Thursday 29th December 2022 – I HAVEN’T SET …

… any records today for the preparation of a radio programme – except, maybe, for the slowest time on record. It was nothing more than a leisurely stroll through the undergrowth, stopping along the way to pick a few flowers and to smel the air as I wandered along on my way.

It was as you might expect a very leisurely start to the day as well. I didn’t manage to beat the two alarms at 07:30 and 07:45 but to my surprise, and to yours as well I bet, I managed to beat the alarm that went off at 08:00.

And having gone to bed fairly early (at least, for just recently) I had a reasonable night’s sleep once I finally managed to drop off into the Arms of Morpheus. There wasn’t all that much on the dictaphone. I had been in North America. We were talking about cars. My brother (again!) was saying that hire cars had never been particularly good but I explained that that was because they probably hadn’t had a good run out for several years. I told him about the one that I had rented that i’d picked up in New York and then driven non-stop all the way to Colorado and how much better it was once it was thoroughly warmed up. This conversation went on for quite some time. Suddenly my brother had a look at his watch. It was 08:50 and I had to be in work at 09:00 so I had to run all the way down the stairs and out into the car park then get into my car which was a Crown Victoria saloon. It struggled to start but I set off driving at about 50mph across the car park. There was a noise coming from the rear end as if there was a tyre that was flat. I thought to myself “here we go now. I’m definitely going to be late for work if that’s the case. I’ll probably even be late for work if I stop to have a look”.

Now what would I be doing with a Crown Victoria?

So the leisurely stroll through the day was interrupted by a shower at some point early in the afternoon. And clambering into and out of the bath to take a shower is becoming more and more difficult. I’m really going to have to take some dramatic, drastic action about this at some point in the near future otherwise I’ll be restricted to stand-up wahing. That’s no recipe for a long-term programme.

There were a couple of visitors today. Firstly, I have to say, with some kind of sigh of despair, that I’m having a cleaner starting here on Wednesday. The lady upstairs came round and we had a chat with the result that every Wednesday at 14:30 she’ll be round to clean up after me.

It’s a horrible thought having to depend on someone to to the basics of what I ought to be able to do for myself, but the fact is that if something falls on the floor around here, I can’t pick it up and have to go through all kinds of manoeuvres if it’s anything important.

And then the physiotherapist came round. Strangely enough he put his hand on a place on the right-hand side of my lower back and asked if ever it hurt there. In fact, if I walk for any kind of distance or if I sit awkwardly for a while, that was indeed exactly where it hurts.

He reckons that it’s a symptom of how I use (or don’t use) my right knee when I’m moving around or sitting on a chair. But anyway, at least it shows that he has a good idea of what he’s talking about.

While we’re on the subject of making things easier for myself I’ve signed up for a home delivery shopping service from LeClerc. I’ve had a look through the site and I’m busy making some kind of desultory list of what I need ready to have it delivered.

This idea of trying to hitch a ride to the shops with local neighbours hasn’t worked, I can’t go on the bus as well as I would like, and so I have to think of another plan. It might cost much more in the long run but I have to eat. I’m not going to send it off yet because I keep on thinking of other things that I need. And in any case the delivery charges are so expensive that I need to make sure that I have a decent order to make it worthwhile.

The vegan selection there isn’t all that interesting and so I’m going to have to hunt around for a good source of mail-order vegan food. Amazon’s isn’t all that much better so I’m going to have to cast my net wider and wider for that kind of stuff.

Tea tonight was a burger with pasta and veg, and then I came in here where I … errr … crashed out for a while.

Tomorrow I have an appointment for tea and I also have to sort out the money side of things. Things are going to become rather different here over the next few months and I need to make sure that things might happen as I would like them to.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m off to bed and hopefully I can have another decent sleep. At least I actually managed to accomplish something today. Here’s hoping that I can keep it up.

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