Friday and I wake with a sense of urgency as my youngest grandchild is coming to stay for the weekend. I check my vitals and get up to find my partner has already prepared a pie for dinner tonight. I get into tidying mode, putting clothes away and making sure the spare room is clear. Only after I’ve cleared the decks do I have breakfast and my morning meds. There is a pile of stuff that came out of the old car, which has to be put into the new one but am delighted to find that there is loads of storage space under the boot floor. With everything neatly stowed away I install the new car mats to finish off the job. Not long after the family arrive and join me on the patio to have drink and to let my youngest grandson explore the garden.
The family settle inn with cups of tea and chat and then we are off to a local garden centre to buy some outstanding food for the weekend and to have a cool drink and a slice of cake. I drive the visiting family to the garden centre in Elsie, Elsie’s first outing with people on board. She handles very well and I feel I am already getting used to her. My partner and I buy the food we need and then we accompany the youngest grandson as he wanders around the garden centre stopping at things that interest him. We head for the aquatics shop and look at the fish including some very big koi carp that cost an arm and a leg. Eventually we hit the café and have cooling drinks and large slices of sponge cake of various varieties. Refreshed I drive us home where there is still more drinks and I find that I have been sent the final draft of my next publication, an anthology: The Cancer Years: Man to Man. I read through it all one last time including the foreword, that has been written by the chair of the Poetry Stanza group I belong to. It is a very kind and generous Foreword and I am greatly indebted to the author for it. As dinner is served I press the send button on the email that takes the final script to the publishers. All that remains now is to see what the cover design looks like and then, if good, the anthology will be ready to go up on the publishing and selling platform. I am curious to see how this publication turns out and whether is comes close to being what I fantasise it to be. There is talk of an audio book, but first things first.
The family sit down to dinner around the table and chat until the youngest grandchild is ready for his bath and and bedtime. With the toddler in bed asleep the family reunites around the table, eats Strudel and ice cream, swapping holiday stories and memories as they do so. Eventually my guests go to bed and as do my family and I am left alone to draft the blog, take my night meds and relax before going to bed. It has been a good day, a family day and those are to be treasured.
