No complaints

When making appointments, I request an early one, but in accepting 7 am on Thursday, I was forgetting that by the end of October it would still be dark at that hour. In the absence of street lighting, our roads are blacker than pitch, but the clinic is in Greenwich, so the road is very familiar. No point in taking the scenic route.

For the 7 o’clock appointment, I’d been told to check in at 06:45 which I presume is for people who are bad time-keepers, since the check-in process takes about 30 seconds. Knowing this, we might perhaps not have bothered to pad for possible delays, but we can’t help ourselves, so we were in the parking lot by 06:30.

Arriving early generally works out well here and I often find myself in and back out before my scheduled time. In this instance, however, the clinic was not even open. But I marched in at the appointed hour and was promptly attended to.

.

This was my first meeting with my new primary care physician, something I had learned to dread in the past. Following a couple of bad experiences, I had been fortunate in my next two choices, only for them both to quit the practice shortly after, leaving me – abandoned!

Could I possibly be lucky a third time?

At least I was not now the bundle of nerves which had reduced me to babbling like an idiot. How disgraceful to have allowed myself to be so demoralised by physicians. (Or by anyone, for that matter.)

My luck appears to have held. My new care-giver is a very pleasant young woman who had obviously read my history and did a good job of appearing to be interested. She looked at me rather than pounding on the computer which is rare these days, in my experience.

So – good! (But will she last?)

.

Having made such an early start, we decided to go on that wild goose chase I mentioned a couple of days ago.

It was in November last year that we caught up with the snow geese after many attempts.

Mary Oliver’s poem describes that experience far better than I ever could:

.

The snow geese all but eluded us last Thursday, as they were far away in an inaccessible field, but it was another fine day and I took photographs of our dwindling Fall.

It is a different scene with a more subdued hue, but not unattractive, I think.

.

We came too soon upon a row of trees that I’d admired last year in their naked form.

Countless are the photos that I see just in time to miss.

Returning the same way, I missed it a second time, but it is a long row of trees and perhaps I would not have been able to capture them all.

.

It makes no difference that I cannot name most of the plants and trees I photograph, but I make the effort when possible. Google identifies these straggly bushes as willow. In sunlight, the leaves flash like silver which always catches my attention.

It is hard to photograph, though, especially passing by at speed.

.

Gage Road, Addison, Vermont. The Adirondack Mountains in the distance.

From the lookout platform here we could see that there were snow geese in a remote field and their busy chatter carried to us on a stiff, chill wind.

We waited a while, but there was no sign that they planned to give us a flypast.

.

So we drove around to a different vantage point where there is a stand of windswept trees.

.

We have seen them naked and in full leaf. Now they were in-between.

.

It is clear to see which way the wind blows.

It seems to me to give the trees personality.

.

In the absence of geese to photograph, trees would do nicely.

.

Google suggests this is oak.

.

We moved around to a third location from which we observed several arrivals of Canada geese. They joined up with the other flock but it did not provoke any action.

.

So, we ate our lunch of spring rolls and hard-boiled egg, washed down with tea from our Yeti flask and then we set off home.

.

Not an entirely satisfactory day, but not bad either.

And I certainly had no complaints.

.