Friday, the first full day of re-retirement. It starts quite early with the usual meds and the sun shining. I laze for a bit and do puzzles but soon get bored and make a toast breakfast and coffee, which gets taken out onto the patio. I sit and eat and ponder. Later my partner joins me and I then open up the Shed and settle down to write letters. My eldest daughter invites me to the local bird world but she is going early and I do not feel up to it at all so I decline the opportunity. I am sad about that but I am still not right after COVID and today is going to be the hottest day of the year so far. I can not face it. I write for along time pausing only to hang washing out. At eleven o’clock a friend rings and we chat for fifty minutes. We have not talked to each other for ages so there is a lot of catching up to do. We talk about all sorts of things but mostly families until it is clear that my friend is tired, her long COVID is still very much in play and it is clear that being on the phone to me for this long has been tiring.

I continue to write letters until lunchtime when my partner makes me a sandwich, which I eat in the Shed. The day is getting hotter and more washing is added to the line to dry. My partner and I decide that we need to get some food for the weekend, there are sausage craving to be assuaged, so we get ready adn go to the local garden centre that houses a good butcher. We arrive to find the place empty and are soon filling our bags with lovely fresh meat and other goodies. While I stow these away my partner starts the veg and fruit shopping with the trader outside. So having got everything we need we go home. There is a flurry of unpacking, washing rearranging and Shed organising. I realise that I have not posted todays letters so I make a quick trip to the post office. I return to read on the patio. My eldest daughter returns with ice lollies, a delicious treat which go down very well. I am begging to fade, I can feel my spoons ebb away. An Amazon parcel arrives, it is a hygrometer. I set it up and check it is working okay. Tonight we will give the humidifier a go and see if it improves my partners quality of sleep. I feed the hedgehog and lock up the Shed, retreating inside to begin to draft the blog. I’m rapidly losing spoons and feel tired so I am hoping for a lazy Friday night and an early night, perhaps even a restorative bath. So re-retirement has started okay ,I just need to get healthier and stronger, unfortunately its this Monday that I have my monthly jab, which means paracetamol from Sunday to counter act the reaction I sometimes get to it. I’m sure it will get better, maybe.