Zoom…..

…..and WhatsApp and Messenger and email and Messages and phone calls….. lots of communication from all sources today. And thank goodness for them all, that’s what I say.

Early on and first thing this morning it was a WhatsApp chit chat to John to check how he was. He likes to lie to me and he said he was OK. Before I had chance to probe further, there was a voice call on WhatsApp from Graham. What was I doing for Mum’s birthday next week? They were trying to order a nice afternoon tea from Haigs and a food hamper from M&S, but technology wasn’t cooperating for the latter and Haigs weren’t delivering on Monday. Thwarted.

I spent a good forty minutes chatting to Graham and agreed to order the food hamper this end instead, and see what I could do about the afternoon tea. Gail wasn’t feeling too clever today, having had chemotherapy on Friday, so she was abandoning Graham in favour of her bed and letting him sort out Mother’s gift. And quite right too – after all, he is me Mum’s son. Oh, hang on, a minute – who’s sorting out the gift? Oh, that’ll be me then….. However, they did do their best to get the orders in – you can’t ask more than that, can you?

I phoned John about half past nine and had the good fortune to catch the consultant in the room, pulling his beard and ruminating on John’s situation. “Have you managed to establish what’s wrong with John yet?” I enquired – I thought the direct approach was best. “No, we haven’t,” he said. “But he is in the right place, and we are going to hang onto him for a few more days yet.”

John, of course, isn’t happy. He is falling into the depths of despair – and who can blame him? He’s bored to death in a room on his own. He doesn’t really feel a great deal better and the medics have no idea what is the matter with him. Not only that, but they are forever poking and prodding him. Last night he had a CT scan, and he now has bruise the size of Africa on his right arm.

I finished chatting to John about half past ten, and got ready for online yoga (Zoom). I cleared a space in the computer room so that I could follow the class on screen. John has the laptop in hospital so I bypassed the SnuGym today. It all worked very well though, so I am not complaining. Mind you, we had a ten minute relaxation at the end of the session in which I fell asleep. It was the sound of Jaime’s lovely singing bowl that woke me up. Good job, or I might still have been there now.

I hurried round to get ready for my singing lesson at one o’clock – only to find that I had missed a message (on Messenger) from Melissa first thing, to check I was definitely going to take a class today. Lesson at one o’clock? I texted her back at ten to one: ‘Sorry I didn’t see your text!! Yes, happy to do a lesson today if I haven’t left it too late??’ Ah…. shall we do the lesson at two o’clock instead? OK, fine by me. More Zoom.

After my lesson, in which I didn’t sing flat or screech the high notes, I drifted about a bit, tinkering with this and that, for the afternoon. I ordered the M&S food hamper Graham had suggested. Unfortunately, the email that was supposed to confirm the purchase never did arrive, so I was on the phone to M&S to find out what had happened. “I’ll let the IT department know…..” the customer service chappie said. Ha! Will the email ever arrive? And, more to the point, will the hamper?

I phoned John after I’d eaten my evening meal and discovered that the ENT consultant had been to visit. He’d waggled and woggled John about, only to conclude that it’s nowt to do with his ears, nose or throat. John was even more depressed than he was this morning.

He had given a good impression of having had a reasonable afternoon, sending us videos of the Air Ambulance helicopter landing and transporting a casualty into the hospital. Although, I should have read the signs when he said he was going to post the helicopter taking off again, but he couldn’t be arsed.

Despite saying he couldn’t be bothered, the ol’ man did, however, video the ‘copter setting off, which I found very exciting, but it took all of a minute which John found too long, and he sent the following message with it: ‘Tomorrow I will film some paint drying’. Hmmmm. What to do? My poor, darling husband. How to boost his spirits? I don’t know. His solution was spirits. “Bring me a bottle of whisky?”

Michael phoned just before eight. He has got such a lot of work to do for his degree and he is also finding life a challenge. Let’s face it, in normal times, we’d be having the kids for a weekend to give him and Danielle a break; we’d be cooking food or taking the kids to the park and we’d just be there – all of that is so sorely missed by everyone. These are tough times, aren’t they? You think it all might a get a little easier, but it doesn’t.

This evening, I zoomed some more and chatted to the College Crew. Lovely to see everyone and we had great conversation on all sorts of topics. Brilliant. That’s what I like. But…. there I go again – I’m missing them, too.

Not sure what to read into today’s COVID figures, but here they are for your delectation.

• 6,303 people tested positive for the virus today
• 95 people died in the community with the virus in the last 24 hours
• 47 people died in hospitals with the virus on 16 & 17 March
• And we have lived through too many days to count since lockdown really, but I give you the number anyway: Day 71 for Lockdown 3; Day 359 for Lockdown 1; Day 367 for our self-imposed Lockdown 1

Hold us in your prayers, please. Take care everyone. God bless.