, I think. Cambridge has made a lot of effort to keep trees (or plant them) between the sidewalk and the street. While mostly we have city birds (red tail hawks, pigeons, sparrows and starlings), we also have cardinals, nuthatches, robins, woodpeckers, etc. Their not reclusive woodland birds, but they do need trees and earth to eat from.

You're so fortunate, k. That's wonderful. And that how it should be, too!

We used to have similar policies & attitudes here. Victoria wasn't called "the garden state" for nothing. We are/were a bunch of gardeners/garden lovers here. But this ongoing drought, combined with beyond belief development, has had a horrendous impact on the inner-city environment. Surely it's clear why we need to retain as much vegetation as we can in a huge city?

In the meantime, I belong to a little group which is working to save 10 hectares of native trees/grassland from potential development in my suburb. And just last week I met someone involved in another little group which is busily replanting native plants at the local creek & removing the obnoxious vegetation. So maybe another group? Anyway, it looks like the locals & " the authorities" are at cross purposes here.