Just like the day before, yesterday was the second day of what might be termed a ‘normal’ weekend, as I get used to new patterns and rhythms of life. I spent a certain amount of time when I got up just after 6.00am to see if I could stitch in the funeral directions into my blogs so that family and friends who will have to travel a distance to attend Meg’s funeral will have clear instructions to feed into their SatNavs such that they can find St. Peter’s Church, Bromsgrove initially and the Holiday Inn for the post-funeral tea fest. This took a little longer than I thought but I then showered and breakfasted and was looking forward to the rest of the day. My breakfast routine has changed slightly as Meg and I used to have some porridge to start off the day and I followed this up with a slice of toast with Bovril on it. But in a desire to cut down on both carbs and salt, I now prepare myself a couple of rice cakes upon the first of which I spread a little olive oil rather than butter and some Bovril whilst on the other I am putting a smear of an almond butter (advertised as ‘no palm oil’) which I espied in Aldi the other day. I also buy a pack of four little avocados of the ‘Ripen at home’ variety and am then having one of these each morning with a little Thousand Island dressing and the contents scraped straight out of the skin with a spoon. No sooner had I finished breakfast when my very good University of Birmingham friend phoned and he invited me to go and meet him on the park bench that he, I and Meg used to occupy in our COVID and immediately post COVID days. This invitation I readily accepted and when we met up, we were trying to think how long ago it was that we used to sit on this bench together and it must have been the better part of eighteen months ago. In the park, I met four acquaintances well known to me because they generally have a dog which they are exercising and to each of them, as I was evidently without Meg, I imparted the sad news. Two of them that I know better and are also ‘friends of friends’ I invited along to the funeral as I am sure that we will have spaces to spare and having recently posted the website with details of the funeral arrangements, I was able to give them the URL so that they would have a reminder of the due days and the venues involved. One of the acquaintances who has a magnificent labradoodle dog had his wife die last February of cancer but in his case, he was mourning the demise of wife/partner No. 2 or No. 3 I cannot remember which. After a very pleasant stay plus coffee from our own flasks in the park, it was threatening to rain so my fried very kindly gave me a lift home which I really appreciated but not before we had bumped into my Irish friends which is always a pleasant surprise. As soon as I had bid adieu to my friend, I jumped into our own car and went down the hill to pick up a copy of the Sunday newspaper and then had to think about getting some lunch. I had already put some ham in the slow cooker first thing this morning, but to complement this I used some of these ‘steam’ bags of vegetables and then made myself a small portion of mashed potato from some ‘Smash’ that I had in stock. I must say that it was a a bit of an effort to prepare myself a ‘proper’ meal rather than just having a snack but I am pretty determined that I should continue to prepare myself one good meal a day so that I do not slide down the slippery slope of not looking myself and my diet responsibly. Naturally, this was eaten in front of the TV but, of course, there was no Meg with whom to share my meal.
After lunch, I decided to text one of the young male Asian carers for whom Meg and I had a particularly soft spot and in the text gave a link to the recently posted website with the funeral details. He had immediately sent this around the entire group of cares in the company (using their sort of ‘Group chat’ facility) and this was marvellous because with one click the carers, have all of the details of dates, times and venues. He told me that he and one of the female carers in his little circle of young carers were talking the other day about coming to visit me but he himself had just experienced his first car crash and his car was off the road until it was repaired. Having seen carers four times a day for a year, their absence is starting to be felt, although I have been very busy in the last week. Then I made a video call to my sister and we shared the latest news. I think she was a little ‘down’ for quite understandable reasons as the house in which she had lived for the last fifty years had just been sold and this must seem like the last of one’s bridges having been burned. After this, there was a little gardening job to be undertaken although it turned out to be not so little. Before I can mow the back lawn, some large trailing brambles had fallen across it. So I went down the garden, snipped off each of these and then spent some time cutting the brambles into shorter little lengths so that they could be easily accommodated in our garden waste wheelie bin. This little job had to be done as I could now proceed with the weekly cutting of the back lawn (a job for tomorrow) until these brambles had been cleared out of the way. I have a little treat lined up for myself as there is a David Attenborough CGI film on ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ which although a repeat, I feel I will really be able to enjoy.