Friday in Felixstowe and I wake up early and read for a while. Once my partner is awake I make drinks and we lay about chatting. The sun shines and the rolling sea rolls on out side our window. Its quiet here, no traffic noise. We get up and dine on eggs and smoked salmon with marmalade toast to follow. Of course there are meds to take. The decks are cleared and we go to the top of the house ,open the balcony and sit and read. I am well into my, The Good Place and Philosophy book. Its a collection of philosophical essays based on the TV series The Good Place, a humorous philosophical sitcom. Basically is asks whether humans (mostly) can become good and act ethically and be happy. It raises surprisingly difficult questions in a very entertaining way. The essays are written in the same spirit by mostly philosophy professors. Any way this take up some hours of what is left of the morning, while my partner sits on the balcony reading. We decide to go out to visit Landguard Fort just down the road. As a treat I get my hair plaited by my partner as I have yet to master the art myself. My plait is getting longer as I survive my cancer.
As we get ready to go out I make a discovery, the lock on the toilet door is dysfunctional, I cannot get out. My partner comes to assist and between us we manage to get the dead bolt part of the lock to function. I am sprung! The lock is clearly faulty as is the one on the ground floor where it will not open because the latch bolt is catching on the strike plate as it will not withdraw fully when the handle of the door is turned. That will be useful feedback for the landlords. I drive us to Landguard Fort about five minutes away, I cannot face the walk and the uncertainty of what it might do to me.
The jolly woman on the gate sells us to concessions and hands us our audio tours. I’ve not done one of these before. Apparently there are 32 informative audio inputs along a route that explains the history and function in detail by a narrator and a fictious character of the time. Fun you might think and interesting and to a degree it was, my partner stopped using hers after about number ten, I persevered to 26 and then had lemon drizzle cake and and drink. I think I faltered after the big gun.
Having had drizzle cake we fled the fort and returned to our town house refuge long enough to dump stuff and then went to the restaurant down the road for a snack. My partner still had circles on her watch to close so we walked the promenade and found that the one shop that sold sea side crap was actually open. Having loaded up with a baby sunhat with dinosaurs on it, fudge and postcards I paid and got into conversation with the bloke who ran the seafront shack. He was a local born and breed and new everything, I mean everything, about Felixstowe, and he was determined to share it with us. It was in fact quite interesting from the hotel that Wallace Simpson staid in for six months while getting her divorce to the smallest country in the world being a manmade installation twelve miles out to sea. Google it he said, I expect I will. We finally got away having got his recommendation for the best fish and chip shop. Returning home we were knackered. I slumped in an armchair and eventually started to draft the blog while my partner went to have a shower.
The evening will be tea, something simple, and the a world cup rugby match. I shall take my meds do my vitals again and get an early night. I am aware that I am facing my injection on Monday and already I feel myself getting tense. I console myself with the fact that I have made two people smile today. A friend to whom I sent a picture of the sea and another to whom I sent birthday flowers to. That will have to be enough for today.
