“We tend to think of landscapes as affecting us most strongly when we are in them or on them, when they offer us the primary sensations of touch and sight. But there are also the landscapes we bear with us in absentia, those places that live on in memory long after they have withdrawn in actuality, and such places — retreated to most often when we are most remote from them — are among the most important landscapes we possess.”

― Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

Sitting outside a bakery with a six-pack of hot cross buns, a paperback and a coffee.
Shortly ago I dropped Kelly off at the nearby local hospital.
A couple of days back she slipped on some ball-bearing seedpods whilst we were out walking Juno.

A text-book banana peel fall onto her outstretched hand. Two days later and her wrist was still pretty tender. So after attending a nurse-led clinic for assessment…it was off to hospital for a CT of her wrist.

One hot cross bun later, Kelly called me to let me know she has a fractured scaphoid bone. That’s 8 weeks in a splint.

Kelly was due to retire in about 3 weeks from now. So the unexpected sick leave has wiped her slate of remaining shifts clean.

As of today, Kelly is retired.

After 39 years nursing, it will no doubt take a while to process, and let go, and adjust to this sudden deviation from the old ways.

Here is to celebration of the old ways.
Here is cheers to the new ways.