Saturday now seems a long time ago, I think that is a retired time thing. What I do remember is waking up to my partner telling me the meal we had had the night before had made her sick in the middle of the night and that she was feeling rough. I made us warm drinks and buttered toast which we ate in bed whilst planning the day and the short term future. There is something magical about buttered toast when feeling rough in the morning. Its one of the magical foods like boiled eggs and soldiers and chicken soup, although my preference has always bee tomato. So we lazed for a long time while the toast worked its magic and then slowly got up and pottered around. Eventually my partner and I felt fit enough to take my car to the garage to check its tyres before I drove off to meet friends for a meal later in the afternoon. My partner was sufficiently recovered to drive to her brothers in the village to wrestle with the paperwork required to get support for their mother.

I drove to the Whinery in Burton on Trent to meet my friends. Normally there would be five or six of us but this day there was to be only three. We dined and chatted for three or so hours before going our separate ways. We are of an age where we check each others health and activity with interest. As it happens I was the indolent one of this particular trio, as one friend is still working and the other is a positive whirlwind of activity with a range of charity and community activities that is breath taking. She is truly one of those people who makes the wheels of her community go round. So there is a lot to share and wonder about and we still find things to share about ourselves that we have not heard before even though we have known and worked together for over twenty years and in some cases more than thirty years. The meal, as with friends last night was secondary to the conversation. In the course of our conversation which is often a cause of merriment I heard a phrase I had never heard before which made me laugh. One of my friends recalled telling someone that she was so pissed off with peoples trivia and aggravations that she would never “manage people as long as her arse pointed downwards”. Made me chuckle heartily. I drove home in the rain feeling uplifted and remembering to keep my arse pointing downwards.

Once home the evening was a heady mix of Strictly, rugby and Vincent before I crashed spoonless and quickly, having time only to take my night meds and get myself to bed.

Sunday I woke and wondered what damage I had done to my weight over the last couple days with multiple restaurant meals. When I indulge I usual pit on weight so as I stood naked upon the scales I was apprehensive that I had maintained my “obese bastard” over 98 kilos mark of last week. I smiled quietly to myself as I came in at 97.9 kilos a loss of 0.6 kilos for the week. It is a good omen for the coming month of October that the family has declared a non sweets, cakes or biscuit month. Following yesterdays warm drinks and toast magic I repeated the dose which seemed to go down well. Eventually I get up and while my partner goes down stairs I put my clean clothes away and release the might million tog duvet from its storage space. I get the big winter cover ready to change and call my partner for assistance. We get the winter duvet on quickly so tonight we should be as snug as we could wish for. With ample layers, the heavy tog bedding and global warming we might just get away with not needing to put the heating on till November. I check the garden camera and find that the fox has been to visit us again and that the hedgehog is alive and well. I replace the batteries and replace the camera in the garden. I need to clean the hedgehog canteen and begin to put food out again as winter approaches although I have to say our hedgehog looks quite rotund.

Lunch follows and I settle down to catch up drafting the blog and updating the Tesco order. There will be rugby to watch later. Its a slow Sunday, as Sundays should be as I head towards a week that will include visits to the dentist, the hygienist and the GP for my COVID booster. Somewhere in there needs to be a visit to Kwik Fit to have one of my tyres checked as it is losing pressure. Beyond that I hope for Shed time to catch up with my correspondence.