How she despises the Unions. At a time when everyone is faced with poorer pensions, a longer working life and bigger pension contributions, they’re throwing their toys gleefully out of the pram. And their members are following suit like thousands of selfish sheep. Baaaaah.

If she worked in the public sector, The Nurse would like to think she’d see beyond her own self-involved nose and realise that everyone, wherever they work, will have to put retirement off a few years, pay more into their pensions and get a worse deal.

Striking public sector workers are acting like they’re being picked on. In reality they’re just being asked to shoulder their share of the burden gracefully, like everyone else.

That’s not what The Nurse calls cricket. She thinks the Unions have their own interests at heart. She hasn’t heard such joyful rhetoric since the Miners’ strike in the ’80s. They must be wetting themselves with excitement, so much so that they’ve forgotten to see the wood for the trees. Decisions made without context are prone to being loopy and in The Nurse’s opinion this is a stunner.

Humph. The Nurse’s foot hurts and to be honest, it doesn’t smell too good. If she was a qualified nurse, the real deal, she’d know what to do about it. But she isn’t, so she’s just forced a load of spider webs into the wound and bound it with a clean hanky she’s been saving for emergencies.

The thing is, every time she stops for a rest it gets harder to start again. So she’s keeping going, skirting the marshy, flat, chilly fens of Cambridgeshire, delighted during the day by the wide sweep of sky and serene patchwork of vast fields.

Now night has fallen, it’s more of a challenge. But she can’t afford to fanny around being ill. If the worst comes to the worst, she can always amputate. The Nurse isn’t scared of pain. Quite the reverse.

A pink sickle moon tonight, floating low-slung in the inky sky. Owls. Rustling leaves. A fox stops, observes her briefly then trots off across the ploughed field. Cold…

Plenty of countries, the UK and US included, have massive stocks of nuclear weapons.

OK, we’re not supposed to be building new ones and there’s a non-proliferation agreement in place. But – she has said it before and she’ll say it again – The Nurse still thinks it’s naive to expect Iran to abstain from nuclear weapons altogether.

It’d be a different story if very few or no other countries had nuclear bombs. Or if everyone was busy de-commissioning and dismantling them hell for leather, openly for all to see. 

But that isn’t happening. Countries with nuclear weapons are hanging on to them, reluctant to let go. 

The Nurse is neither surprised nor outraged that Iran seems to be moving towards making a few nuclear bombs of its own. She would too if she were them. Why? To keep things fair and create balance; some bargaining power and security while the rest of the world fannies around getting its non-nuclear act together… which could take decades. 

So, what to do? The Nurse proposes the UK, US and all the other nuclear powers each donate a nice, shiny bomb to Iran. Then we’ll all be on a level playing field and nuclear disarmament negotiations can start in earnest.

Until then Iran will doubtless remain justifiably pissed off and pressurised. Feeling pissed off and pressurised makes The Nurse feel provocative. She’s extremely dangerous when cornered. The same probably goes for Iran.