“What are you doing today?” says John, as we woke up this morning. “Dunno,” I shrugged. “Probably try and finish the sorting out of the front bedroom.” See? I’ve moved on. No longer calling it Andrew’s room. Ha! A milestone! “How did you sleep?” I asked. “Dreadful, up every hour or so,” says the ol’ man. Oh dear. It’s a bit of a pattern and I have no idea how to help. However, his day of rest yesterday did him a world of good and he’s not coughing so much today….. although Puffing Billy is in residence, I can hear.
In fact, John felt so much better that he decided to go over to Sutton to do a bit more on Michael’s ‘man-shed’. I chose not to go. I stuck to my plan to do more digging out of the hoard – just in case, you know, Andrew might come home with more stuff sometime soon. I’m still in a dither about what to do with some of the items, but an old rug did make it out to the skip, and there was a lot of shredding of papers, so that was another success.
John set off just before lunch and I was dealing with Mum’s affairs up in the Computer Room when my phone rang. It was Harriet. “Are you doing anything today?” she asked. Not really – any excuse not to be clearing out the bedroom. “We’ll come over this afternoon, that OK?” Oh, yes, thank you. To have an hour or two with Freddie? Wonderful.
Hastily, I sped into the bathroom. I thought I had time for a quick wash and brush-up before they came, but in fact, I was still in my dressing gown when they arrived. “I’ll just dry my hair and I’ll be with you.” Fifteen minutes later, I’d joined them in the garden where we had a cup of tea, and I served Freddie his, now traditional, banana sandwich.
The weather was lovely. Very overcast and it looked like it might rain, but it never did, and the air was so warm we could be outside just in our flimsy clothing. No need to wrap up warm at all. I fished out a soft cushion for Freddie to sit on and he played, on his own, with the Downfall game and the Marble Run, squealing at the way the marbles were dropping down (or not) and landing at the bottom. Warmed my heart to watch him play and lifted my spirits to listen to him laughing out loud at the unexpectedness of the marbles’ behaviour.
Harriet and I had a lovely chat – and that felt really good. It’s so long since I’ve seen her to talk to at any length, and often, the kids are chasing round so it’s an interrupted conversation. But not today. It was a serene and cosy chat. Another spirit-lift.
After they had left, I did go back and do some clearing of the bedroom and actually managed to vacuum in there too. But as I got to the bare minimum in there, it started me thinking. I mean, there are two sofas-cum-bed settees in there. They’ve had plenty of use over the years as we’ve frequently accommodated lots of people all at one go, in the past. But is that ever going to happen again? Will we have the whole family here again like we used to? And will we need to put so many up that it’s sleeping room only on the floor? I don’t think so. A new era, I think.
John finally made it home just before tea-time. He’d had a good, if somewhat painful, day. The rods he was adjusting and slotting into place fought back, apparently, and he needed all his strength to whip them into shape. “Tell you what, have shower and a rest in bed for ten minutes while the tea is cooking,” I suggested. So that’s what he did, and he felt a bit more refreshed ready for Quiz Night at eight o’clock.
Malcolm greeted us all with the news that the quiz was an easy one this week. Oh, yeah? It didn’t seem like it for the first two rounds. Erm……. no, haven’t a clue on that one, next? Ooh, erm….. nope, next? Anyone? Hmmm………As we worked our way through it though, we were able to answer quite a few of the questions and even managed ten out of ten on one round. With trepidation we totalled the score – only to find to our surprise that, actually, we had a respectable 79%. In the end, not bad, eh?
And it was fun, as usual. Great evening among great friends for which I am so grateful. All in all, a good day.
A good day for us, but obviously not so good for those who’ve been infected with COVID-19, of whom there are 1,048 people today, and 16 people have died from it (according to the new way of counting) in the community, with four in hospitals yesterday.
Keep your wits about you everyone. The nasty virus is still around, so take care. God bless, and peace be with you all.
Sounds like another good day 😊