It’s coming on…

The decorating, that is. Skirting board is painted, door frame has one coat and the wallpaper is stripped. I am sure you will be delighted to know that we’re on the homeward straight! I am hopeful that tomorrow will be the final day, with the wallpaper going up, but we’ll see. Then the sofa on Monday? Fingers crossed. *Does a little dance*. So, coming soon, in through your email Inboxes: no more boring decorating stories….. phew, that’ll be a relief then.

I was up early again today to greet our man, Mark, who is doing the porch. He was hoping to have it finished today, but he found the quirks of John’s building technique and had a little fight with one or two of the walls and beams as he tried to fit the windows in. He grinned ruefully as he admitted that another half-day is needed, after all. We’re classy here in the Sleath household, you know – nothing is ever straightforward.

John spent some time reviewing the underside of the Lotus today, humming and hawing over the measurements and trying to decide by just how much the wheel base/chassis is out. Is it 8cm or 4cm? And what will that do to the handling of the car? Sounds to me like it’ll drive like a crab, sideways. However, lots of thought going into how to rectify what might be a tricky situation, now. And possibly might need me to hold a spanner or two at some point. I mean, I’ve passed my apprenticeship and held the end of a tape measure twice this afternoon, so the spanner might be next?

We were so tired after our exertions today that, when I ventured into the kitchen where John was having a bit of a tidy-up, we both said, “Let’s have fish ‘n chips tonight.” Not wanting to spend too much time inside the shop, I thought I’d phone the order through. However, even at 6 o’clock, they were saying the next slot wasn’t until 7.30. Ah. We were peckish, so I ventured out to queue. And queue I did – all the way down the road to the end of the former NatWest building. Crumbs!! It wasn’t too bad though, in reality, as everyone was giving everyone else a very wide berth so, in essence, there weren’t that many in the queue really. And the fish ‘n chips were extremely tasty once I got them home.

And so the day has gone, just like that, in a flash. We are both ruing our achy bones and wishing we were younger, admitting that our minds are racing ahead as we slowly try to catch up physically. Oh, my goodness! I sound like my Grandma. She used to tease me often and suggest that I’d know what she was talking about one day. I never thought that day would come, yet here it is. Mind you, we’re still keeping on, keeping on, if you know what I mean. We’re not sitting on our laurels – oh no, we’re still fighting the good fight, thank you very much. Although, John did spend the morning ostensibly watching the cricket, only to find he was inspecting back of his eyelids instead, not long after he’d got up…… tee-hee.

We watched a bit of TV this evening and I noted that there wasn’t a great deal of news today. It’s mostly COVID-related or Brexit-related and not much of it very cheerful, so maybe I won’t watch the news this weekend. Give myself a rest. On the topic of the virus, of course, it’s a semi-hopeful story, in that the number of infections is coming down, albeit not very quickly.

• 40,261 people tested positive for the virus today
• 1,401 people died of it in the community
• 544 people died in hospitals on 20 & 21 January
• And the hospitals in Birmingham, where we go, are very full. In fact, the busiest of all the hospitals at the moment.

As we anticipate more lockdown days, I am viewing our current incarceration as nearer the end than the beginning. Hoping beyond hope that we’ll have some more freedoms come the Spring. It’s Day 17 of Lockdown 3/Day 310 since March 2020 and we’re still doing OK – well, mostly.

Take care. God bless.