Thursday and I wake up with a streaming nose. A cold surely not. So I am up early downing a coffee and looking for my Actifed. I do toast and more coffee to wash down the morning meds. I check my messages and emails and find that members of the poetry Stanza are sending poems for Saturdays meeting. I start downloading them and later in the morning I print them and spend time reading them. There is some really good stuff and some stuff that does not touch me. Bound to be the case I guess. My own submission is one of my Herod’s Children, the failed Ducks at Swinfen poem. It’s a poem I feel safe to share. I will be interested to hear what people think of it. The format allows for each poem to be discussed by the group with the one rule that the poet responsible cannot join in, at least not till the group is done with it.
I spend part of the morning deciding on the food for our guests on Saturday. Because I am at the Stanza in the afternoon, I have chosen things that I can prepare beforehand. As autumn draws on I’ve gone for plain but hearty food with a touch of lightness as a sweet. I shall be starting with couscous stuffed beef tomatoes, followed by beef Bourguignon. The finishing dish is strawberry prosecco jelly with a touch of Greek yogurt and a smidgen of honey. Cheese board to follow, with coffee and mints. I hope that my planning means that I can time my Stanza and the meal in harmony.
A friend rings me on her way to the golf course and we have time to chat about the letter she sent me. She is in the process of moving house so there is much to do and to consider while dealing with the slowness of the process. She arrives at her golf club and we cease our conversation. Another friend sends me a link to the explanation of the energy cap arrangements, so I finally grasp what the caping system actually does. I still need the winter energy strategy and that means next month I shall treat myself to one of those blankets with arms and a hood. I have found one that is covered in leopard’s heads. So come October I shall be pursuing my dream blanket.
The postman arrives and to my great satisfaction my new seal ring has arrived. I am like a child with a new toy and open it immediately. It is bright and shiny and I cannot wait to get it onto my finger. Yes of course there are pictures:
It is strange how much I am relieved to have my seal ring on my finger again. It is as if I have regained part of myself. My partner goes to see her mother and I go to the Shed where I have a letter to send. I use my seal ring for the first time and then I hot foot it over to the post office to send my letter on its way. While visiting the Shed I check the hedgehog canteen but none of the food has gone, so the hedgehog I photographed a couple of days ago appears to have been passing through. By the time the garden guy turns up my partner arrives back from her visit, so I set the gardener the chore of mowing the lawns as I was aware that it was forecast rain over the next couple of days and we would be running out of opportunities to get the last mow of the season done. As it turns out I was right, the mowing got done just as a shower arrived. My next task is to put the covers over the garden furniture. I do not think we are in for an Indian autumn, and I do not see me sitting outside much from now on.
My partner makes the evening meal while I write my shopping list for Saturday’s meal. We eat and then she goes off to the office for her online singing lesson and I begin the drafting of the blog. My evening will drift a bit as I blog, read, catch up on some TV before getting myself to bed. I have a COVID booster jab booked for tomorrow, so I am hoping that I wake up without the excesses of a cold.
