At long last the weather seems to have made a turn for the better because the day seemed bright and cheerful when we awoke. the carer was timed for a time that was early for us at 7.00am in the morning, so I really had to get up and get my skates on so that Meg was up and ready for when the (sole) carer arrived. Yesterday afternoon, I received a text from the picture framing service in the centre of town informing me that my newly framed tapestry was ready for collection. So after breakfast, I trundled Meg to inside the car and we went to pick up the tapestry, just parking outside with our flashers on which seems to be ‘de rigeur’ for this particular shop. They seem to have made a good job of it so I got it safely home. Later on in the evening, when Meg was hopefully fast asleep, I could not resist the temptation of hanging it in its intended position as with its new frame on, it was lighter than the heavy gilt frame in which I first saw it. I needed a slight rearrangement of the furniture to ensure that the picture was duly centred over our two seater settee and it was fairly easy job to extract the old picture hanging hook and to locate it about 4″ to the right of its previous position. Although I measured the distances with a tape measure, often the eye is a better judge of what looks and feels right than a purely mathematical precision. After we had returned from town, we awaited the arrival of our University of Birmingham friend. We had made an arrangement to visit Alcester, a delightful little Georgian town with a good range of charity shops not too far distant. We were very, very fortunate to secure the last available disabled parking spot when we arrived and then we made haste for the other end of the High Street to avail ourselves of a mid morning coffee. When we got there, all of the tables outside were occupied and most of them inside as well but nonetheless. we made our way inside and hunted for a non-reserved table. Not finding one, we were just on the point of departure to hunt for another coffee shop when a couple took pity on us and vacated their table which was a bit like manna from heaven for us. We enjoyed a coffee and a toasted teacake and then decided to hit one or two of the charity shops. I finished off buying quite a nice floral top for Meg, an ‘adult’ Ladybird book for myself (on the ‘Mid Life Crisis’) and finally a capacious coffee mug, suitably labelled ‘Dad’ on the side. We then made our way to the old fashioned inn where lunch was booked and where they know us quite well. It was somewhat arkward to get Meg inside but two of the staff, one already known to us, was kindness itself and between the two staff, my friend and myself we managed to get Meg in her wheelchair conveyed up some shallow steps into the seating area. We all had a pensioner’s meal on sale for less than £10.00 and my friend and I indulged in a little beer to wash it down. Then Meg was getting tired and it was evidently time to go home. But a certain amount of drama was to attend our departure. I was completely blocked in by one police car, another was in attendance and a fleet of three ambulances. I needed one of the policemen to move their car so that we could exit and one of the ambulance drivers told me to seek out the police from inside the pub. As I opened the door, there was at least one body lying on the floor (well, I presume that a shape on the floor covered with a white sheet was actually a body) but I was not allowed any further into the premises and I wondered how many more bodies lay inside. Surely, I reasoned, it doesn’t take two police cars and three ambulances to shift one dead body so I had to leave it to my imagination to speculate whether we had had a shoot-out at the OK Corale and how many more dead and wounded were within. Anyway, we soon got on our way and got home in a fairly brisk time – coming home from Alcester always seems to be a much faster procedure than the journey out in the first place.
Evidently, we had already lunched so whilst Meg dozed, I indulged myself in a little of the Post Office Enquiry where a long serving executive was being subject to a detailed grilling by a KC representing the sub postmasters. Her answers were vague and evasive but she would accept no responsibility for any of her actions. Her responses varied between ‘I did not appreciate at the time’ to ‘I cannot now recall’ but despite the determined efforts of the KC, there was no evidently smoking gun to be found. The sub postmasters who were present in the enquiry were uniformly of the view that she was just lying through her teeth. As the weather was quite fine, I thought I would seize the opportunity to get the back lawn cut, which I did in two ten minute tranches. This I always find to be a relief because if the grass runs away with you in April and May, the rest of the season can become incredibly difficult. Meg’s mobility seems to have deteriorated somewhat in the last day or so and I am finding it quite difficult to get her just to stand, even when aided and turning to sit in a chair is becoming problematic. Perhaps because she was tired, it was difficult to get Meg onto her transit chair this evening but we managed it (via the floor!) Although the carer was early at 7.00pm I was glad to see her because I felt that the sooner I could get Meg into bed and fast asleep the better.