It’s Mondaaaay!

Another Monday. Gosh, they don’t half come round quick, don’t they? And I still haven’t done half the things I promised myself I would. Never mind, I thought, I’ll get on with some of them on Monday. Only, I forgot you need sleep to be be able to function each day, don’t you? And I was sorely short of that last night. This is the second night in three nights that insomnia has kicked in. Hello? What’s going on? No idea. Fingers crossed I find the ‘snooze’ button tonight.

“What are you doing today?” John asked. I planned to try and sort through some more of Mum’s papers this morning, then a COVID jab and a Zoom session with Sue and Rod. Ha! Ha! The best laid plans and all that…. I suddenly remembered that I was in the middle of getting everything ready for the baking the Christmas cake, so my reply was thus: “I’ll do the Christmas cake first, then go through some of Mum’s papers this morning.”

This Christmas cake, however, has been a struggle from beginning to end….. First, no mixed peel. So, with much love and labour, I made my own. I overcooked that, but managed to salvage some. Then I failed to read the recipe properly for the cake and plopped the sugar and almonds on top of the flour in the ‘waiting to be put in’ bowl. Only to read that Delia said to beat the butter and sugar…. as you can imagine, it took me while to fish out every grain of sugar. Then I curdled me mixture; then I forgot to put the black treacle in and had scoop the mixture from the tin back to the bowl to mix it in.

And then…… and I overcooked what-I-am-calling Version One of the cake. Twenty minutes too long. Let’s say, although it might be tasty, it’s a bit toasty. Might be following in John’s Mum’s footsteps……Version Two on the drawing board. And I never did get to sort any papers out today.

After all my efforts with the cake this morning, we sat down and watched the T20 cricket again. Another exciting match which (almost) went to the wire. John had spent most of the morning fiddling about with rental contracts on the computer, so was in need of some light relief.

I walked down the hill to the Doctor’s surgery this afternoon for my COVID booster. It’s a well-oiled machine now with lots of us doing the same thing: walk in here; sanitise your hands there; read this leaflet; queue here; go in this room there; give me your arm; sharp prick; go and sit in the waiting room for fifteen minutes and away you go. Felt like I’d been through the sausage factory.

Once home, it was time to Zoom Sue and Rod. It’s a while since we’d ‘seen’ them having hoped to see them in person in September. However, their plan to come down to the Midlands didn’t materialise so we thought we’d chat over Zoom instead. We had a lovely chat. I love catching up with old friends. It’s as if we’ve never been away. Smashing. And John was on top form as well, so that was good. Here’s us all grinning at each other:

We finished watching the cricket before we had our evening meal. After that, John did more rental contract stuff. “You OK?” he asked. ” I am tired,” I replied. Yes, tired out. Come on, sleep! Do your stuff!!

40,077 people tested positive for the virus today. 40 people died in the community; 20 in hospitals in the last 24 hours.

Still wearing my mask. Good to see some people at COP26 wearing theirs, but shocked at the lack of leadership in those who weren’t. Have they never heard of ‘setting an example’?

Take care everyone. God bless.

Susie Dent’s word of the day is one we all need: ‘respair’ (16th century): fresh hope; a recovery from despair.

#COP26