Today was my last day

at the Brain Surgery

I arrived early. There is a broken bench on a paved area in front of the surgery. It was sunny so I made tea then came back outside, balanced a bum cheek on the wobbly seat and ate my breakfast marmalade sandwich.

Tattoo man has removed the big pieces of junk he used to keep in front of the Surgery including all the pieces of kitchen that were torn out two weeks ago. What remained was a tumbleweedy wilderness of food packaging, broken flowerpots, lumps of dried cement, rotted wood bits, paint scrapings and rusty screws. Long weeds grew between the pavers.

A plastic bag dancing on the wind would have completed the picture but my breakfast bag was pressed into service as a glove so that I could clear away the rubbish and pull out the weeds. My search for a sweeping device in the Surgery yielded a stumpy circular hoover-attachment brush and the final crumbs of rubbish were shooshed into my glove bag at exactly the moment the first patient arrived. We had our last morning together the Brain Doctor and I, then our last lunch. The last patient was one of my favourites, a woman who always puts her child on my lap so that we can draw spiders while she sees the Brain Doctor.

Now I'm off to Edinburgh, another cat ... and the festival!!!