Sunday – thank the lord

Today was a day of rest. You’ll hardly credit it, of course, because I have been busy all day. But, believe me, it has been a wonderful, relaxing, heart-warming day of rest.

This morning we were awake fairly early and I got up, determined, for once, to ‘go to church’. I had thought I would attend physically today but I was running late, so logged on to the service via YouTube instead. What was very pleasing was the fact there was a choir – albeit a skeleton choir – and there were others joining Kim singing the hymns today and I really enjoyed that.

I expect it’s sacrilege, but I decided to listen to the service whilst I did the ironing. I was amazed how it concentrated my mind – mundane, everyday actions alongside uplifting words and music. Smoothing and soothing. Great stuff. And I was reminded that wherever I am or whatever I am doing, God is present. Even doing the ironing.

Once I was done with ironing and absorbing spiritual guidance, I gathered together a few bits and pieces to take over to Sutton. John and I were scheduled to go over to do a little bit of childcare while the grown-ups finished dissertations and presentations this afternoon. In the end, however, it was just me who went. We had made a mistake and the online shop was due to arrive slap-bang in the middle of childcare duties. “I’ll go, John,” I said, “You stay here and wait in for the shopping.” Disgruntled, John agreed – there was nothing else we could do really – other than not go over to Michael and Danielle’s and forego the babysitting, and I definitely didn’t want to do that!

Once I arrived, William’s face lit up and that was it then, we were off. Thomas had an afternoon nap, the grown-ups did whatever they had planned to do, and William and I played. We were on a space-ship; we landed on the moon; we took our moon-buggies all over the surface of the moon before we took ourselves back to the ‘Planet Earth’. “Come on, Grandma, we’re on Planet Earth now, we’re going to make pancakes with maple syrup honey.” Maple syrup honey. Sounds delicious, doesn’t it?

We spent hours at the mud kitchen, too – although there was no water or mud, just sand, which became water and food or drink or an ingredient for some concoction we were going to make. “Now then Grandma, we’ve got to go to Tesco. We need to buy flour and eggs and milk for our pancakes.” I nodded and we set off across the patio. We filled the back of the Little Tikes car full of sand and took it back to the kitchen, where we made our lovely ‘pancakes’.

For the whole afternoon we were absorbed in each other’s company. We enjoyed Thomas’ company too, when he woke up from his nap. Honestly, that baby is so strong and supple – crawling everywhere, pulling himself up, walking all around anything he can hang on to. And you can fairly see the grey matter working things out. And boy, he’s got a grin on him to break a million women’s hearts.

I stayed for tea, and Danielle, sorry that John was missing out on a roast chicken dinner, plated some of the delicious food up for me to take home to him. The ol’ man is now on a diet, mind you, so he suggested that he ought not to have a roast dinner. Pfff…. how can you refuse such a delicious treat? Well, he didn’t in the end – we reminded him that it was good food and it would do him no harm.

The diet? Well, John was shocked at having to squeeze himself into his Sunday Best for the funeral on Friday. One pair of trousers gaped so badly at the waist that he had to abandon them altogether – there was no meeting of the two halves on the waistband at all. “How did that happen?” he wondered. Lockdown belly maybe…….? “I knew I’d put on weight, but look at that!!” Hmmm…… it made us both giggle a bit. Not sure what form the diet is going to take yet, though. Watch this space, folks, we’re in for a ride…..

John spent his day waiting in for the shopping and then tackled the Lotus. The aim is to separate the body from the chassis so that we can check how square the chassis (or the body) actually is. He’s done well, too. He’s managed to get most of it unhitched and ready. Just waiting for the petrol to drain out now. I think he’s looking forward to trying out his new piece of lifting equipment. Toys – boys and their toys, eh?

The situation in India is still making headline news, but I was pleased to read that countries are trying to help by sending equipment to the medics over there. It’ll be too late for a lot of people, however, as there are thousands upon thousands dying and contracting the coronavirus every single day, with no end in sight yet.

There is, of course, other news, but I really can’t quite make up my mind as to whether I care about the Oscars, or the PM’s flat refurbishment (unless it was done with our money), or Man City beating Spurs at football. (Although I have to feel for Nigel in this circumstance). Oh, now I’ve said it – I have made up my mind – I don’t really care about those things in the wider scheme of things after all. Life and death seem more important at the moment.

The UK coronavirus figures are still stable, by the way. Good news.

  • 1,712 people tested positive for the virus today
  • 11 people died with the virus in the community in the last 24 hours
  • 6 people died on 22 & 23 April with the virus in hospital

We are on Day 398 since the beginning of Lockdown One, and Day 404 since John and I retreated indoors at the start of it all last year. But we are nearly a month in since the lifting of restrictions in Lockdown 3 (Day 28) and two weeks since we were told we can play in each other’s gardens (Day 14).

Wishing you all a great week ahead, despite the continuing cool weather. Stay safe and God bless.

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