Astonishing to think it’s almost a fortnight since my last weekly update. Lots has happened so here’s a quick run down.
The absolute highlight was getting my family together. We had my mum and eldest daughter with her hubby come to stay here in the Quirky Museum. I’ll tell you more about that in a mo.
Then the Pastor called
First I must tell you about something rather funny. Last Saturday I took a phone call from the Pastor at our church in Dunstable. I was a little guarded at first, when he apologised for calling me out of the blue and asked if I could spare him a few minutes. He never calls me, so why was he calling me now? Was he calling to rebuke me for something? Perhaps being a little irregular at church, or even attending the village Anglican Church or perhaps not being very compliant with something or other….? I can tell you I was very puzzled and a little perplexed. I could feel myself getting a tad defensive and feeling the need for some quick thinking
Then he explained how he has bought himself a new bike and had problems fitting his pannier bags. “Phew” I thought “this doesn’t sound too bad” and started to relax.
Turns out he had gone to the ‘metal work’ expert in the church and they both Googled their question about pannier bags. They were amazed when they immediately found the answer to my question by finding my other blog on the first page. They opened it up, saw it was my photo on the header and how I described the solution to their problem! I had blogged that a few years ago.
Thing is, this isn’t an isolated incidence. A handful of friends have stumbled across one of my blogs while searching for something – how funny! Mind you, there’s no saying whether people agree with my ramblings, everyone is too polite these days.
Family reunion
I simply can’t remember the last time when we were altogether, well over a year now and this must be the same situation for thousands of other families. Nevertheless we did manage to engineer Becky and David coming last week in their funny little car. The following day my mother arrived and they left on Sunday and Monday respectively.
The highlight must have been going to Great Barford, further up in Bedfordshire, for a glorious day. Hannah has a couple of paddle boards and she borrowed another two, so some paddling happened in what must be the most quintessentially English place. The river was flowing gently, it was warm but not too hot and all the ingredients were there for such a perfect day.
Other highlights were simply all being together. We have a table big enough for us to all sit around and eat together, almost like Christmas in June! Having my family together meant a lot to me.
A couple of bike rides
My friend Paul gave me, I suppose, a heck of a nudge about needing to cycle. It was something about asking if my tyres were completely flat, as if! Actually they weren’t far off.
So I pumped up my tyres and Hannah invited herself to come along and join me. We did 10 miles, a nice loop going through little hamlets and back up to the village. That’s the trouble with the village, lovely as it is, we are on the top of a hill so any run or bike ride will involve returning in an uphill direction.
I digress. The ride was lovely, once of those increasingly rare Daddy-Daughter dates. The following day I repeated the ride on my own, adding a few miles via Woburn. I can feel the lure of the tyres once again as it’s a few years since I did any serious cycling.
Health
Well things are okay and have settled down nicely. My blood pressure is a steady 120/80 and so it should be with the current cocktail of tablets! Last Monday night completely threw me by waking up in the night and feeling sick. I was then throwing up all through the night and consequently completely shattered for a couple of days. I don’t think there was any rhyme or reason to it at all.
The funny thing was, I said to Rachel in the days afterwards about tea not tasting right. I thought my taste buds must have been affected until we looked at the ‘use by’ date on the milk bottle…..
So things are looking okay health wise. Things are stable, ticking along alright and perhaps I’m not in bad shape for a 59½ year old.
Keeping my brain ticking over
On Friday I found myself in a meeting with some NHS professionals, all about social prescribing and absolutely nothing to do with my health. I wasn’t wearing a patient hat at all, although it did feel a little like I was back at work.
Social prescribing is a brilliant concept and definitely here to stay. So it was lovely doing a bit of strategic exploring, being imaginative and bringing people on board. It was sitting in the meeting with a notebook and pen in front of me that made me feel, most of all, as if I was at work! I can still hardly believe that 3 years ago I was working my notice period as I quit to retire early. It still counts as one of the very best decisions in life that I’ve taken; certainly a very happy, stress-free time.
As if that wasn’t enough on one day, I found myself in a Zoom call hearing all about a couple of hospital Doctors (who are also fellows in the RSA) trying to address the huge mountain of waste the NHS produces every day, week, year, decade…. Suffice to say it is a fascinating project which I will hopefully hear more about another time.
So there you go, a fortnightly update and my apologies for being so tardy. I’ve jotted down a few things which has happened, although to be honest, it is a little quiet generally. Next weekend Hannah heads up to Cumbria and then I’m hoping we can seriously make some progress here in the Quirky Museum – yay!