The Wind in the Trees.

I had no dog walking duties today and little time for blipping. This birch tree was seen on the short walk home from the picture I had intended to post.

I gave a talk at Newbattle, this afternoon, on a few issues our students were having with beekeeping. 'Elf and Safety was one of the concerns after an ambulance had to be called to the last meeting; our secretary, who is allergic to bee venom, had been needlessly stung. I'm afraid I was a bit over enthusiastic demonstrating the use of an Epipen, a device for injecting adrenalin into the patient. The "patient", in this instance, was a thick piece of reinforced polystyrene and the pen came out the other side. The point was made, particularly as I had just emphasised the dangers of injecting one's thumb (easily done, it has to be amputated once the gangrene sets in) and the sight of the two centimetre needle that could jam into the phalange bone in the end of the thumb brought tears to my eyes.

Then it was a quick tea and off to the cinema. We showed "V for Vengeance," a film about Guy Fawke's night; this week there were no disasters. The audience was disappointingly small, but that is normal for this time of the year; a shame as it is a very good film, a sort of cross between Zorro and James Bond.

p.s. While checking up on the anatomy of thumbs, I discovered that koalas have two opposing thumbs on each “hand“. I thought you might like to know that.