Sunny spells on Thursday 18 April, with more rain in the evening. Dot hasn’t been at all well, with her head/ear problem recurring. But she improved towards evening, as did I – I had been feeling pretty ropey, but not too ropey to function. Had a bad night and was up early – probably my speed awareness course was on my mind. This started around 9.15 and was run by Natalie, from Suffolk, who did a pretty good job. There were about nine of us.
It was pretty predictable, but the stuff about recognising speed limits and types of road signs was good. The stopping distances stuff was nonsense because it ignored visibility and anticipation, and there was general acceptance that driving slowly is safer, which it isn’t. However she came across well and did as good a job as she could given the circumstances. Dot had a at very quiet day, but had a distanced chat with Bridget when she came to clean. Needless to say we watched a good bit of TV, including Masterchef, Professor T and a Palin documentary on Nigeria. Printed out a hymn for Sunday (Cornerstone).
Friday started off wet, then dry but with a cold wind from the north. Got up early to be ready for the guy coming to service our alarm, but he didn’t come till nearly 10am. Had a bath afterwards and felt tired out as a result. Felt pretty ropey most of the day, but went out for street meet ( all male – Des, young John and Mark) and despite the low temperature felt better, though I was out for nearly 90 minutes. Dot didn’t feel up to it: she is halfway through her antibiotics. Cooked salmon afterwards and we watched TV. I fell asleep during Beyond Paradise. Earlier Dot and I looked at ceilidh music.
Saturday was dry, coolish, windy. Strange day. Dot had a bad night. Got her a drink around 4am. Neither of us got much more sleep. Wasn’t feeling great, but went to church to help with spring-cleaning. Very little energy, but I did a bit. Found some old treasurer’s files, which went out, and some of my poetry books – and my cousin Adrian’s – which I brought home. Felt very tired and went to sleep after lunch: woke to find Dot, amazingly, intending to go to Carrow Road.
I took her in the car – slow because of Morrisons-generated queue. Came home and watched episode of Beyond Paradise that I had largely slept through yesterday. City drew 1-1 with Bristol City. Cooked venison grillettes, then we watched a couple of episodes of This Town – a drama series based mainly in Birmingham at the time of the IRA troubles, but brilliantly done and with good music. In between the two episodes, wrote prayers for Sunday.
Sunday was a similar day, weatherwise. Cold wind becoming tiresome. Dot stayed in bed while I went to church and played in worship group with Steve and Matt. Also did the prayers. Afterwards took Ray home after fetching car from way up Oak Street. Watched quite a lot of TV, including end of Wisting (Norway noir) and more of This Town. David FaceTimed and we had a slightly shorter talk than usual. Cooked eggs and bacon – Dot had a rather more exotic egg concoction.
Monday was still chilly and overcast, but mainly dry. Felt pretty lousy in the morning and toyed with taking my random antibiotics, but Dot didn’t mention them when she came out of the shower, so instead I went to the ear clinic (now on St Augustine’s) and had a microsuction clear-out. Left ear was bit painful – wax stuck to eardrum, but felt better afterwards. Before that Dot went to Morrisons for food, after I’d checked with Joy that she and Phil could come for lunch tomorrow. I wrote two out of the four pieces for Parish Pump, on D-Day and 1984. Too much information! We decided not to go the parish AGM: Dot was definitely improving but was not right yet. I cooked salmon instead. We watched some TV, and Dot finished her Peter May thriller. Mark has gone to Australia.
Yesterday (Tuesday) the weather was pretty much unchanged: cool, overcast, some rain. Neither of us felt particularly well in the morning, but we didn’t want to put off Phil and Joy again; so we went ahead, and it worked out very well. They arrived just after noon and had coffee while I cooked chilli con carne and mushrooms. Dot had bought poppadoms, and we had mango chutney etc. All went down well. Cheesecake afterwards, and quite a long talk after that – found we had similar opinions on some critical issues.
They left around 5pm, and I dozed for a while, then we watched the last three episodes of This Town, partly because the penultimate one lost about half an hour in recording; so we caught it on iPlayer and then watched the last one, which doesn’t broadcast till next week. Excellent production and a good ending, despite a negative review in Private Eye.