On the up?

We had no particular plans yesterday or today, apart from a yoga class for me this morning and John intent on doing his mile a day.

A ‘no plan’ day means that we can faff about with bits and pieces at home. John in particular, is always happy to have such a day, because it means he can knuckle down and potter in the garage. I have no real idea of what he does in there, but it’s clear that he’s enjoying it.

A ‘no plan’ day also means that we can indulge in activities that we might not ordinarily do. In my case, it meant that I could choose to go into Solihull to shop for new lingerie. In the event, I spent all my time in John Lewis, rather than round all the shops, and I spent all my money there. Well, now that M&S has closed down in town, where else do you go for such items? The shop was reassuring, too – there weren’t many customers and the assistants all wore masks. Boom! That’s my sort of shopping, thank you very much.

I had a successful trip and came back, not only with the lingerie I had intended to buy, but also with some new make-up, two new cardigans and two new roasting tins. I do love an impulse buy, don’t you?

John is still doing his walking and is a mile ahead of schedule. Today he did two miles instead of the requisite one and, in my opinion, it is doing him a lot of good. He looks better and is moving more freely, so it can’t be bad. Not only that, although he is still out of breath when he comes up the stairs, he isn’t as bad as he was. Another Boom! That’s the way to do it. Clearly, he just needs the motivation. How can we tempt him to continue, eh?

Meanwhile, I have had a slightly better day today after the doldrums yesterday. I went to yoga this morning and Jaime, the dear girl, did a great job of giving me sage advice and just the right postures to uplift my mood.

In fact, when I got home, I felt able to tackle the clearing-out of the bottom of the wardrobe this afternoon. Not something I have been able to face in recent weeks – anything that requires a decision has been much too hard!!!

I do hope things are on the up. We don’t want to be in the doldrums for too long, it’s an ‘orrible place to be.

You may recall that I did some wallpapering the other day round at Michael and Danielle’s, so here’s a little pic of their artistic vision and my handiwork.

Given that the news emerging from Ukraine continues to be so distressing, I find I can only watch a little of it. What can we do, other than send money to the agencies helping those poor refugees? “Are we going to offer rooms to a Ukrainian family?” John mused. “Yes,” was my reply, “if we are called upon, we will.” Not sure how it would fit in with our shielding situation, but God knows, if it was us in that predicament, we’d want to know that someone would be there to offer us shelter.

In COVID news, not surprisingly, Harriet has now tested positive, too. Freddie is on the mend, Paul is feeling extremely tired and Harriet declares that she’s not going to give in to it…… let’s hope they all feel better soon.

The fact is that the numbers of those infected with the virus are rising: 399,820 people tested positive in the last week, which is a rise of just over 56%; 730 people died with the virus in the last 7 days – a rise of nearly 3%; and 9,475 people were admitted to hospital in the same period – a rise of the almost 17%.

Take care everyone. God bless.