More rain than expected

I spent this morning in a hide in the woods near Haydon Bridge. It was intermittently rainy and windy. This redpoll seems to sum up how it felt! Lots of birds came to the branches near some feeders and it was fun watching them squabble their way to the food.

This afternoon I took Mum to see Ernie and Joyce in hospital in Sunderland. Both wards are under infection control again, although the sign telling us was small and initially obscured by one of the staff. I would not have taken Mum there if we had known. Joyce looks well. She is cheerful and completely unaware that she was in hospital or that she is now 90. Ernie is poorly. He has not recovered well from the below knee amputation, looked dry and breathless. Not good.

His ward was heaving with patients and relatives. It was again less than fragrant (to put it mildly). We came home glad that we don't need to be somewhere like that and sorry that he is there.