Isolation Day 85

John decided to take himself to the hospital this morning for his lung function test. Mum wasn’t quite downstairs when he needed to leave so he told me stay home and look after her. Not that she needs much looking after. She came down all dressed today, with her lipstick on, and seemed quite upbeat for a change. After she’d had breakfast, I put some music on from the 1940s, and she spent a happy hour singing to all the familiar songs.

Meanwhile, I closeted myself in the computer room. Having had the idea to house the blog in the family album, I was intent on printing it off and getting to work. I had ordered some decent weight printing paper, and thought I’d put it all into plastic poly pockets to try and protect the sheets for the future. I was very successful up until Day 46, when I ran out of plastic wallets. At that point, I also found that there wasn’t much more room in the album either. So, on second thoughts, I am going to take the sheets out of their protective layers and put them in the album naked.

Back from the hospital, John reported that his lung function is not as good as it was a couple of years ago, and that’s as much as we know so far. We’ll await the CT scan to find out more detail shortly, I expect.

I carried on with printing and filing my blog into the album pretty much all afternoon. I was surprised at how much I have written, and how long administration of this kind takes. You think it’s going take an hour or so and then you can get on with something else, but no. Then, at the end of all of the printing, I realised that one of the ring binders wasn’t closing properly and a repair job was in order. It’s mended now, but there’s hole-punching and re-filing still to do. Well….. it’s slightly better than watching wood warp, anyway……..or is it??

Great excitement and anticipation has been in the air though, as John took a phone call yesterday telling him that his garage door is arriving tomorrow afternoon. Whoopee-doop! Armed with this information, John took himself off down to the bottom of the garden after lunch, to cut up the old garage door. I hadn’t noticed him moving it, but I did hear the angle grinder going. The sound of it caught my attention so I glanced up out of the window as I sat at the computer. Great puffs of smoke and dust and a very satisfying ‘clang’ as one half of the door dropped down once he’d cut through it. John stood back, looking pleased with himself, if a little knackered by the effort. Then my eagle eyes noticed that the ol’ man wasn’t wearing a dust mask. Oh, for goodness’ sake…… I took him a mask.

After we’d cleared away our evening meal, I thought we could watch a bit more of The A Word, which I am finding fascinating. I am not only interested in the family dynamics, of course, which makes the drama; but also hooked into how they are going to deal with this little boy, both socially and educationally. I’m not sure if the series will touch on that, but the suggestion that it might has tickled my interest.

In between times of course, there’s been the standard housework-y jobs including washing, with the resulting ironing pile glowering at me, which I am studiously ignoring. I had thought I might bring forward Mum’s weekly ablutions today, to try out a snazzy seat for sitting in the bath, which we took possession of last week. But I was so engrossed in my admin duties that this task will have to wait. Maybe tomorrow. (That’s such a good phrase…. )

Being in lock down – in shielded lock down – is beginning to pall now that the weather has chosen to be overcast again. Whilst we had good weather, there was almost a holiday feel about it, but the last few days have brought low moods to the household. Certainly my reading and TV material aren’t offering much light relief at the moment!! Hmmm…….. perhaps I should be trying something else? Never mind, I am hoping that the garage door delivery will brighten us all up. It’ll certainly give us something to think about as we try and work how to fit the darned thing!

COVID-19 today: 1,387 people infected. 286 deaths. (Govt figures); 20 deaths, with 46 confirmed for yesterday (NHS figures). It’s still not zero.

Time for a cup of tea, I think. God bless, and look after yourselves – get the kettle on! We always feel better after a cuppa, don’t we??