By George, he’s done it!!

I decided, after a day of decorating, to try out our ensuite shower. Haven’t actually tried it since John fiddled with it earlier in the week. But, such excitement to find that By George, he’s done it!! Not a leak anywhere at all. Marvellous. No paddling to the wash-handbasin to clean me teeth; no wallowing in water to get to the loo. Dry as a bone. Sound the trumpets! Create a fanfare! We are no longer in a ‘wet’ room. Oh. My. Goodness. Can’t tell you how good that feels. The relief of not having to mop up after a shower is just wonderful. Might have a shower in there again tomorrow…..

In other news, I also decided that mornings are best. Not that I got up early, you understand, but by the time I’d had done my exercises and my ablutions, had my breakfast and nipped to Homebase for a ‘click and collect’ tin of paint, it was lunchtime. Naturally, John had not long been up and had only just had his breakfast, so a snackette and a cup of tea for my lunch was in order, while watching ‘Bargain Hunt’ and then the news on daytime television.

By now, of course, it’s half-past one. Must get on. So I got started on doing a second coat of ceiling paint. Half-way through, I thought it wasn’t always so easy to see where I’d painted and where I hadn’t, with it being white on white. I looked out of the window and thought it must be nearly four o’clock as it was so dull and overcast. No, it was half-past two. But the light was already going and I had planned on doing some of wall as well. I did do a first coat on the wall in the extended part of the lounge but it might be a bit patchy when I look at it tomorrow. So really, mornings are best for painting, aren’t they? Note to self: Get up in the morning, for goodness’ sake!

John had a good day too, tinkering about. You may recall that, at the beginning of lockdown I decorated the kitchen – gosh, there’s a theme here, isn’t there? Anyway, there are one or two snagging jobs still to do, and one of them was to fashion and shape a piece of skirting board next to the fireplace-that-was. John found a suitable piece of wood some months ago, and it’s been kicking around waiting to be whittled. Today was the day. Not only did John create a super bit of skirting board, but he glued it into place too. It was my treat for today, I believe, as he said, “There you are. I’ve glued it on. I’ll let you paint it.” Oh, whoopee-doop! How kind. More painting……

He also started to tidy up the threshold between the new utility room (as opposed to the old utility room which is actually a store room now, but still…) and the new SnuGym. I am not sure exactly what work was involved but there seemed to be some grinding. I wasn’t awfully enamoured of the smell that the grinding generated and wondered, tactfully, whether John was wearing a mask while he did this piece of work? (I think John may dispute the nature of the enquiry at this point) Anyway, that job is still ongoing and in progress.

We have done nothing much else other than watch more TV this evening and John has played a hand or two of e-poker. We haven’t ventured out for a walk – maybe tomorrow?

I was heartened a little bit by the news today – strange but true – in that the trend of COVID infections is down. Deaths are still rising, which we expect, because of the time lag between infection, serious illness and death being about three weeks, but it looks like the virus may be beginning to slow down. If we continue to behave ourselves, the vaccine does its work and no new variants are introduced, I am hopeful that by Easter we may be able to play out.

• 55,761 people tested positive for the virus today
• 1,280 people died in the community from the virus in the last 24 hours
• 469 people died in hospitals in the last couple of days from the virus
• On the plus side, over 3 million people have been vaccinated with at least one dose
• And flight routes in from South America and Portugal have been banned to try and keep a new strain of virus out – fingers crossed

Keep smiling everyone. Spring is on its way and we’re going to get the virus on the run. God bless.