Another Busy Day

We were up early this morning to take ourselves over to Heartlands in Birmingham for John’s immunoglobulin treatment. On the way there, John asked me what I was going to do with my morning. Well, as always, I have a list as long as my arm but, being realistic, I told him that my plan was to walk Chester and that would probably be it.

In truth, it was, more or less. I did a few little jobs before we left for our walk and we set off, just before ten, on what has been another beautiful day. Over the fields and away we went – with a little more pace this time. Clearly, the champagne has emptied from my legs now. Chester, however, did the ‘walk a bit; stop a bit’ trick which enabled him to sniff out all the wonderful smells in the hedgerows once again. But he was a very happy chappie – as was I. Can you tell? And look at that blue sky!!!

We arrived home at about ten past eleven, whereupon I thought I’d just send the ‘Chester video’ to Michael and Danielle, lest they be worried about him; and then I’d have five minutes sitting on the bench in the sun, before making a well-deserved cuppa.

I never actually got the cuppa. Steve arrived to mow the lawn. As luck would have it, Chester had just gone indoors, so there were no worries about him woofing loudly or trying to see Steve off. We chatted for a few minutes and then John texted that he was ready to be collected: ’20 minutes’ he said. Ah…… OK, back I go to Heartlands.

John’s treatment had gone well and he’d slept most of the way through it. I was pleased about that. John has such disturbed nights that it’s good to know that he can find an appropriate time to catch up on his sleep.

Home once again and we had some lunch. With it being such a gorgeous day, we should, by rights, have eaten outdoors. But no, we were both tired and wanted to put our feet up. “Let’s sit in the lounge and watch a bit of telly,” I suggested. “Do you want to watch anything in particular?” John wondered. No, not really, but I had thought that I might catch up on some programmes I’d recorded last week.

Well, that was it then. I never budged from the sofa. I watched wall-to-wall cookery programmes all afternoon: Bake Off, followed by three episodes of Celebrity MasterChef. By then, of course, it was tea time……and after tea, more dog-walking beckoned.

Meanwhile, John took himself out the front of the house to jet wash the drive this afternoon. We couldn’t find his wellies, so I think he got wet feet…….. “Are you pleased with what you’ve done, John?” I asked. “Not really, I’ve only done half of it so you can’t be pleased when you’ve only done half a job, can you?” Oh. Well, I don’t know about that, but I guess so. That’ll be a job to finish for tomorrow then….

After tea, John got ready to go out. He and Paul were meeting for a drink. How very lovely. It’s about time they had some time together without the rest of us faffing about around them!

Michael video-called this afternoon from his holidays – “Just a quick one, Mum” – to say that they’d made it to the beach. Thomas was playing very happily with his buggy and William was playing very happily with a neighbouring family. He had, apparently, walked over to them to check on the very large hole that they’d dug, and said, “Please may I join in?” They’d said ‘yes’ and there he was – as happy as a sandboy. Lovely.

In the COVID world things are no better. 34,460 people tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours; 166 people died in the community and 45 in hospitals in the previous 48 hours.

What do you reckon the comparative numbers were this time last year? Five thousand were recorded as infected. 51 people had died with it in total on that day.

We are numbed to the numbers, aren’t we? We don’t care any more that thousands are sick, in hospital or dying. Let’s not believe the hype. Things are not getting better.

In the meantime, stay safe everyone. I’m keen to keep all my family and friends around us for a lot longer yet. God bless.

Oh, and Susie Dent’s Word of the Day is ‘throttlebottom’: an inept, bumbling, and possibly embarrassing holder of public office……