“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late for a very important date” – or so the ditty goes. At least I can blame my tardiness on the Easter bank holidays in running late. We have had another busy week, even though I’m always disorientated by the bank holidays. Here’s a quick run down on what’s been going’ on…..
Meeting family
Yesterday, on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, we drove down to the New Forest and spent a few hours with my daughter and her hubby David. Although quite a trek for us all and so jolly cold, it was worth every minute. We last saw them in January when they joined us for Grandma’s funeral, a difficult time for us all. Before that was in mid December, so I have missed them a great deal, just like thousands of other families have missed seeing their loved ones during the latest Lockdown. At least things are easing.
Another UTI
My week has been dominated by a urinary tract infection, a UTI. I will blog separately about this as it’s quite involved. I know quite a few people who have urology / kidney issues read my blog, so it may resonate.
Volunteering
I spent a couple of l-o-n-g mornings in the local medical centre, helping out as a volunteer. The second round of COVID vaccines are being administered locally and they need volunteers for marshalling in the car park, welcoming people and steering people through various stages through the building. I am doing another three mornings this week.
I had asked for an indoor job this time, it was simply too cold outside for me, standing around for hours. Interestingly it seems men end up in the car park, and women have the inside jobs, so perhaps another example of me going against the grain!
At the moment it is more elderly folk coming in, plus a few younger health care workers. Some of the elderly people say how they’ve not been out for so long, or hadn’t seen their family for almost a year and they just needed someone to make contact with. I happily chatted since my role was keeping an eye on the waiting area while folk waited out the mandatory 15 minute post-injection rest.
The manner in which a community – made up of individuals – pulls together in an emergency is important. People of all walks of life getting involved helps a community, and wider society, to become stronger. Just about everyone can help in some way and it’s nice being a part of that movement. I like playing my part alongside many others.
And here in the Quirky Museum
We have managed to find new homes for a few more bits and pieces but plenty more to do. Amongst things we still need new homes for include an ancient set of scales for weighing a baby, because you never know when these might be handy to have. There are the travel trunks from yesteryear and a few pieces of furniture. Some of these things need valuing properly before they’re up for grabs.
We also have some more people lined up for looking at the Victorian windows at the front of the museum. To be honest, no worthy quotation will be cheap but we need to, somehow, evaluate the different approaches the specialists will take. Thing is, once the Victorian windows have been removed, it’s not as if they can be refitted if we don’t like them.
We also have Dave the ‘boiler man” coming to look at the boiler, with a view to replacing it with a more efficient heating system, especially now the time clock seems to have packed up. Jeff our friendly carpet fitter is coming in a couple of weeks with a nice plain light grey carpet for “my” sitting room – I’m fed up with draughty floorboards. They might look nice but staying warm is more important right now.
Creeping back to church
Throughout the various Lockdowns, we have made use of church online, through Zoom and YouTube. A couple of weeks ago I went back to our regular church. Still seems so strange having to wear a mask and sit in an allocated seat without any talking allowed. On Good Friday Rachel came back with me; it was a communion service and we were struck at how solemn it was, quite rightly.
On Easter Sunday we went to the Anglican Church in the village; we were both keen to do this and we believed it was the right thing to do. It was also a poignant time for us: Rachel’s mum was born on Easter Sunday – the fourth of April and she would have been 95.
Both churches are lovely, for very different reasons. Both have lovely, likeable and genuine people who were are friendly with us but they are both very different as the same Christian faith is expressed and taught.