Somebody stole my week!

 Well, it’s been a funny sort of week so far.

Monday and Tuesday went pretty much as usual. On Wednesday I went to visit a friend in a hospice on the other side of Manchester. Despite some careful journey-planning by Granddaughter Number Two, it took me far longer than expected to get there. But my friend wasn’t going anywhere and when I arrived she already had an unscheduled visitor. 

Her daughter, a very organised young woman, has set up a spreadsheet so that potential visitors can book a slot. For some reason my phone won’t let me access the spreadsheet, so I had to arrange things by Facebook Messenger. My friend was not upset by my later than expected arrival. As I said, she already had an unscheduled visitor, someone who didn’t know there was an organised rota. My friend also told me she has a better social life now that she is officially dying than she has had in years. So it goes. We’re all too busy getting on with things. She’s very philosophical about it all and still manages to post indignant comments about the state of the modern world on social media.

My return journey was marginally shorter than my outward journey, but it was still quite late when we eventually go around to eating. Maybe we are going to fit into a modern trend. According to this article we British are now becoming more European, or at any rate more Spanish, in our evening eating habits. Personally I prefer to eat a little earlier.

Yesterday also disappeared down a kind rabbit-hole. Granddaughter Number Two, home from university, awaiting final results ready to graduate, has been re-employed temporarily by Transport for Greater Manchester via a temping agency. However, they are being very slow in giving her a start date, which is very annoying as she wants to start earning money. So yesterday she invited herself around for the day, so that she could accompany me to collect her small siblings from school in the mid-afternoon. I collect them every Thursday and bring them to my house on the bus. Their mother collects the, later and gives her father a lift to chess club.

So Granddaughter Number Two duly arrived, not quite so early as the last time she did this but still in time to have breakfast with us. Oh, boy! She barely stopped talking all morning. She can talk for England, I swear. In the early afternoon we set off to walk to Greenfield to collect the small people.and catch the bus home. After we had all had pizza, scrambled eggs, salad, jam sandwiches, ice lollies and so on, my daughter took her father off the chess club, leaving her various offspring here. On her return we went for a family walk round the village, while her partner was off playing football somewhere. This is the second week on the run that we have done so. It could become a family tradition, a pleasant one on the whole. 

This is one of the advantages of having an early evening meal; a digestive stroll is good for you. 

It meant that my Fitbit told me I had done 24,000 steps over the course of the day and overachieved on my various goals! Who knew?

By the time we returned home and my daughter had had another cup of coffee and the small people finally got washed, cleaned their teeth and  put their pyjamas on so that they could go straight to bed when they arrived home, it was almost time for Phil to return from chess club.

So I finished tidying up and we followed what has become another family tradition, well, mine and Phil’s: a quiet beer while we watch another episode of whatever Italian/ Spanish/ French/ Portuguese series we are currently watching. The beer, I hasten to add, is purely a Thursday evening habit!

Today has been less busy - just a load of washing and a trip to the supermarket.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!