Oh, joy of joys! Paul called in today, unexpectedly, to pick up emergency sandpit rations, and he brought Freddie with him!!
Apparently, the sand in Freddie’s own sandpit was out of bounds because their dog, Mac, had been overly interested in it. All the stores were out of play sand on a Tuesday afternoon, so had we got any spare? The only thing is, said Paul, I’ve got Freddie with me. Well, it was a hot, sunny day and it was easy to be socially distanced outside, so we said, “Come.” We uncoiled the hose and lay it down just beyond the patio to illustrate the ‘no-go’ area, which Freddie respected beautifully, and then we sat on the patio while Paul and Freddie played in the main part of the garden.
It was lovely. Just lovely – to hear Freddie’s piping little voice echoing round the garden again; to see him race to the swing and tummy-swing for ages, or twizzle on it round and round and back again; to enjoy his excitement of ‘hide and seek’ and his giggling in the tickling game; to hear him talk of his ‘tree house’ in the little woods at the bottom of the garden; and to listen to him excitedly pointing out the fish, the damsel flies, the frog and the lily pads on the pond – and “Can we feed the fish, Daddy?”
The only thing was, when it came time to go home, Freddie didn’t really want to go, and we didn’t want to let him go. But his virtual hug was out of this world. Parting is such sweet sorrow…….
The visit has pretty much eclipsed everything else we have done today – so much so that I can hardly think what we did until this evening, when we had a lovely couple of hours chatting to dearest friends Pete and Dawn, and Carol and John on Skype. We had hoped to Skype in the luxury of our lounge, projecting the pictures onto the TV screen, but we weren’t able to get it working properly initially, and then Mum had a bit of a fit about the fact she wouldn’t be able to watch the rest of Doc Martin, so we abandoned the idea and simply ‘lap-topped’ it instead. But it was oh, so really good to see everyone and share our lock down stories.
I had intended today to be ‘bindweed-ageddon’ but in the end, what with one thing or another, I didn’t manage it. Although I was up relatively early, household duties seemed to take precedence and then it was lunchtime already!! After lunch, of course, we were certainly not going to turn down an opportunity to see number one son and Freddie, were we?
John did manage a bit of something today though – he went back to the ‘cupboard above the fridge freezer’ and screwed it into place. Then spent some time putting together the frame for the door. He’s done well although, I must say, he is coughing and wheezing far too well for my liking……
Mum has joined in pretty well today and even helped me plant out some seeds into trays this morning, which she really enjoyed doing. I do hope the seeds germinate now…. In addition, she had a little walk round the garden, joined us outside for lunch and also sat on the patio to watch Freddie play, before feeling too hot and going back inside to watch TV.
I have been so wrapped in family and friends today, I have hardly glanced at the news but, whoosh! Just like that, the figures are shocking today for deaths in all settings – I am not sure why. The official figures from the government are that 2,412 people were confirmed as infected yesterday, 199 people died in hospitals and 545 people died in all settings. The NHS figures show 29 people died in hospital yesterday, with 94 confirmed for the previous day.
Take care everyone – it’s not over yet.
Hi Anne
The death numbers surged today because the weekend deaths finally caught up with them. All this fiddling with various sets of numbers just goes to reinforce that, as we all know, you can prove anything with statistics…
We are beginning to see the ‘excess deaths’ figures which are awful, but then we have to remember, this is a pandemic. Only once we see other country’s comparable figures will we truly know if we were hit worse than most although the deaths per million of population is far more telling and we are well down on that scale – Iceland is the worst! The question will then be ‘why’? One article I read suggested it seems worst in a band of 30 and 50 degrees north, which is why north Italy got it and southern Italy didn’t or it may be something to do with our ability to absorb vitamin D. Will we ever really know?
Good stuff, Malcolm – thank you. The trouble is, there is no such thing as a FACT, is there? But I do hope that our country didn’t get it so horrendously wrong – we shall wait and see, as you say – that we turn out to be the worst hit. But I think whatever the case, people have died who needn’t have. And for that reason, I feel sad, angry and helpless.
Number one son? I didn’t come over.
Oh, wait, you mean age…
Ha! Ha! Ha!