Ploughing on…

Maybe we’ll need a couple more days sorting out the wheat from the chaff at Mum’s flat before the removal men arrive on Thursday to take the goods and chattels away. So we’ll plough on until then, through the paper mountain, until we’re confident that there’s nothing else of any note.

To be fair, we’ve done a really good job today, me and Anita, and got to the point where we think we have identified the items of interest. Personally, I am finding it quite difficult to work out what’s worth keeping and what is not. In my head, Mum is reminding me that those things we are about to chuck out are valuable. Like the Wedgewood Calendar plates that she and Dad so lovingly and carefully collected in the 70s and 80s. The plates which cost, what seemed to us, a lot of money in those days, but now command about a fiver each. Or like the ‘Sheraton’ chairs that Mum treasured for so long. We’ve looked on the ‘tinternet to find that they are not Sheraton at all…..

You see, fashions change, don’t they? And in that vein, I expect we’ll let things go and then in a couple of years’ time find that they’re back in fashion and worth a fortune. But hey-ho, we can’t hang on to everything. In fact, John would like us not to hang on to anything – our house is already full. Ah, well – doing my best.

I had intended just to keep going at the flat, but by about four o’clock, I’d had enough, so came home. Malcom had said he’d call in to see us on his way back from ‘playing model railways’, so he, John and I spent some time sitting on the patio with a cup of tea and had a lovely chat.

After Malcolm had left, I was tired, so caught up on a couple of TV programmes before getting the evening meal ready – after which I caught up on another couple of TV programmes. And I didn’t fall asleep.

Nothing much else to report today, other than ‘when the cat’s away the mice will play’, won’t they? John has, therefore had a very productive day. He did the on-line shopping this morning and then, this afternoon he found the vacuum cleaner and cleaned through. When I arrived home, he was putting the vacuum cleaner away and getting the mop and bucket out….. Mind you, he did make me laugh. By the time the mop and bucket came out he’d really had enough, but he, too, was ploughing on, not wishing to be beaten. So he sat on the second step of the stairs to mop the floor by the front door, and leaned on the wall as he mopped by the lounge. Creative, eh?

The news today is still full of the situation in India, with so many people dying and 300k of new cases of the virus a day. But there is also a story beginning to run (and likely to run and run) about sleaze within the government – surely not? And then there are people in this country demonstrating against wearing a mask and the lockdowns. Are they right? It feels like a topsy-turvy world and I don’t know any more.

So, here are today’s figures for the record.

• 2,061 people tested positive for the virus today
• 32 people died with the virus in the community in the last 24 hours
• 11 people died on 22 & 23 April with the virus in hospital

• It’s Day 27 since the lifting of Lockdown 3;
• Day 13 of our new, limited freedoms, where we can play in each other’s gardens;
• Day 397 since Lockdown 1; 
• Day 403 since our self-imposed Lockdown 1

Stay safe everyone and do the right thing whenever you can. God bless.