Love seat

I'm a terrible wanderer when I'm on the phone; I tend to drift from room to room, driving the long-suffering Mrs Geek mad in the process (as I work primarily with older people, my internal volume is set higher than most...and it's fair to say I wasn't all that quiet to begin with. Mrs Geek has thus left the room to get some peace, only to find my path encroaching on her hideaway. In my defence, I give good backrubs).

It's ironic, therefore, it was she I was calling when I discovered this seat. I'd been to visit a GP practice in Aberdeenshire; it has a cottage hospital attached & some grounds. I came out of catching up with a colleague to find I'd missed a call, so I phoned home. My subsequent meanderings took me to a spot I'd never before seen. As soon as I saw this bench, I knew what today's blip would be.

Benches are always kind of intriguing; they're the setting for contemplation, for romantic assignations & cryptic conversations. I've seen quite a few blipped, and blipped one myself. But there's something special about this one. Not only is it wrapped in a cocoon of branches, it looks onto fields with its back to the hospital; although I can't be sure, it looks like it's been a scene of comfort to those who have need of it...chair, shield and hug put together.

The main hospital where I work has an appeal for a rooftop garden; one of the posters has a quote from a decorated Paraolympian talking about the moment, months after her spinal injury, nurses took her outside for the afternoon in her bed. She describes it so vividly, it was clearly a major turning point for her mentally. I was struck by this- I believe I'm empathic and caring...and yet it never occurred to me how important these moments were.

It's easy to focus on what's needed by clinical staff...and to forget what else our patients might need. Gardens are an important part of clinical care, an oasis of escape in a clinical desert. And I think it's important we clinical staff remember that.

A "deep" blip today...but so much better than blipping the tip of the earphone my Accident & Emergency colleagues had to remove from my ear this morning as I first intended! ;-)