Wounded Wing

About 40 minutes into my return flight home, there was a woman's scream that came from the back of the cabin. The flight attendants rushed down the centre isle and all heads swivelled toward the back of the plane. I am sure that I was not the only passenger whose first thought was that something horrible had gone wrong with the airplane.

A flurry of activity followed and then the senior flight attendant returned to the front of the plane. 

"Is there any medical personnel on the aircraft?"

So, it seemed we weren't all going to die in a fiery crash, but at least one of us was in enough danger to have provoked a woman's scream.

There was a few horribly empty moments when no one stood up in answer to the flight attendants plea. 

"What if someone is seriously ill, maybe even dying!", I thought to myself, "Can there really be no one to help?"

Then, thank goodness, a gentleman across the isle stood up. Several women also got to their feet. 

I am glad to report that the passenger recovered enough for the flight to continue on to Toronto, where the ailing gentleman was assisted off the aircraft by a team of paramedics. He was sitting on a stretcher, smiling and chatting with the paramedics when I walked past, so hopefully he will be fine.

I guess you could say that my trip ended with just a little bit of drama!

Where did I get off to last week? 

I went home to Nova Scotia. The timing of my visit may seem a bit odd, but it was a week that was all about family, not sightseeing or sitting on a sandy beach.

Nova Scotia is on Canada's east coast (see the red arrow above). 

Don't let my grey-winter-day photograph fool you. Nova Scotia is a very colorful place.

In the twin cities of Halifax/Dartmouth where I grew up, the largely wooden houses are painted all manor of crazy colors. Just down the hill from where my parents live, I spied a bright, orange house and second one painted the most vivid shade of aubergine. Nova Scotians' are certainly not timid when it comes to the color of their homes!

Gardening on the east coast of Canada is a little different from it is here in Ontario, where I currently live. Pale mauve rhododendrons grow wild along the wind sweep coast. Heathers (above) thrive in the often moist, peaty soil. 

My trip home was favoured with a few bright, sunny days that brought out the delicate, bell-shaped blossoms on these heathers. 

 

I had precious little time alone with my camera, but I did manage to snap a few pictures of these heathers blooming in a neighbour's front garden.

I tend to think of the often beautiful, maritime Provence of Nova Scotia as a moody, romantic place. Is it any wonder then that so many artists come to the art college in Halifax and then choose to make the Provence their permanent home?

Meet Wounded Wing. 

This darkly comic character, missing more than a few feathers, comes to the apple tree just outside my mother's kitchen window each day, hoping for a treat. 

I sat with wrap amusement one morning and watched him drop bite-sized shredded mini-wheats into a dish of water and wait for them to become saturated with the precious liquid (many wild birds die of dehydration in winter). Then, I watched Wounded Wing fish out each of the pieces of cereal from the water, one at a time, and gobbled them up in a single bite. 

He was careful not to eat all his treats though. I watched him strut proudly around the backyard for almost half an hour, looking for the perfect spot to bury what he had determined where surplus treasures.

More about my adventures in the next post...