This morning, I got up after a disturbed night’s sleep. I suspect that I was a little, as they say, over-tired so I got up in the middle of the night and viewed most of a film on Prime Video into which I rather got absorbed after which I slept like the proverbial log. Then on entering the kitchen I was confronted with the food left over from last night’s party most of which I would never normally buy nor eat (such as sausage rolls, cocktail sausages themselves, some fancy fairy cakes and so on) Apart from buying too much, I think I ended buying the kind of food that young people attending the part would like rather than in accordance with my own preferences so I sent an urgent text to my Droitwich friend for some advice and assistance with how to cope with my surplus. If it were unopened, I could always have donated it to a food bank or one of those collection baskets that supermarkets have in the front of their stores these days, but this is not the case. Yesterday for the party, I indulged myself by wearing my good Batic (Indonesian dress shirt) for the first time in abut thirty years. I have to admit it was a tight squeeze but still just about wearable and evidently, it is just the kind of thing to wear on festive occasions. If I succeed in keeping myself on the slim rather than the stocky side and lose another inch or so, then it is probably worth preserving for another year. I commented to my friends last night that how many of us can still wear clothes first worn some 30 years ago and one then remarked, wryly, that would have been impossible in her case as she was only 28! But these are a delightful set of young people and we are resolved not to let the whole of another year pass before another occasion presents itself, perhaps as early as New Year. As I was mentally preparing myself to do my Pilates exercises, having a shower and thinking about the day ahead the doorbell rang – and it was my Droitwich friend, squeezing in 15 minutes after dropping her boys off at the local school. To say she was like ‘manna from heaven’ is no exaggeration because she leapt upon some of the excess party food, some of which she froze and a goodly portion of which she took so that her boys can have relevant snacks whilst at school. My friend and I are well used to collaborating well with each in the kitchen and she knows the location of everything in the kitchen like the back of her hand so between us, we got everything organised into to be eaten today, to be frozen and to be handed onto her boys. I was excitedly chattering about the party and after talking last night about other relationships that had broken down, we spoke of the affection that we have for each other and how fortunate we were both were to enjoy each other’s company. She is going to be insanely busy, not least because a new client her firm had taken on was proving to be particularly demanding but we made tentative plans to see each other again in a few days time, probably at the end of the week when work pressures may have diminished somewhat.
After this delayed start to the morning, I exercised with my Pilates routines but it took a longer than usual as I kept stopping to have a mull over the conversations that we had with some of Meg’s carers in the party last night. This gave me quite a lot of food for thought, and certainly information was shared with me that made me count my blessings as it were. The morning was punctuated by the arrival of Global Health Insurance Card (which used to be called our EHIC card) that I was pleased to receive. Even more welcome was a card from the daughter of one of Meg’s cousin who is now deceased) and we thought that as families , we would try and get together in the Spring when the weather is improved and we can make the journey up to Bolton in Lancashire. Although it is quite a long way, it is practically motorway door to door once we get onto the M5/M6. So we exchanged texts with each with a bit of chatter about family news. I walked down into town and, in Waitrose when was having my cup of coffee I bumped (separately) into two of my church friends, one of whom had been quite seriously ill but who is now recovering (I think) but she was wearing a mask to keep infections at bay. Then I returned home and supplemented some meat and graced with carrots and petit pois to make a heartwarming type of winter stew which I really enjoyed. Tonight, after studying the TV schedules there is going to be a programme on the civilisation of the Aztecs in which I am always interested as our son spent a pre-university year in Mexico. The programme starts at 9.00pm so I think it is a case of jumping into bed at 9.00 so that I can drift off to sleep, should I so wish, when the programme concludes. My son has returned from holiday so it will be nice to catch up with news with him after his early morning swim. My own coffee drinking activities tomorrow are likely to be curtailed as two of our little group are in hospital and the third is probably off playing bowls so I may text her to check her availability. But my Droitwich friend and I have been in touch again with a telephone call at the end of a day’s work so although we are both busy doing lots of things with different people, we still find a bit of time to be in touch with each other. Having had a quietish day to recover from the excitement of the party activities yesterday, not to mention the clearing up afterwards, I think that tomorrow needs to be a Christmas card day as I need to get the international cards sent off as soon as I can. I generally send off about 40 cards but I think my list may well be a bit shorter this year as, unfortunately, there has been some diminution in my Christmas card list this year.