Everyone's so well behaved Nowadays

The weather is atrocious.

I managed my daily power walk with only two of the dogs this morning. Mabel, taking in one long somber look at the driving rain and ever-so-slowly crept back to her place on the kitchen sofa...not to be moved.

The cottage has felt damp and cold, thanks to the smell of damp dog and wet coats, so I have lit the fire early and have switched the lamps on in the living room to create the illusion that it is actually daylight outside.

The University lecturer that contacted me about the blind animal farm rooster, Frodo will be driving over from Shropshire to deliver him later today. I don't envy her the journey, it is a day to hide away in the dry warmth of indoors.

So, for a couple of hours this morning, I busied myself sorting through some old files and papers for burning and for throwing out. As I mooched through the rubbish I found an old report card of mine from when I was a student nurse at an old Psychiatric hospital back in the early 80s.

The assessment was a good one, generally all of my reports were,  for as a student, I was keen,conscientious and eager to please.

The report was filled in by an old lag of a charge nurse, who never once left his office in the whole eight week placement I had on his ward. He was in fact a knowledgeable and charming elderly Scotsman, who loved his whiskey more than he loved his wife and although his philosophy of psychiatric care was, shall we say, hardly cutting edge, he commanded a quiet respect from many long term patients who remembered him as a young man within the care system.

During the day, he would often disappear into locked bathroom at the back of the old ward to complete "paperwork", which, the patients would quietly explain away to me as his quality time with a home brew kit...

As a student, it never crossed my mind to report this old soak for such unprofessional behaviour, behaviour that would figure more on Fleet Street than in an nhs hospital

These characters do not exist anymore, I suspect even in the dark recesses of Fleet street . Badly behaved and colourful old dinosaurs that act badly and by the seat of their pants no longer have a place in industry and the workplace and it is not surprising that Policy development, whistle blowing, HR and performance reviews have all but culled them all off in this age of professionalism and technology.

I guess it is all for the best... but some of me kind of misses the mavericks and the Rooster Cogburn's of this world.....

Mind you......... I have just seem the Red Faced Welsh Farmer shoot past the cottage with a jaunty wave and I realise that in some very small pockets of this land Rooster Cogburn's still are very much alive and kicking

And speaking of characters Frodo has just arrived

and he is a bit of an old sweetie.........blind as a bat and tame as a lamb he sat comfortably on my lap after arriving as I gave him the obligatory health check and once over.

I know he's a lame duck....I know he has no use to me or the gate post... but some space in a small coop and a handful of food a day isn't too much to ask to give him a country retirement is it?

Frodo -Blind as a bat but full of personality... perhaps I should rename him Rooster Cogburn ?