Monday

Start of the week! And lots to look forward to, so I started with more chores…. Having not finished all I needed to do over the weekend, there was still a pile of ironing, still a load of washing up, and still a load of stuff to be put away.

A couple of good things to tick off the list, though, were two phone calls. One to John’s prostate cancer specialist and one to the cat groomer. The former seemed to us to be pressing. It’s a while since the GP said, ‘Hmmm… your PSA levels are up, so I’ll let the consultant know…’ We heard nothing and we heard nothing. I’d tried phoning the secretary a couple of weeks ago and didn’t get an answer. Tried again last week, to no answer; but today, I managed to get through. Regrettably, she had no idea why the consultant hadn’t done anything about John’s situation. “John’s on the waiting list for an appointment,” she said. Oh, great! Let’s just wait then, shall we? Anyway, she said she’d flag it again. I might be hopping up and down before long…..we’ll see.

The cat groomer was a similar situation, where you phone and phone and finally leave a message but nobody comes back to you, so you phone again. I was very pleased when she finally responded this afternoon. Boom! Rio has got to get ready for a haircut…. but not until next Monday. Lordy, he’ll be a mass of knots by then!

John felt exhausted after all the work he’d been doing in the last week or two, so he decided to have a day off, which I think was a good thing. However, as the day wore on, he started fretting about finishing the cleaning of the drive. I had pointed out that the drain wasn’t draining away, so he had to sort that out, but then, he wanted to get the sand down in between the pavers. “I’ll order some from Wickes,” he said, “Click and Collect.” Right…. “I’ll go,” I said, as I could see John was still very weary.

Of course, when I got back with the sand – which was, by now, at six o’clock – it suddenly dawned on me that John would be wanting to get it brushed in, wouldn’t he? And yes, he did. So there we both were with our bags of sand and our brooms, brushing away for all our worth before it got dark. What amused me more than anything though, was the amount of neighbours who walked past and commented on our efforts. I played ‘comment bingo’, and the comment that won, was: “You’re working hard!!” Yes, we were, and it’s done well enough for now.

I had a lovely chat to Jack, as well, who was walking past. Good on him that he didn’t ask what we were doing, nor did he say that we were working hard. We just had a very sensible conversation about his current life/work situation. Marvellous.

Earlier on in the afternoon I had taken Chester for a walk trying to dodge the very heavy showers. There was a cold wind, so I wrapped up warm and popped on my raincoat before setting off. I kept my beady eye on the raincloud that was hovering overhead, expecting it to dump a heavy load of rain on me at any moment. Mercifully, it didn’t. The wind blew in exactly the right direction, and the sun came out. I had a fabulous time.

Mind you, I did walk a few fields more than I had anticipated…..

Aware that Chester, historically, had taken an aversion to black dogs, I thought I’d steer clear of a woman walking a couple of black border collies. I was catching up with them fast, so I veered off to the left and went round an additional field, whereupon I spied another woman with a black dog…..so I veered right, this time, to avoid them. Of course, in turning right, I then had two additional fields to walk. Still, it did me good. Came back hot and sweaty, but buoyed up by the fabulous physical experience a walk brings.

This evening, we trawled through various TV programmes and alighted upon a recording of ‘Endeavour’ and decided to watch that. Honestly, it was such rubbish. Whoever wrote the script should be shot (metaphorically speaking, of course). And whoever directed the programme should go back to drama school. Dreadful. I happily did my ironing while we watched it, and I got more pleasure from that than the programme! I mean, that tells you something doesn’t it? Definitely one to miss in the future…..

In COVID County, we are no further forward on preventing the virus from ploughing through the population. 37,960 people were recorded as being infected today. 40 people died in the community and 15 in hospitals on 25 & 26 September – but I expect those figures to be updated more accurately tomorrow.

Take care everyone. God bless. You are loved.