A change of plan

When I saw Pete and Dawn yesterday we arranged for them to come to our house to help eat up the ‘fatted calf’ I’d originally got out of the freezer ready for Andrew’s homecoming on Monday. In the end, we had a change of plan and they didn’t come. The prodigal son had arrived home and so they suggested we enjoy the joint of beef with him en famille, rather than in a crowd.

I had planned to cook a wonderful roast beef meal, but Andrew, being a chef, got stuck into the cooking and banished me from the kitchen when it came to it. I didn’t argue. I mean, who would, when you can have your meal prepared for you, eh? It was lush.

I am not surprised he’d turned his nose up at my suggestion of steamed vegetables. His version of a roast dinner was with creamed leeks, cauliflower cheese and glazed carrots as accompaniments. Delicious.

Such a glorious meal was very welcome. We’d had a busy day one way and another.

First thing this morning John and I had a run out to Heartlands Hospital for his regular immunoglobulin treatment. I dropped him at the hospital door and drove home, before returning a couple of hours later to collect him.

“Everything go OK?” I enquired as I picked him up. “Yes,” he replied, “but it was a bit odd as the nurse kept coming to adjust the speed at which the infusion was going through, which they don’t do normally. It only transpired, as I was getting to the end of the treatment, that I wasn’t supposed to be there this morning, but this afternoon, instead! She said they didn’t have the heart to turn me away, knowing that we’d come a long way and I’d been dropped off and you’d already left. Mind you, there was a lady who had to wait for treatment while I had mine. No wonder they were keen to whizz the infusion through.” Oops….. we hadn’t double-checked the time of the appointment because it’s always at 9 in the morning…..just not today.

As Pete and Dawn weren’t coming round after all, once I was home and before I went back to collect John, I set to and got on with the wall stripping. I am delighted to report that I have managed to get all of the polystyrene off the walls in the dining room to reveal the full horror of the crumbling plaster underneath. I have also revealed a little bit of house history….. did this used to be a book case, do you think? I was quite charmed by this unexpected revelation.

This afternoon, before John was engrossed in tinkering with his car again, we went over to Paul and Harriet’s to retrieve our cars, where we’d left them last night. We spent a few minutes chatting to Harriet, which was very nice, before we all set off home in our individual cars. How profligate……

Andrew left us to our own devices this evening and went to see his friend, Tubsy. We had our quiz to look forward to – and, once again, it was good fun. Lovely to see everyone and enjoy their company. The scores on the doors were about the same as they are every week, but there were plenty of questions that challenged us. I wasn’t on top form tonight, feeling rather tired from my scraping exertions, but it didn’t matter – everyone else was!!

Take care everyone. God bless.