Monday and I awake to a very chipper partner who brings me hot water and a plan for the day. I surface and take my vitals, which are good and then make breakfast to eat with my morning meds. With the basics done I dress and ready for the “plan”. We drive to Sainsbury’s and the change counting machine to cash in the contents of my elephant money box. The result is pleasing and for the first time I walk out with more money than I went in with. Next stop were a couple of stores where my partner returned items, so collectively we were getting richer as the time unfolded.

Intoxicated with the new found wealth and experience of being cash ahead we popped into Smiths and ran off some hard copies of photographs of the youngest grandson so that at long last we have something to put into the photograph frame that was a present to my partner. With so much done and with food we bought for tonight’s tea we stop for coffee and a roll. Sitting in the window seat of the Soho coffee shop I looked out over the meandering masses of humanity in the Real World and reflected on where all the beautiful people were. Its very ordinary the ocean of people that drift by a coffee shop window but all uniquely different and I have no doubt there is a fascinating story attached to each one. I was not experiencing much joie de vivre, or rather I was not observing much, but then today is a wet, grey February day. This however was broken when one of the staff hugged a customer, an act that got repeated so I guess there is more joie de vivre around than I thought. I just have to be in the right place at the right moment.

We returned home and duly put a photo of the youngest grandson into the empty picture frame and found a home for it in the lounge. I started to draft the blog and returned to reading some of my poetry trying to decide what I would read as typical of my work. As I ponder some of my stuff a friend rings for a chat. We spend time talking about how difficult it is raising children now with all the social media that’s around with its “Dos and don’ts” and “you should look like this” crap and that’s without the darker stuff that rolls around and seeps into everything. Its very difficult for todays children to ignore what proports to give them the answers they seek as they try to navigate growing up. Whatever happened to wise uncles and aunts and grandparents who had seen it all before and understood. Now its all “influencers” who most of the time don’t know their arses from their elbows and have fuck all real life experience anyway. It seems that anyone can have an opinion on everything regardless of how ill informed or ill judged it is and expect to be taken seriously as a right. Any way it was lovely to have the conversation and to be able to talk about things with my friend.

After a bit more reading I go to the post office to get a paper and some tea cakes before returning home and seeking out the crosswords to do. There are three that I regularly do so it takes me a while. Today was a good day and got through them in good time and without need to resort to looking anything up on Google. Serendipitously tea was ready as I finish the last cross word. The evening will be filled with my partners singing lesson and I shall sneak a watch of a football match before a film perhaps or a read. There is of course the last minute check to see everything is on tomorrows Tesco order but then I will be off to bed full of my night meds.