Road Rage

You know you’re stressed when you start shouting at other road users, don’t you? Well, that was me today.

We had got up early to toddle off to Heartlands for John’s treatment of immunoglobulin at 9 o’clock, so it wasn’t even rush hour on the way back. I’m pootling along quite nicely when the road narrows into one lane due to road works, and there’s a long line of those rather beautiful cones, in which I wish I had taken out shares. I am not going very fast – maybe 23 miles an hour, as the traffic has slowed – and I am just about a car length behind the car in front, but not such a gap that would invite anyone in, when another car comes screaming up on the narrowing outside lane, and pushes its way in front of me. I braked and felt irritated.

But not as irritated as I felt when he pipped his horn at me!! What? ‘Scuse me? How is that my fault, you donkey? I pipped my horn back. He leant on his horn, so I leant on mine…. etc etc. I might have shouted a few obscenities from the safety of my car, too. He eventually turned off, but not before he’d done that stupid thing of speeding up and then braking hard in front of me. Grrr……. Idiot.

I treated myself to a hot chocolate and a pain aux raisins when I got home to calm me nerves. I sat on the sofa and brooded about the incident, but then cheered myself up by watching last night’s Master Chef. I was about half-way through the programme when Harriet face-timed me, which was really lovely. It’s not often we do that, so I really appreciated it. We had a great natter and she made me laugh – especially as she was wearing a hat indoors. “Why are you wearing a hat, Harriet?” I wondered. “Ah, well, I didn’t have time to dry my hair last night,” she replied, “and it’s a bit of bed-hair day today, so I’m hiding it!”

Regrettably, we had to finish the call hurriedly though, as the hospital were phoning to let Harriet know that her Dad was going to be discharged tomorrow. Having said goodbye, I decided to keep the pause on my programme and get up off the sofa to see if I could lug the bed-settee, which has been residing in Andrew’s sitting room, down the stairs, on my own. Rather than pay for a new sofa, for which I might pay thousands (perhaps a slight exaggeration) I thought I’d finish off the library area with one of the many settees we have here, so that I actually have somewhere to sit in there.

Being a bed-settee, it conveniently comes apart, so I managed to bring one piece of the sofa down, but I couldn’t manage the other piece. It was far too heavy. I had a good look at it and realised I could take it apart a bit more, so readied myself to find a spanner to undo the nuts holding it together. By the time I got downstairs though, I thought I’d just finish off my programme and have a rest before I did any more. Just as I’d settled, John phoned. “Ready for collection.” he said. “OK, I’ll set off in a minute.” I replied. However, it was a good fifteen minutes later that I set off, by the time I’d watched the programme to the end, and then gathered up my bits and pieces. Poor John had stood out in the cold for a while waiting when I finally arrived….

Bless him. When we got home, he could see what I was doing with the settee and offered to help. Between us, we unbolted the second piece and trundled that downstairs, then man-handled the main bulk of it into situ, with much puffing and blowing. The library looks cosy though – ready for a bit of reading….. maybe tomorrow?

After lunch, I decided to take the bull by the horns and see if Danielle might be up for a bit of a walk round the park at the back of their house. I’m having withdrawal symptoms, and missing, not only my sons and grandchildren, but my daughters-in-law, too. After a bit of a chat on WhatsApp, in which Danielle said Thomas was having a mega-nap, and then a telephone chat, we did agree to meet up. Honestly, I was so excited! John came too, for his daily exercise, and then, a bit of a bonus, when we arrived, Michael said he’d join us as well.

It were lovely and cheered me up no end. Made me chuckle as well, too. Grandpa pushed the pram and Thomas did nothing but grin at him. Michael sauntered alongside, with Chester, the dog, and Danielle and I set off at a pace. Danielle always does that ……. I remember when we kept losing her on our weekend away in Amsterdam….. Anyway, the chuckle was that Danielle and I lapped John and Michael twice! Tee-hee-hee! Missed seeing William though, who was at nursery. Next time, William. Next time!!

And tonight was Quiz Night. Yay! Always, always fun. And tonight was no exception – although parts of it seemed like a marathon, and we spent ages and ages disagreeing, or not listening to each other over Zoom, until the Quiz Master had to intervene and ask “So, have you got an answer for that one? Or not? Are you ready for the next question? Or not?”

With the day over, I’ve had a look at the stats. I make no comment other than to note that the volume of people being infected doesn’t seem to be coming down much or quickly, despite the current measures in place.

• 16,578 people have succumbed to infection of COVID-19 today
• 533 people have died from the virus today
• 169 people have died in hospitals on 7 & 8 December
• Today is Day 8 of our Tier 3 since Lockdown 2 ended
• And we are now on Day 266 since Lockdown 1 started and we hunkered down for what we thought might be 12 to 16 weeks.

Take care everyone. Do your very best to stay safe. God bless.