A minor miracle

The carpet’s dry. I can’t believe it. The rain is coming down outside. It looks as though it is has been raining of most of the night but the carpet’s still dry. It seems like a minor miracle. I can’t quite believe it.

It seems strange not to hear a squelch beneath your feet as you go to the back door, or not to hear a squeak as wet man-made soles go on to the dry carpet. It seems so long we have been waiting for the new door.

I’m still not entirely confident that the problems solved. It could be a case of it taking a while for the water to build up inside the door before it starts to empty out. After all the old door had been installed the best part of 6 months before we noticed the water coming in. However, I am starting to breathe a little easier.

Meanwhile we’re both coughing & spluttering away. The Fox’s back had been easing up but somehow yesterday he upset it again.   I suppose you can’t hope for all our worries to go in one day!

Life is getting back to normal after the holidays. Linda, our home help, will be coming along to give the place a clean up. Food shopping will once more get done. An order for medication has once more been put in at the surgery – we need our sweeties to keep us going. The tree, with all its magical lights will soon come down. Life is getting back to normal, hoorah!

Going extravagant

Yesterday we sat contemplating what to do about food for today. Should I get something out of the freezer to thaw ready to cook today?

This is usually not too great a dilemma. I just assume we will be eating at home as normal. Okay, we might have some sudden urge to go out somewhere & stay out for a meal, but that’s unlikely at the moment when we’re both full of colds & the days are so grey & wet.

Why the dilemma arose was because the man was coming to replace our kitchen door this morning. The appointment was for 10.30am, too early to get much food preparation done before his arrival, but too late for me to feel up to hassle of cooking after his departure.

Over the holidays we concluded we should spend more. We’re both feeling our age & you can’t take you money with you at the end of life. We’d been having a discussion about changing our wills, updating them a bit to reflect our current thinking. Did either of us still have things on our bucket list we still felt up to doing but hadn't got around to doing. That sort of thing. There wasn't much, beyond spending time together. So why did we need much by way of savings behind us? With this conclusion in mind we decided to go mad & eat out today. I got nothing out of the freezer.

Come this morning I’m feeling a lot better today – I even managed to sleep a bit between coughs. The man arrives to replace the door. He’s early – 9.30am. I’m suddenly thinking about cooking today. I suggest it to the Fox. He’s relieved. I hastily got the chicken breast out of the freezer & the nondescript creamy mushroom sauce. As the man worked on the door, I prepared some potatoes for sautéing this evening & peeled some sprouts. I’ve got a few ideas of how to try to jazz up the sauce a bit. We’re eating at home tonight. So much for our new extravagant ways!

Part of our problem is that on the whole we’re not that impressed by the food at restaurants, pubs etc. locally. We’ve got a couple of good Chinese ones but there is only so many Chinese meals we fancy. On the whole we prefer our own restaurant at home, even if some of the meals are disastrous. We enjoy the whole process of preparing & cooking the meal, the anticipation of it.

Meanwhile the new door is in situ. Now we await the arrival of the rain to see if the floor continues to get wetter. We won’t really be able to tell for a little while until the carpet has thoroughly dried out.

The workman was amazed by just how much water came pouring out of the door when he’d taken it off its hinges & turned it upside down. A definite puddle poured across the flagged patio. There shouldn’t have been that much water in it, even with the recent weather.

We did celebrate with a little extravagance. We went down to the village pub & had a couple of jacket potatoes for once, tuna mayo for the Fox, prawn & crayfish in rose marie sauce for me. It made a pleasant change.

The New Year arrives

We both seem to have gone down with colds to end one year & start the next. It isn’t our usual cold. Normally we have heads full of cotton wool & we blow a lot – I can get through a full pack of men’s tissues in just one day. We are full of catarrh that takes forever to lose.

This time we’ve both got very dry throats that encourages a tickly cough. Every time I cough a pain shoots through my head & sometimes I become aware of a tightness in my chest. I’m praying that isn’t a sign I’m heading once more into pneumonia country.

But maybe this is a good time to have it. It being the seasonal time of year, so many places are closed & those few that are open are heaving. It isn’t a great pleasure to venture out. It encourages us to take it easy & take a simple pleasure in watching the twinkle of the Christmas lights on our tree.

I feel I ought to make the effort to do a tour of the garden. After November 5^th, Fireworks Night, we found more than 50 plastic cartridges scattered everywhere. As we watched the fireworks in London, then in Edinburgh, I couldn’t help hearing in the background a miscellany of pops, bangs & crackles. Clearly some neighbours had splashed out on fireworks to see the new year in. Having had some champers to the bongs of Big Ben, I just had a mug of tea & collapsed into bed, enough of 2016 for the moment.