There was a helicopter overhead

at around 2am. 

It came over so low that I woke. My first thought was "air ambulance" as the flight path they take is usually directly over the house. I will never complain about them. They might well be saving the life of a critically ill person.

But no, this time it had to be the police service chopper because it went around and around and around. It was circling for over an hour. I am not interested in who was being chased or hunted down or what they had done but I would like the opportunity to give them a piece of my mind. I have not had enough sleep.

I don't find it easy to go back to sleep after being disturbed like that. In part this is because I am normally an "early to bed, early to rise" sort of cat. I need to be. I still work with different time zones on occasion. It is not nearly as bad as it used to be but I can still need to do it.

I turned over and curled up again and lay there thinking about other helicopter stories I have been told, about people I have worked with who risk their lives going in and out of some extraordinarily dangerous situations.

Z..., a long time friend and colleague, is an engineer. His special area of interest is dams. He has been all over the world advising on the building of dams, the maintenance of dams and the repair of dams. In the course of this work he has been in some extraordinarily dangerous situations. The latest disaster in Ukraine is the sort of situation with which he is all too familiar.  He lives in Belgium and his wife sent me an email saying how concerned she is that he might be called to go there. He is almost eighty now but his knowledge and skills are so extensive that he still gets called on.

"At least he can't do the flying," M.... told me.

I don't think many people stop to think the footage we saw on the news last night would have been taken by people risking their lives. Helicopters are particularly vulnerable to enemy fire. I suppose their ability to manouvre outweighs the danger but it doesn't take much to cause a disaster. 

Z... will go if he is asked to go. He is a Quaker. He sees it as his role to help those saving lives. He sees it as his role to do what he can to help build, maintain and restore structures which save the environment and assists the lives of those who rely on it.

I'll think of these things whenever I hear a helicopter circling overhead - but it doesn't make for much sleep.