Saturday, and I wake to my partner preparing to go lunch with a friend. I take my vitals, still all good, and get up to train. The garage is still chilly and with the poetry stanza in the afternoon I set a 45 minute session to give me time to recover. the session goes quite well, I am only 50 metres of a personal best for the time since I returned to training. This is a good outcome so I am pleased I made the effort.
With the training behind me I can have breakfast and prepare for the Poetry Stanza meeting which is in Zoom. I go through the rituals with the technology and then at the appointed time I log in. For the next three hours I hear poetry being read and analysed including one of mine. There is some really good stuff and also some impenetrable stuff that passes me by, these poets know what they are doing and seem very at home with all the difficult stuff. The meeting ends with the reminder that the next meeting in December will include voluntary goodies and the fact that we will be in a different room. My ears prick up, that means the normal room will be in use and that means more cars in the car park, need to be early next time.
Its international rugby weekend so I slide seamlessly into a rugby match, in fact I slip seamlessly into two matches before Strictly Come Dancing is on TV. There are no obvious “donkeys” left to throw out at this stage of the game and its getting unpredictable about who will get thrown out. With that excitement over there is time for an episode of Ellis and then its time to take my night meds and get off to bed. The weather has been miserable and wet all day so I have not missed going out and my brain has been fed by the poetry stanza.
Sunday, by common decree in the household this is to be a hunkering down day as it is till grey and raining as storm Bert continues to pass through. So a lazy start to the day, with much puttering before brunch of croissants and jam and then its into more international rugby, the last full weekend, only the Irish to play next weekend. I read my meters and send off my readings, which get costed straight away. The household is about on budget, so we are being able to keep warm with out breaking the bank. The family drift into the evening sustained by a chicken crock pot before watching the Strictly results show that turns out to be predictable. Another episode of Ellis and some football later and I am downing my meds and getting ready for bed, but then I discover BBC 4 is showing La Boheme from the Metropole. Watch the opening two acts, which have some great arias in but its late and I know what’s coming and I am not sure I am rugged enough for the death scene in the last act, where poor Mimi tragically dies. I go to bed promising myself I will get it all on catch up.
Monday arrives and I have slept well, a recent trend for which I am grateful. My partner brings me hot water, my early morning drink of choice, and goes off to the gym leaving me to book my next 28 jab and a set of hospital bloods at the GP surgery. It is basic health admin but I still find it irksome, I am not sure why, I just do. More so this time as I will have to have my bloods done the heath centre in the next village as this time its due to be done on a Saturday because I shall be away with my partner on the Friday for birthday Spa visit. I’ve just about cleared the decks when the plumber arrives to install the new guts into the downstairs WC. He looks at it all and quotes me a price and says he can do it right now as he has the parts in the van. I agree, make him coffee and he gets on with it. It takes him about an hour after which I get a demonstration of the new push button system where if it ever over flows it overflows into the actual toilet and not out of a pipe through the wall, which is exactly what I wanted. The interesting thing was that before we got going he quoted me the price and asked if I had it in cash as he was retired now. Luckily I had the cash and he was happy to do the job there and then otherwise he would have to come back when I had cash. As I hand over the cash, including a new king Charles £20, we have a conversation about Terry Prachett, he has loads of TP collectables which is trying to sell as he down sizes. We chat about how best to go about getting a fair price and the platforms available to him. He leaves and I finally get to start drafting the blog that I have missed out on over the last two days.
My day, apart from lunching out is unremarkable, a round of the usual, films and resting, which as ever ends up with night meds and bed and thinking about tomorrows to do list and a Tesco order.
