Waiting…. and reward

I think it’s about 30 years since John built the little extension on the side of the house, to make the lounge into a little L-shape. A cosy area, away from the thrum of daily life – first it was John’s study area and then I encroached, working from home. Over the years it’s been many things – and mostly, just recently, it was the children’s play area until we made it into the library. I waited and waited for a library and now, I’ve finally got one. I thought I was made up at that. But what we have now, must surely put the icing on the cake!!! We have a windowsill in there! Just one – the other one is yet to be crafted, but what a beauty the one we’ve got, is.

You may ask, didn’t we have windowsills before now? And the answer would be, no. We had painted plaster but not proper, wooden sills. With the advent of the lounge decoration, John has thought how nice it would be to finish it all with a flourish and create lovely sills in front of our new windows. *Does a little dance* Eeeh…. he’s gone and done a proper job – and, you never know, we might be civilised yet. Thrilled, I am, thrilled.

In other news, I spent the morning reading in bed. John also spent much of the morning in bed, but he did get up before me. But I was determined to finish my book. It’s the ‘Bibliophiles’ Book Club on Friday, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed at not having finished it. It was a cracking book, too. I really enjoyed it. ‘The Birth of Venus’ by Sarah Dunant, if anyone’s interested.

Once we were up and about we both had jobs to do. Obviously, John’s was creating, from scratch, the windowsill I may have mentioned. Mine, was to finally vacuum and mop the floor in the porch following its makeover with new windows and door, and generally start to get it ready for painting. Yup, another paint job. Of course, the cleaning spilled into the downstairs cloakroom, the hall and up the stairs, so everything took a little longer than I expected. But it’s a bit tidier anyway.

However, it feels like we’re living in one of those little sliding puzzles we used to have as kids. Remember them? You move one tile along so that you slide another onto a different row, before shifting it, or another one, to get it into place.

So…. in order to set up the lounge and library, I cleared it all out and stuck things I didn’t want into the dining room. Now then, I’m aiming to have a go at decorating the dining room at some point. So I’ve gotta move all the stuff upstairs. With me, so far?

The children’s toys and the Christmas decorations were also transplanted from the lounge and library into Andrew’s ‘living room’ on the first floor i.e. ‘upstairs’. Hmmm…… I don’t think I can move the clutter from the dining room until I’ve shifted the stuff ‘upstairs’ into the loft, or taken it to the tip…… *shudders at the thought of throwing things away*. Still with me?

Anyway, the first step in the sliding puzzle was to sort out the porch. Confused? Well, it was so that I could move the chair and walking stick stand back to their rightful places from where they were ensconced in the dining room. I’ve taken one step in the right direction anyway. The full picture is yet to emerge……..Next!

I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted just writing about it, so you can imagine that after we’d eaten our evening meal we just flopped on the sofas and relaxed this evening. More sliding puzzle games tomorrow, no doubt – unless I get my paintbrush out. Now, which is it to be, I wonder?

In the wider world, we are hearing that many of our friends are now moving along the escalator towards having the vaccine, with several having had the jab, and others having got them booked. Good news that. Not that it’s going to make a vast deal of difference to our way of life from what I’ve been reading. We’re still likely to catch the lurgy but, joy of joys, not so likely to clog up the hospitals because the infection won’t be quite so severe. Mind you, I wouldn’t want it to be much more severe than the reaction to the vaccine – it wasn’t very nice, even that.

Prayers, then, are with all those who are suffering from the virus and its effects, as well as all those who are struggling because of the lockdown situation. It’s exceedingly hard for everyone, but for some, it’s an especially tough time in these winter months. Mind you, I did declare to John, with some glee, that it was light at about 5.30 this morning and was still (nearly) light at 5.30 this evening. That’s 12 hours of daylight folks!! We just have to get up to see it……..

• 12,364 people tested positive for the virus today
• 1,052 people died in the community with the virus in the last 24 hours
• 265 people died in hospitals on 7 & 8 February
• The rate of admission to hospitals is declining – down 22% last week.

We are not absolutely sure when our lockdown will end now, of course, given the concerns about the new strains of the virus and so on. I am counting the days. Today is Day 35 of Lockdown 3 and Day 327 (I think) since Lockdown 1.

But how confident are we of those who are making the rules? It feels less and less liberal – or perhaps I am reading the wrong information – when you hear that someone coming to the country could face 10 years in prison for failing to declare the original country from whence they have travelled. Ten years? Goodness me – there’s generally a lot of sticks and not many carrots being offered now, as far as I can tell. People behave best when there’s reward, don’t they?

Take care everyone. Stay safe and God bless.