On Tippy-Toes….

We have tip-toed through the day today. Neither of us wanted to upset the apple-cart by rushing about, so we spent the day gently meandering through it.

John didn’t sleep awfully well, which meant that neither did I, so when we woke up this morning we were both a bit bleary-eyed. John got up and went downstairs to make a cup of tea which we drank in bed. That was rather nice. After we’d drunk tea though, John was tired and settled down for another snooze. I decided to get up.

Once I was downstairs, I decided to rummage through all of John’s bits and pieces to make sure I knew which pills he’d got to take. The rummaging included looking at all the supplements that he’d been advised to take by the nutritionist too. The last few months have been a bit hit and miss on those, so I checked we’d got everything and put them all out ready, with his breakfast.

Some years ago, when John had his transplant, Sue and Chris had sent John a tray for poorly people, which makes us smile every time we use it. There’s a space for a bell (service, please!), a bowl (I think I could manage a little soup), some bread and butter (brave little soldiers), some tissues and arrows pointing in the direction of daytime TV. I thought the tray was called for today, so placed John’s egg and soldiers on it with a nice cuppa and took it to him in bed.

I spent most of the day feeding the washing machine and the tumble dryer, and generally dashing away with the smoothing iron while we watched daytime TV. John, having got up at mid-day, sat in his armchair and dozed a little, read the paper, watched TV and played a bit of poker.

And, really, that was about it. We saw that the sun had come out this afternoon and thought we ought to perhaps go out into the garden, but didn’t. We did a bit of bird-spotting and saw a robin, dunnocks, blue tits, blackbirds and ruddy pigeons. Apart from the pigeons, none of the birds went to the food we’d put out though. But at least two of them were carrying bits of straw in their beaks. Nest-building time. Spring is coming…… time to start being more hopeful.

I acknowledge that it’s time to look forward and feel hopeful, but I confess to having felt rather overwhelmed with emotion today. Must be having the ol’ man back home in one piece. That was another reason for the tippy-toes. We felt delicate and didn’t want to upset each other. Hopefully, a better night’s sleep tonight will set us up with strength for tomorrow.

As Stephen King says in his book, ‘On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft’: “You try to tell yourself that you’ve been lucky, most incredibly lucky, & usually that works because it’s true. Sometimes it doesn’t work, that’s all. Then you cry”. Yep.

The national situation offers us hope, though, as the vaccination programme continues to roll out apace and the numbers of those infected or dying are reducing steadily.

• 6,391 people tested positive for the virus today
• 343 people died in the community with the virus in the last 24 hours
• 110 people died in hospitals in 28 February and 1 March
• Over 20 million people have been injected with the first dose of the vaccine and nearly 850 thousand people have had the second dose.

Keep up the good work is all I can say. We have managed to plough our way through another lockdown day (Day 55 of Lockdown 3; Day 343 of Lockdown 1; and Day 351 of self-imposed shielding) and we can see the buds of our better future burgeoning in the days ahead.

Take care everyone. God bless.