A quiet day so far today, in that a certain person only came round once (while we were getting dressed) and hasn’t phoned, though Dot received several e-mails. Over the past few days more and more people have asked her not to come round; so she has few places left to go. On various days she has rung the doorbell at 7am (four times), tried again at breakfast time on the same day and has actually made it through the front door on a couple of occasions. Happily she’s going to see the doctor on Tuesday. All very sad but also annoying.
I have managed to prepare a manuscript of poems to submit for a competition, but I don’t hold out much hope; I had to choose mainly nature poems or spiritual/environmental ones. I also wrote a sermon for today: I wasn’t particularly happy with it when I delivered it, but several people said they liked it.
Yesterday I got the chance to go with Dot to the football – it turned out to be a good match, with City beating Rotherham 3-1 after going 1-0 down, but the weather was pretty dreadful. Wet and windy. Today is not much brighter, but it’s dry and quite a bit milder. Before going to the match Dot had a flu jab. She now has a sore arm.
On Friday we took part in a quiz at St Luke’s. We were part of Carrie’s team, which included her husband Al (rarely seen, but a nice bloke), Sophie and a guy from her Saturday group called Chris, who appeared to know a lot but wasn’t always right. Some of the questions were ludicrously difficult, and we might have done a bit better if we hadn’t wanted to encourage Chris, but we finished about halfway, I think. There was a buffet and a raffle, and all in all the evening went on rather too long (7pm to nearly 10.30pm). Still, glad we went.
The previous day I went to the doctor’s to check on my medication and had to wait 40 minutes beyond my appointment time. I saw Dr Dani Carlile, who is very pleasant, and got a relatively good result, except that I have to check my blood pressure for a week. My condition is obviously regarded as urgent, as I was booked in for a blood test on December 31, which on the plus side is this year. (It was eventually put off till January 7.)
On Wednesday we went so see Jessie, bearing figs on advice from Roger, and found her relatively cheerful. The previous day Dot had been to London with Anne and had a very tiring day, largely because they couldn’t find a tube station when they wanted one and walked over the Millennium Bridge, then down Fleet Street and all the way up Chancery Lane in pouring rain.
Still, they enjoyed much of the Tate Modern, and Dot also managed to buy some jewellery she wanted from Regency Street (Uno de Fifty) as a birthday present from me.