A Quiet Day

After the excitement of the last week when we have entertained, or been entertained non-stop and generally enjoyed ourselves, we found we couldn’t sleep last night. John had a ‘toss and turn’ night and I woke up at 5 a.m. and then found I couldn’t get back to sleep.

I pottered downstairs just before eight and had breakfast and so on. John came down just after eight and was surprised that I was up before him. He thought he’d left me sleeping like a baby.

I busied round with this and that and was surprised that by the time I’d done a few chores it was still only 10 o’clock. It felt like it might be long day.

“What are your plans for the day?” John asked. My plan? To make inroads into the Christmas card writing and Christmas gift-wrapping. I’ve started but there’s still a long way to go.

It’s the little things, isn’t it? For example, last year, I bought some small gifts to put inside home-made crackers; saved loo rolls for said purpose; bought the ‘snaps’ and chose just the right paper to wrap them in. In the end, I didn’t make them because we were locked down. So this year, I am hoping to have them ready for the family dining table. The job has been on my list for months. And yet, here we are, three weeks before Christmas and I haven’t even started the darned things yet!!! Might have to buy some yet……

This morning, before the clouds scudded across ominously, John was determined to go for another walk. So we took ourselves a walk along the ‘Yellow Brick Road’ – which took a little while because it wasn’t half windy. After a sleepless night and the exertion of a walk, John was pretty tired so, while I scribed the Christmas cards in the dining room this afternoon, he availed himself of the opportunity for a snooze.

Anyway, that was more or less what I did all day – faffed about with Christmas stuff.

In between times, we did have some pleasant interludes chatting to friends and family on the phone, and even had a minute or two on the doorstep with Paul and Freddie, who had called in to collect some bits and pieces to take to the Sutton Sleaths. Freddie had been invited over: “I’m going for a sleepover!” he announced, excitedly. Paul looked relieved. Not that you want to get rid of your children, but just for one night it’s nice to have a bit of respite, isn’t it?

William was excited; Thomas was excited; Freddie was excited. I am not sure how the adults over in Sutton were feeling, but it looked like the event was going well. Here are the children enjoying a ‘midnight feast’ in the garden and a ‘late night’ film.

We’re planning an early night. No late night film or midnight feast for us – unless, that is, we can’t sleep again and we end up coming downstairs to while away the night.

In COVID news, there were 50,584 cases of people who tested positive for the virus yesterday, and 42,848 today. In the last 7 days, 315,731 people had reportedly contracted the virus. Those are the reported cases. Thousands upon thousands of people poorly. Lordy, Lordy.

143 people died in the community yesterday with the virus; 127 today. 827 in the last 7 days. Hundreds of people dead in a day; even more hundreds dead in a week.

Scientists are urging everyone to take all the precautions they can against the new strain of the virus, Omicron. Basically, because they don’t know how it is going to sweep through our population and they suggest that it is better to be safe than sorry.

The government, on the other hand, is telling us to ‘wait and see’. Well, we know how that’s turned out for us previously, don’t we? I think I’ll listen to the scientists…… how about you?

‘When we have each other, we have everything’.

Sending love to you all.

And prayers for strength and resilience to support each other, come what way.

God bless