The Daily Echo: Day 184

Home. That was our destination today. We didn’t really want to go, damn it! The weather was so glorious that it seemed a shame to be simply packing our bags and then onto the road travelling. But, hey-ho, that’s what it had to be be. The late summer/early autumn idyll was at an end.

In keeping with not wanting to leave, I woke up early, felt grumpy and determinedly stayed in bed for another hour. However, I knew the inevitable must come, so I forced myself upright and into the day. And that was more or less it, then, for an hour or two – pack this, pack that, wash this, tidy that, unplug this and fold that.

Midway through the packing up proceedings, I prepped a brunch for us once John was up and about. Then, once we’d eaten, John asked what could he do? The trouble is, I am not a great or organised packer. So almost every bag was half-packed. So I was flustered then, trying to think what to get ready first so that he could get things packed into the car. In the end, one by one, the bags were filled and closed, then placed by the front door and John dutifully took them out to the car to find a suitable space to put them into.

And, finally, we were done. “Shall we go to the windmill, for one last cream tea, before we leave?” I wondered. John thought it sounded like a good idea and that it would be churlish not to. So that’s what we did. It was lovely to sit there in the sunshine with the ‘naughty but nice’ food in front of us. I shouldn’t have a cream tea because of my cholesterol levels, and John shouldn’t have it because it can unbalance his system. But we were on holiday still, so it was our ‘last hurrah’ before coming home to austerity.

“I’ll drive,” said John as we got up from the table to go. “For a bit, anyway. We’ll see how my eyes are.” Well, his eyes were pretty good. Not only did they see alright to be able to drive, but they behaved sufficiently well that he was able to drive all the way home. Good job.

It was tea-time when we got back and we were pleased to see that the house was still in one piece, and the cats were still prowling. They knew it was tea-time too. Had a scrap, with fur flying, to prove it. Same old routine – cats are hungry; Rio casts mean eyes at Shadow; Shadow shifts uncomfortably on his haunches and starts to back off; Rio pounces; both cats scream in anger and fur flies all over the place. There! That should do it. We’ve got the humans’ attention now, do you think they’ll feed us? We feed them. And they walk away, tails high – as smug as smug as smug that their fighting tactic worked – again.

So there we have it. Back to the old routine. After we’d fed the cats, we fed ourselves and watched a bit of TV. Too late to get the washing on, we thought. We’ll do it in the morning. Too late to unpack everything – we’ll do it in the morning. Yep, the old routine has kicked in – they die hard, you know, those old habits. It’s a ‘maybe tomorrow?’ scenario once again, folks. I expect ‘Worry’ and ‘Anxiety’ to appear stage left shortly.

Being on our holiday, in rural Norfolk and surrounded by not very many people, the pesky virus has not been at the forefront of my mind. Of course, now we are back in the Midlands where there is a high infection rate, it immediately raises its ugly little head. 3,105 people have been infected today (that’s still a lot, isn’t it?) and twenty-seven people have died in the community and seven in hospitals on Sunday. And there are between 3 and 9 cases here in the Balsall Common area if the app I’m using is accurate. So, what to do? Sell up and move to Mars, I reckon – or is it Venus?

Take care everyone – let’s try not to be a statistic this time around. God bless.