Next…

It’s been an interesting day, one way or another.

With no Quiz Night tonight because some of our members are otherwise engaged, we thought we’d got all day to sort ourselves out with our respective jobs. But it’s been a day of hiccups…..

Plan for Anne: Do more painting, with the aim of getting it finished, before we set off to town for an eye and hearing test, and shopping for shoes. Actual event: mostly phone calls to the hospital and trawling the calendar to establish what appointments John had this morning. Result: a little bit of painting, but not enough.

Plan for John: Construct Thomas’s birthday cake, the relevant parts having arrived in the post yesterday (all will be revealed tomorrow). Actual event: see above, plus medication to take…… Result: no attempt on the cake in the morning.

Revised Plans: Just go to town for eye and hearing tests and shoe shopping. Actual event: No hearing test – I missed the appointment (don’t ask); John was exhausted by the choosing of a new pair of glasses, so went and sat in the car. Parking ticket placed prettily on the car because we weren’t displaying a Disabled Badge.

Well, there was an explanation for that….. the dashcam fell down from the windscreen and knocked the badge onto the floor…… Result: We decided against going shoe-shopping after all. Shall we appeal the £35 fine or forego the pair of shoes?

Newly-revised plans: Eat lunch then get on with our jobs because we’ve got loads of time….. Actual event: To be fair, John did eat lunch and get on, but I didn’t. I watched more tennis, this time from Eastbourne, before I went back to my painting. Result: most of the skirting boards complete with a second coat of paint and the Birthday Cake started to take shape.

John has worked wonders this afternoon with Thomas’s birthday cake. He may be an amateur, but to me he is a marvel. I’ll post a photo tomorrow (don’t want to spoil the surprise). However, it has taken all of his determination and lots of creative thinking to get it finished.

Meanwhile, I was busy with prepping for painting the actual walls in the utility room, which took a lot longer than I had thought. We had been sloppy on our last painting job and left the overspill of paint on the door surround. Took me most of the afternoon to get it all cleaned off ready for masking up and loading my brush with the Duck Egg Blue for daubing the walls.

I had just taken the lid off the paint pot when John’s phone rang. It was Harriet. “Is your wife there?” she asked John. I was. “I need you,” she said, in a wobbly voice. Her father, seriously ill at home, looked like he’d take a turn for the worse and could I babysit? Of course I could. I put the lid back on the paint pot and set off, leaving John to do more battle with the cake.

I didn’t stay very long at Paul and Harriet’s in the end as Paul had arrived home just before I got there. He and Harriet went round to her Dad’s, then Paul came back to do the bed-and-bath routine for Freddie. If you are so inclined, positive thoughts and prayers are needed for the Kenilworth contingent, please.

After we’d eaten our evening meal tonight, I decided that the light was too poor to be painting, so have done very little, while John has laboured on the clearing up tasks. It’s good for him…….isn’t it?

COVID. Cases increasing, do you reckon? Well, what a surprise…..

• 16,135 people tested positive for the virus today
• 19 people died in the community
• 211 people were admitted to hospital with it
• 7 people died in the last two/three days in hospital with it

Do take care everyone, even if you’ve had your jabs. God bless you and all those you hold dear.

Meanwhile….. round at the Sutton Sleaths, their lounge looks like this…..