It’s that time of year. My youngest brother is 66 today, my father died yesterday (1956), and my mother died tomorrow (1994). Not very nice for Phil to have his birthday framed in such a way, but when we saw him and Joy yesterday they looked pretty well, all things considered. Spent an hour or so chatting after delivering presents.
We ourselves can’t shake off our virus, which we’ve had for about a month. Both still have a cough and feeling very tired and heady: I had to go to bed this afternoon after spending about an hour and a half at lunchtime washing up for the Monday Club lunch at church – about 40 takers altogether. We were only able to go because we’d had to cancel our trip to Kristine and David’s in Leyton to avoid the risk of infecting them. I don’t think we’d infect people with normal immune systems, but David has an auto-immune disease on top of his ataxia.
After lunch we went to the supermarket, which probably finished me off. Watched a TV programme, discovered I had slept through half of it and so went and lay down on the bed for just over an hour. Felt better after that, but haven’t done much else.
Went to church yesterday. Phil was leading, with Liz doing Godly Play on Mother Julian (Mothering Sunday). Quite a long chat afterwards with Phil and Judy about the imminent interregnum and who will be able to do what.
On Thursday took my iPhone in for a new battery, which took about a couple of hours altogether. Had to wait around the mall without being able to do anything. Didn’t want to walk anywhere, because it wouldn’t have registered (!); couldn’t phone anyone up, or play games or check my family’s whereabouts. Or anything else really. Strange how you come to depend on mobile phones. Delighted that phone now charges properly. Again, odd how pleasing this is.
The weather has turned much milder, but it ‘s still very rainy. Haven’t done much walking, because I was pretty exhausted after my one attempt, and it’s probably not a good idea to tire yourself out after having a virus.
Almost forgot. We went see Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri on Saturday evening, and I thought it was really excellent. Brilliant script and plenty to think about. The plot is totally unpredictable. Afterwards we ran into my former colleague Sandra Kessell (formerly Frazer) and her husband Toby.