The view from my room

I've spent far too much time in hospital but it's not the worst place in the world. I've started calling Curk University Hospital my city residence and the room I'm given every time I call the penthouse suite. I'm kind of luckey and I allways seem to get a bed by the window and this is what I see.

It's not a bad view as hospital views go, most of the rest of this side only sees another part of the hospital but this room is at the very top and facing south. All day I watch the planes land and take off from Cork airport. It's a lot busier than I ever thought, big planes, little planes, cargo planes, helicopters, it's a great spot for a plane spotter. I really don't know one plane from another except the 737's that carried me so many times to and from England.

The hospital is on the edge of the city so I see a lot of fields and a few houses. There was a lot of cattle out grazing up untill winter when they must have been brought into winter housing. At night the houses light up and give a warm glow to the darkness.

There's a woodland between the last house and the fields which must act as a windbreak. I like scampring around woods and forests so if I can ever get some power into my legs I might head up there and see what the hospital looks like from up there.

To the south west there are even more fields but they stretch out as far as I can see like a patchwork quilt. As the winter came in they changed colour from greens and yellows to browns and greys. It's was like watching nature change pallets and start on a new canvase. When I couldn't move I used to stare off into the distance for hours on end and wonder what was waiting for me in the distance.

I like winter to be cold and harsh and unforgiving because I've allways believed that the snow and ice has a sort of clensing effect on the countryside. This winter has been hard, Cork City flooded and the snow came in heavy and hard for a few weeks. There was a lot of snowmen looking back at me from those fields.

This year I'll keep going to hospital and still look out that window into the distance and some day I'll head out there with my dog and a good coat, turn my face into the wind and walk through those fields.