My lovely friend Kaye called this morning. She brought with her ‘spring’, in the guise of daffodils. How very wonderful. Cheered me up no end. Not only because the flowers were an expression of hope, but because I haven’t seen her for such a long time. Last time we met up was at her house, under her gazebo in the pouring rain, supping teas and coffees, hoping that the virus would go away and we could get back to ‘normal’. I reckon that was last Autumn. Since then, of course, we have hunkered down and basically hibernated the winter away. Anyway, it was a great surprise and a delight to see her. How marvellous that she should think of me. Heartfelt thank you.
After she left, I hot-footed it to the SnuGym for Jaime’s yoga class. Confident that I’d set everything up about fifteen minutes earlier, I thought I would just slide into class, with a couple of minutes to spare, and get going. As it turned out, the lead had fallen out of the laptop and it was dead. No class waiting for me, after all. Had to set the whole thing up again and I was a good few minutes late. I wasn’t best pleased, but after a minute or two of Jaime’s excellent narrative I soon relaxed and sank into my yoga bubble.
Then my second pleasure of the day – my singing lesson. Oh, how I am enjoying that. I learned today why I think I can’t sing and also some breathing techniques to overcome the problem. We started on a different song, which is slightly less tricky than the previous one. Melissa recognised the difficulties I was having – namely, pitching a tune, keeping the timing and singing with any power – all of which, of course, are the key ingredients to actually singing a song. And because I was having trouble with the basics, she’s chosen a song that’s much simpler. Might be able to sing this one. Must practice.
John, meanwhile, stayed in bed this morning until nearly mid-day and then spent the next hour faffing about with his medications. Great excitement today though. He has used the last of the ‘sting-y’ eyedrops that were prescribed, so he’s hoping that agony will be over for a while.
He then busied himself gluing the windowsill down that he’d made the other day and sealing all around it with silicone. Looks a lovely professional job – but then, you’d expect nothing less, would you? Very pleased with it, we are. *Does a little dance* Mind you, I’ve gotta paint it now…..
John passed on lunch, so I made myself a bite to eat before running back upstairs to the computer room to read some of Michael’s work on his recent studies. I didn’t get very far though because it was soon time to open the barber’s shop in the kitchen, and cut John’s hair. “Can you cut it long?” he asked. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Long?” I wondered. “Well, not short.” he said. Ah… I see. It’s winter and we want a long haircut. I cut it long.
I had been hankering for a walk for much of the day but obviously, other things had got in the way. However, after John had finished at the barber’s, we donned our winter coats, muffled ourselves up with scarfs, pulled on warm shoes, gloves and hats, and set off. “We’ll walk to the Post Office and post these letters first,” I suggested, “and then, if you’re up to it, we’ll do the Yellow Brick Road circuit before calling at Pete and Dawn’s to drop some little cards off.” John nodded agreement and off we went. The trouble was, he brought Puffing Billy with him again, so we took our time and spent a while pausing to let others go by/admire the scenery/avoid a dog/listen to the birds singing and so on. So, by the time we got to Pete and Dawn’s, it was dark and they were eating their tea. We just dropped the cards in and went on our way – no chatting for long today.
It was bitterly cold though. The wind was particularly biting and our noses were like little red buttons on our faces by the time we got back home. Despite that, we thoroughly enjoyed our exercise and were pleased we’d made the effort.
Once we’d unwrapped our layers, I started prepping the tea. “Do you want me to do anything?” John asked, in that hopeful voice that says ‘I hope not’. Well, of course I didn’t need him to do anything – interference in the kitchen? Whatever was he thinking?
This evening, John played poker and fiddled about on the computer while I chatted to the girls in the ‘Bibliophiles’ Book Club I belong to. It was a delightful chat and I really enjoyed listening to their views about the book that we’d read. I do feel blessed. What pleasures there can be in life, eh? Even on Zoom.
In other news, the general trend of people infected with the virus is going down although there were 13,494 cases today. There were however, fewer people dying with it in the community – 678. There were 267 people who died in hospitals on 9 & 10 February too, which is also fewer. Cone on, people, we can do it!!
Little Arthur is doing OK having regained his birth weight and (see photo) my amaryllis is be-oo-tiful.
And, for those asking, it was my Mum ‘wot wrote the poem’ that I posted yesterday, from a collection of poetry she wrote about ten years ago. Who’da thought it?
Take care everyone. God bless.