Sunday and it is a birthday celebration day for my youngest daughter. so the household is up and around quite early including me. I check my vitals and then I am helping to do preparation and grandson entertainment. It seems the youngest grandson likes to feed the birds or at least throw bird feed around the garden. After a lunch every one is resting and we are getting ourselves up for going to feed the ducks at the local park when out of the blue my partners brother and youngest daughter arrive, so a big chunk of the family is under one roof. There is tea, play and family conversation amongst moments of quiet.
While the family gets on being family my partner and I prepare the birthday tea. Of course we invite our unexpected family so we juggle the table. With everything ready we invite every in.
Once every body has eaten all they want its time for birthday cake, singing and the blowing out of candles. These are the moments that grandparents like me really like and me in particular as many as I can manage.
There are presents and more tea and chat before the unexpected family return home and the rest of us settle into an evening of putting the grandchild to bed and then watching a film. One by one people drift off to bed at the end of a good day. I go through my night rituals and finally get to don my finger splint and magic latex.
Monday sees the household up as the youngest grandson and his parents prepare to leave for home. before they leave I take my eldest daughter to the hospital to meet a consultant who is going to provide her with the results of some tests. It turns out all of the results that he has examined do not need any from of intervention. One thing unrelated to the others can be contained with physio and lifestyle. As I drove home I get a message that my youngest grandson and his parents have broken down on the way home, so I change plans and drop my eldest daughter off at work, drive home and then with my partner drive to help the stranded family. When we get to where they are there is a handy Starbucks where we can keep the youngest grandchild warm, so we settle in until the RAC are able to repair the car. In a relatively short time the faulty ignition coil is replaced and they are able to continue on their journey home.
My partner and I return home collecting a paper on the way so that when we get home we can sit down and relax at last. The evening drifts into view and with it my partners singing lesson, during which I catch up with the blog. I am now looking forward to a chance to get back into a training routine, but looking at my diary it does not look like its going to happen for a while. I am beginning to wonder if I am on a fools errand and that a routine and regular life is not actually possible if I am relatively fit and trying to live a normal life, given that normal life is not predictable. My only constraints are my 28 day injection cycle that does affect me for two or three days and the current three month chemo cycles. Perhaps I should just allow those two as the framework and then not let myself be constrained by anything else. My problem is that I need thinking time and reaction time. It seems to me that I am trying to adjust to my partners retirement as much as she is. So its night meds, bed rituals and off to sleep, but not before the Tesco order gets finalised, just one more thing to fit in to the day.
