Unexpected pleasures…..and pain

I was up bright and early this morning to get to Jaime’s yoga session, leaving John in bed. I always look forward to yoga – the classes are always helpful and uplifting. However, this morning, the class was unexpectedly soothing. We are doing Somatics – which is a yoga practice designed to help re-educate our brains in the sensing and moving of muscles.

“Can you feel your calf touching the floor?” Jaime asked, as we set off on our sensory journey. Yes, of course. “And your thigh?” Erm…. well, that was a different matter – was my thigh touching the ground? Do you know, I wasn’t sure. And so it went on, with me realising that actually, I am not always aware of what my body is doing. The class turned out to be very therapeutic, enabling me to put out of mind all those things that worry me. Excellent stuff.

I arrived home to find the garage door open. Oh, had I accidently opened it as I left this morning? Nope. John was in there, wrestling with his car project. Well, that was good news. He was clearly feeling up to it. Except he was a bit disgruntled that he’d lowered the car down on its swanky jack, only to find he’d forgotten to put one of the arms down and bent it in the process. Darn it.

I came indoors and, instead of doing the jobs that I’d planned, I sat down on the sofa and did a few puzzles and ate some chocolate. Hmmm….. chocolate – delicious, but it’s never a good sign really – it means I am overthinking something even if I don’t quite know what it is.

John came in from the garage, wincing with pain. What now? He’d lifted a breezeblock and as he turned to put it down, something snapped around his ribcage and there ensued a rather painful sensation. Oh, dear…… sprained muscle? twisted tendon? cracked rib? Who knows.

Regardless, John was still game for visiting Pete and Dawn this afternoon, and we walked there, albeit slowly. We enjoyed our time there having a good old natter and, because he was sitting down, the ol’ man didn’t feel too bad.

Unexpectedly, Michael had phoned earlier in the day and wondered if we could offer our help in looking after the children for an hour or so, which would be very beneficial, if we had time, please? We rarely say ‘no’ to looking after the children, so after we’d seen Pete and Dawn, we shot over to Sutton Coldfield, with John still game for visiting Michael and Danielle, despite his discomfort. They were having a tidy-up because the photographer from the estate agent is coming to take snapshots of the house and garden tomorrow.

Regrettably, John wasn’t up to doing anything physical when we got there, so watched on, wistfully, as I played with William and Thomas, snatching them from the jaws of the lawn mower as Michael ploughed up and down the lawn. It was very delightful to be there and playing with the children, and John quipped as we left, “Next time you need a hand, Michael, I’m happy to come and bring your Mum and offer her to help.” Made us all chuckle.

On the COVID front, today’s positive count was 36,660. Contrast this with the figures Gail has just sent me from Australia: 118 on Monday and 89 yesterday. They class this as an outbreak and view it as ‘having got out of hand’……

We had 50 deaths today in the community and 15 on 11 & 12 July; Australia had 2 today.

On 7 July hospital admissions rose to 564, with the previous seven days total showing a 50% increase in people having to be admitted.

The vaccination programme continues and we now have 87.3% of the adult population having had their first jab; and 66.4% having had both jabs.

Keep on keeping on, folks. We’re hunkering down from 19 July. God bless.