The Daily Echo: Day 206

Punctuation. Life needs punctuation. If it doesn’t have any, it’s flippy and floppy and sloppy.

That’s how we’re feeling today – flippy, floppy, sloppy. “What shall we do today?” we say, first thing. “I dunno. Whaddya wanna do?” And, like the vultures on a branch in The Jungle Book, shoulders shrug, feet shift and bleak eyes stare out at the rainy season.

Punctuation adds meaning doesn’t it? I mean, if you don’t get the punctuation right in a sentence, it can be gobbledegook. Our lives are actually punctuated with great things mostly, but there are some times when they’re not. And today was one of those days. Just the nurses calling in and mealtimes was all we had planned today, so it was another case of shoulder shrugging and deep sighing.

In the end, we looked at our lists of ‘things to do’ and thought we’d better tackle some of those. John took the opportunity of the sunshine this afternoon to get outside for five minutes and ‘weed and feed’ the bit of lawn that is growing an abundance of weeds. He was disappointed that he was unable to seed the area though. That’s going to have to wait until the springtime apparently. The instructions on the lawn treatment tell him to leave any seeding the area for at least six weeks. We’ll be well into cold weather by then I should imagine, so no go.

Me, I sorted out John’s tablets and took a stroll up to the pharmacy to ask if we can have them delivered in blister packs. It’ll save a job every couple of weeks and the panic of running out of anything. John was going to come with me, but we just got to the bus stop when we both realised we’d come out without our masks. As we turned back to get them, John was out of puff and he realised, with the nurses coming soon, that he wouldn’t be able to rush, so he decided he’d go back home. Success at the pharmacy though.

I also did a lot of appointment cancelling. Unexpectedly, and rather thrillingly, Michael has booked next week off work, so Danielle suggested we hire a caravan each in Devon for the week. John is exceptionally keen to get away, being bored of our four walls, so we said yes, what a good idea. Obviously, John would have preferred jetting off to some winter sun – he’s been on about that ever since we got back from Norfolk – but beggars can’t be choosers, can they? Fingers crossed the weather will be kind to us – and John will be well.

In addition to his foray into the garden today, John spent some time in the garage with his beloved car. It’s a while since he did anything on it and I think he had a happy hour or two in there pottering about. While he was doing that, I found an excuse to watch more tennis. I did the ironing in front of the TV and then carried on trying to sort out the square of knitting I started the other day. Very sedentary, but I enjoyed it.

And thus passed another day. Tomorrow, we’ll no doubt start the day with the same question, ‘what we gonna do today?’ but I have no doubt we’ll find something. One thing I know, is that it will be punctuated tomorrow. I have a hairdressing appointment to get my haircut at lunchtime…….

In the meantime, I can hardly look at the stats for the latest virus infections and certainly don’t want to watch the news to see what the clowns have been doing now. Oh, sorry, did I say clowns? Silly me, slip of the tongue.

I did, of course, steel myself to check the virus figures today. 14,162 people confirmed as infected and 70 people have died in the last twenty-four hours. 26 people have died in hospitals on the 5 and 6 October. The NHS figures really don’t add up and are not consistent from day to day, so I am not sure how accurate that is. And 5 cases in Balsall Common now.

Please take care everyone. The invisible is attacking the visible, and it ain’t nice. God bless and peace be with you.