The Daily Echo: Day 199

‘Here we are again then!’ was a favourite saying of ours when we were youngsters, and the phrase sprang to mind again this morning as I woke up. Nothing much to do today, other than chores – although being a Wednesday there was the quiz evening to look forward to.

We were, of course, up early, to let the District Nurse in to administer John’s antibiotics. John came back to bed after the procedure and snoozed on for a bit while I did a bit of meditation and then decided to get up. The oven racks were awaiting my attention, having been soaking overnight in some weird and wonderful liquid to remove all the burnt-on oils. Cleaning the racks took a bit more elbow grease than I expected, however, as not every single bit of burnt stuff had come off with the soaking.

Once John was up we pottered a bit and then decided on another trip into Kenilworth to buy a chest of drawers. Unexpectedly, the salesman advised that delivery might be before Christmas if we were lucky. In these days of instantaneousness, I was surprised that we’d have to wait. Not that we mind, but it’s one of those isn’t it? Order from the internet and the item usually arrives on your doorstep within a couple weeks no matter what it is. Order from a shop and there’s a sucking in of breath and an air of ‘we’re doing you a great favour’. How times change.

We popped to the garden centre afterwards to see if we could get some gardening gloves and attachments for the garden hose. Gloves? Yes, thank you. Hose attachments? No, not the right make in stock. That’ll be another trip then – or maybe I’ll just order over the internet. No wonder shops are going bust…. Mr Amazon has actually got it right.

We had our lunch catching up on last night’s TV (Bake Off) before another round of nurses arrived at the door; then a bit more TV catch up. Soon after, I started to watch a bit of tennis. It wasn’t long, however, before another late night and an early morning caught up with me and I dozed in front the fire that John had made. Very nice, thank you.

Although a little afternoon nap is very nice, I always wake up a bit irritated. ‘Look at all that time you’ve wasted’ I scold myself, ‘You could have done half of those jobs on your list.’ But they’ll have to wait. Sleep and tennis seemed to be far more important today than jobs.

This evening then, was quiz night with the Centre Stage crew. Even Malcolm and Caroline were able to join in, despite the fact that they’d only just moved into their new abode and the internet signal wasn’t great. The move had gone well but they hadn’t eaten well this evening as the cooker in their new kitchen didn’t get up to temperature. Caroline was eating crisps and downing red wine instead. Sounds good to me.

We had a lovely evening as usual and learnt a few things from the quiz questions but, equally well, promptly forgot quite a few answers as well. Some answers just flit in and then immediately flit out of our memories. Our age? Probably.

Political kerfuffles today with the Trump-Biden debate having been aired last night on TV and it was handbags at dawn by all accounts. Equally, there is constant bickering among our own politicians over the handling of COVID. There seems to be a swell of opinion now suggesting that lockdowns are not the answer and who cares if the old ‘uns catch the virus and snuff it….. Ah, well, I suppose they are right. We have had our lives so time make way for the young ones. As long as COVID doesn’t create health problems for the new generations coming up – we just don’t know about that yet, do we? Goodness knows where it will all end.

Just so you know, and for consistency of reporting, there have been 7,108 people confirmed as infected with the virus today; 71 deaths in the community and 27 in hospitals in the last couple of days.

Take care everyone. Keep on with the hand-washing, mask-wearing and social-distancing. I think it’s all we’ve got at the moment. And peace be with you.