Radio Silence

Apologies for the radio silence, everyone. Thought I’d have a bit of a break on the Blog front; and then, of course, one thing let to another and the break lasted longer than I intended. Ah, well, back on it today …… although I’ll be back off it again tomorrow. All being well, that is! I’m going on a lovely yoga retreat for the weekend, don’t ya know!

It’s now a week ago, but we had a great weekend with Malcolm and Caroline coming to stay so that we could all go to the Centre Stage play last Saturday. Really enjoyed their company and really enjoyed the play. Everyone did their parts very well and the play was amusing. Just the light relief we were after.

Slightly anxious week for me afterwards, of course, because one of members of the group, who sat at our table as we had after-show drinks, has now gone down with COVID. Fingers crossed our mitigations were enough. Ha! Given our luck, what are the odds do you reckon? LFTs are still negative so far……

Our week since then has been mostly taken up with birthday celebrations for William, who was 5, and hospital appointments. We had a cracking family party for William on Sunday to which we took the birthday cake that Grandpa had created. Andrew had baked the cake this year; and had John modelled it. “What would you like as a birthday cake this year, William?” we had asked. “A dinosaur!” came the quick reply. “What sort of dinosaur?” we wondered. “A Stegosaurus….” Oh, crikey!

But, as usual, John came up trumps and mastered the art of crafting something that impressed William. It may look a bit scruffy in the photo but I assure you, it was pretty impressive!

Monday was a fabulous day at the Kenilworth Originals’ house. We all piled round there to watch the Queen’s funeral, eat and drink well, and take a dip in the hot tub. Mission accomplished and a very nice day we had too, despite the sad and momentous occasion.

Tuesday was a hospital visit for a check on John’s oxygen levels – which turned out to be quite good apparently. Always the way, isn’t it? He can’t breathe, but: “You’re alright John. There’s plenty of oxygen in your lungs,” they tell him. He doesn’t believe them when he’s half-way up the stairs gasping for breath, but hey-ho.

After we’d been to the hospital, I trundled over to visit Mum. We had arranged for a Social Worker to go and do an assessment so that we can sort out some new funding arrangements. Mum was on top form and very chatty but couldn’t remember much. “Who’s this?” asked Debbie, the social worker, pointing to me. Mum looked at me thoughtfully, grinned and then shook her head. “I can’t remember,” she said. And then, in more or less the next breath, referred to me by name. Bless.

We popped over to see William on Tuesday tea-time on his actually birthday. I had thought we wouldn’t stay long as I was planning to go out for the evening. However, we had bought him one of those ‘Tonie’ things which tells stories – and you can record you reading your own on them, too. So that was a little job that I couldn’t resist. Record a Mr Men story and then sit with William at bedtime for him to listen to it. Great fun and such a lovely idea.

Wednesday was full of medical stuff. Blood tests and telephone consultations – one of which was for me. I’ve been feeling a bit low so I toddled off to the GP in August, who referred me for a mood assessment. Chit chat on the phone yesterday and then the verdict: a bit depressed and anxious. Yep. That’s right……. Anyway, the upshot is that I’m going to do a stress management course for six weeks and see how I feel then. Let’s keep ours fingers crossed it’ll do the trick, eh?

I had a lovely morning today, though. I went out for breakfast with one of my church friends and then went on to Yoga. John, however, is also feeling a bit depressed and anxious and so spent most of the day having a bit of a snooze, and then venting his frustrations on the oncology nurse who’d been assigned to talk to him about a questionnaire he’d filled in. Bless her – she answered his questions very patiently. But really, we don’t know what to say to each other at the moment.

Take care everyone. God bless.