WHAT DOES THE DOCTOR THINK THIS MONTH? OCTOBER

There is not too much of interest going on in Worcestershire at the moment. The lawn never recovered from my six month absence at the end of last year followed by the pitching of an enormous tent (Calum's) to accommodate the overflow during the house move shortly before The Beast from the East dumped feet of snow on us twice. We took the decision to renew the lawn and the contractor came and sprayed it to kill all the lawn before preparing the ground for the new turf. The two rabbits disappeared quite quickly, probably because the grass disappeared but, as we are averse to killing any of God's creatures (are Spanish Bluebells God's creatures? If they are, I shall make an exception to the above rule) we did hope we had not poisoned them. The scorchingly hot summer, associated with an invitation from Calum to spend a couple or weeks with his family in Madeira, caused us to delay laying the new turf until September. The turf was laid and, fortunately, it rained nonstop for two weeks and the new lawn is brilliant. The news is that the rabbits have returned and are having a feeding frenzy on the lush new grass! We are fortunate in that our new garden is surrounded by large, mature trees and there are large bushes along one side of the garden. All of these provide a wonderful playground for the local bird life and we have just been watching about two or three dozen goldfinches playing in the trees and shrubbery, taking time out to visit our bird feeding station and, somehow, extracting niger seeds through a hole not much bigger than a pin prick. Then, all of a sudden, the resident pigeons or magpies return and all the goldfinches fly off in a mighty cloud, only to return later when the coast is clear. The resident robin spends most of his time in the stone bird bath, splashing the patio for feet around. He totally ignores the big birds and gets on with his life whatever is going on. He is a great companion in the garden, perching on my spade or the enormous heavy metal pole I use to break up the clay. The woodpeckers seem to have moved on.

A man had to attend a business conference in London and he invited his wife to accompany him. When they had been shown to their room, which had been very cheap on a special offer, he left his wife to register at the conference, saying he would be back in an hour or so. His wife lay on the bed and started to doze. Suddenly, a train travelling on an elevated railway passed so close to the bedroom window that she was thrown out of bed by the shaking in the room. She thought this must be a freak occurrence, so she dozed again. A train came by and, one again, she was shaken out of bed and on to the floor. She telephoned reception and had a problem persuading a very sceptical hotel manager to believe her story. He came into the room and she persuaded him to lie on the bed, warning him that he would be pitched onto the floor when the next train passed by. He lay on the bed just before the husband walked into the room and demanded to know what the manager was doing. The reply came back “Would you believe I am waiting for the next train?”.

Tom, an 82 year old farmer and a lifelong bachelor, very fit and active, took his best friend, who was a doctor, for a drink and told him that he had proposed to a beautiful 25 year old and she had agreed to marry him. His friend was taken aback and, after a few moments, he broached the sensitive subject and warned Tom that, in this situation, “intimacy” could be fatal. “Well” came back the reply “If she dies, she dies”. Not the response the doctor had expected so he changed tack. At your age, I think you should take on a farm labourer to help with the heavy stuff. Tom saw the wisdom in this and he took on a farm labourer within a week. Six months later, Tom and his friend met in the pub and the doctor asked after the 25 year old wife. “Oh, she's great. She is four months pregnant”. The doctor was not of a suspicious nature but he did wonder whether the farm labourer might have played a part in this piece of news. So, he asked Tom “How is your farm labourer?” “Oh, just great.It makes such a difference to have a younger person to do all he hard work and it frees me up to spend time with my new wife”. The doctor enquired whether the farm labourer looked like staying for a long time. “Well yes, but I may have to give her a few days off because she is also pregnant!”. Best wishes to you all Ian Nisbet