Sunday, its family birthday lunch day so I am up early and showered, after all you can’t smell when you’re with the extended family. I weigh myself and find myself over 1.5 kilos lighter than a fortnight ago, before I went on holiday. I’ve a way to go but it’s a good start. Realistically I need to set my targets for Christmas. Everyone is up and breakfasted in good order and much preparation has been done to get the food ready for travel. At 11:15 the starting gun goes off and we load food into cars and drive off to my partners mother’s house. We bound out of the cars ladened with food of all varieties including the gluten free goodies. Pretty soon all the family that can make it arrive and soon we are all making conversation or putting up the food table. There is conversation and catching up until it’s time to eat and to work our way to the birthday cake. We continue to eat and watch gifts being unwrapped. Inevitably the small children get restless or sleepy and parents begin to depart. With that there is a general exodus but not before we rally round the birthday girl (94) and have our pictures taken. We return home to have a coffee and then wave my youngest and her partner off home.
The evening is a blur now, I watched Lucifer, which is just running out of steam as a concept and a series and then watched two episodes of Capture. The house went to bed, and I watched the end of Stuart Lee’s Snowflake before taking my meds ands going to bed. I always find family days fascinating; the way different couples and generations mix and manage each other. It’s very ritualistic with only the children doing what they actually expressing what they want to do or or are interested in. In an L shaped room, I realised that there was a great deal going on that I had no idea about, it was almost like two different events, but I guess everyone went away feeling they had done their bit, made their contribution, avoided the Harold Pinter play.
Monday, and I cannot give a toss really. I get up have toast and then spend what seems like an eternity entering two poems for a Poetry Society Stanza competition. You can only enter if you are a member of a local Poetry Society Stanza group. I’ve spent a considerable amount of effort and time tracking down my local Stanza and making contact. I’ve finally managed to find the contact person and get the info I needed from him. The next meeting is on the twenty fourth and I am going so I consider myself a member. Thus I have entered two poems. I thought the theme was Nature, when I read the entry form it says Environment. Not a problem I tweaked the existing two and waved them off to cyber space. They too will soon be Herod’s Children and will appear on the blog as rejected strophes. Having sorted all of this it’s time for a lobster bisque lunch and an M&M bar lunch.
Post lunch entertainment was required so I finished the last remaining Wordle that my partner was wrestling with and then I found Stuart Lees Snowflake show recorded in York on the BBC iPlayer. I like the way Stuart Lee deconstructs what he is doing as he is doing it; I find it very appealing. Having been head fed I email to decline an invitation to present at an open forum in London later in October. I’ve just not got the energy or the wellness at the moment to do it justice. I complete the power companies’ letter to ensure I remain on their emergency list if there is a power cut in the future. Guess what they are getting ready for? I walk across to the post box and return to survey the hedgehog situation. I established yesterday when I reviewed the camera footage that the poxy cat from next door has been nicking the food making it look like the hedgehog is still around. It isn’t. I clear out the hedgehog canteen and leave a single dish of meat pellets in the canteen. The cat does not touch the pellets so if a hedgehog should show up again, I will be able to tell. I now have a dozen cans of Spikes meaty feast in the Shed. I am hoping autumn might drive hedgehogs to the garden again. I draft the blog. Listlessly. 5 o’clock rolls round and the evening beckons. The evening is filled with a romantic comedy film, yes really, not a single dead body or act of violence anywhere. The only interruption was to take the Tesco delivery in. Then a news catch up. I take my meds, finish off the blog draft for the day and go to bed. Tomorrow is a small matter of morning blood tests, and boiler service in the afternoon. Somewhere in there needs to be some exercise.
