What now? Shielding: Day 145

In the interests of sanity, I agreed to look after Freddie this afternoon while Harriet went to the hairdressers. It is such a long time since we have properly seen him, that we decided we would take the risk. ‘Come and play in the garden’ was the plan but, I don’t know about you, it was so hot we couldn’t stay in the garden all afternoon. On a couple of occasions, we abandoned the outside activities and let Freddie sit on one sofa to watch TV while I sat on the other. The doors were wide open, so we hope for the best.

We did ‘us best’ to keep a reasonable distance. It wasn’t always easy, yet anxiety was actually far from my mind as I played with Freddie all afternoon. We had the mats out under the gazebo for a picnic, then further down the garden under the trees where it was cooler, to play with the cars and the marble run, Downfall, and a jigsaw. We sat either end of the bench while he ate a Freeze Pop and stood either end of the pond as we gazed in to see the state of play with the fish. In between times, I hope we were distanced well enough, as we ran about the garden and sat in the lounge but time, of course, will tell.

Freddie was conscious of keeping his distance however, and said to me, very earnestly on more than one occasion, just to reassure me, “We haven’t got Corona-virus.” He’s only four! It broke my heart to hear him so aware of what is happening in the community – but I suppose it’s a good thing really.

It was a great afternoon, and it was my delight. I was astonished to see how grown up Freddie had become in the last few weeks and how physically able he was, leaping from the height of the slide, flinging himself onto the swing and racing round and round the garden, either with his own two legs or on his scooter.

I had wondered how he’d get on spending time with us again because, at such a young age, a five-month gap is a helluva long time. But after an initial reticence, he soon got the hang of it again and was as relaxed as he’d always been at our house.

In the meantime, John got on with jobs, especially clearing up the debris from the hedge-cutting the other day. He did ‘phew’ at the heat a bit but when it got too much he, too, retreated to the lounge and fiddled on the computer or sat on the sofa to cool down.

Freddie stayed a bit longer than anticipated as Harriet had to pop and do a spot of shopping for her Dad after she’d been and had her hair cut. When she arrived, it was lovely to sit and chat for a while and I fully expected her to leap up at any moment and say, “Right, we’re off!” but she didn’t; and then it was a double surprise and pleasure when Paul came round the corner and joined us after work. He wasn’t in a hurry to go either, so we had the unexpected enjoyment of their company for a good hour before they had to go. Freddie didn’t want to leave, but the enticement of, “We’re going on holiday tomorrow, Freddie,” soon had him packing up his belongings and making a move.

After a bit of a tidy-up, John watered the plants and then we sat down in the lounge. I thought it was too hot to cook, so was all for a ‘liquid’ supper. However, we had enjoyed our Indian Take-Away so much the other night we thought we’d have another go. That’s nice, isn’t it? A Friday night take-away, watching Line of Duty. Cracking.

Another day when I didn’t watch the news or the cricket or listen to what was happening with the virus. However, on the cricket front, after England didn’t make enough in their first innings, I gather Pakistan haven’t made many in their second innings either, so it’s poised for an exciting finish. On the virus front, there seem to be too many deaths in all settings, with 98 today, and one in a hospital setting yesterday. 871 people have been confirmed as infected today too.

Looks like it’ll be warm again over the weekend, so I hope everyone enjoys a relaxing time, with all the usual caveats! May you know peace in whatever you’re doing.