Bridge and More

This afternoon was back at the bridge club and to find that, partnering the leader, we came third. This afternoon we had two teams and our team lost, although not by much. A good time was had by all.

Back to the ranch and managed to park with something of an effort as I reverse in better round another car, but in this case I wanted to be three bays along from a car as this should keep me away from the risk of cars parking across my boughs.

Into the lounge to find that a cup of tea was awaiting me, and also a fairy cake made by one of the Scrabble players.

One of our ladies came over with the scarf I had ordered, having seen it almost completed; it is a wonderful mix of colours pink, purpleand turquoise mostly so that it will go with many of my jumpers. I have also ordered a pink mix and a black mix. Find something good and buy the lot...

I arranged that, if the ground is in the least slippery, one of my friends will pick me up and wald me to the Church.

Home again to peel the potatoes and carrots and purple cabbage to go with my stew

Road works

I see that I noted on 10 April that there were road works going on in our car park. Today is 26 April and we have just got use of the whole car park again. When the car park was constructed the material was these fancy road bricks, you know, the kind they use in driveways, and they used a darker colour brick to indicate the edge of each parking bay.

So the Electricity Board have relaid the bricks but without any indication of the width of each bay.

I forsee problems ahead..........

Later Still.....

.....

errm

the doctor's appointment is for next week. The receptionist did offer me an appointment with the locum, but I waited over 2 weeks to see a particular doctor, so I declined with thanks.

Still no parking bay.....

More Physiotherapy.

Having missed 3 weeks due to the Easter break, and also having fallen last week, I was a bit concerned about how much I would be able to do.

In fact, I managed remarkably well, even increasing some things. On the "walk", I had to give up early, as at the end of every nine-metre length, I had to turn through 180 degrees and started to get a bit dizzy and stumble. No point in having another fall!

On the way home, I went to the local farm shop (not the organic one) and bought a ball cabbage (honestly, not a cauliflower this time) and purple sprouting broccoli, a carrot and 2 quite large white carrots, together with an iceberg lettuce and some tomatoes on the vine. Also got some fruit: 2 MacIntosh Red apples, 2 plums, 2 kiwi fruit, some grapes, strawberries and raspberries.

All this for £6.05!

Came home and found there was no parking place in the car park (now greatly reduced in size because of roadworks here by Scottish Power), so went across the road and parked in a disabled bay. I am not happy about leaving it there for long, especially overnight, so I shall try to move it later.

Later: found there were 3 parking places here, so crossed the road and collected my car. By the time I came back, there were only 2 (non-adjacent) places left. Managed to reverse park between 2 cars. Wow!

Visit to Daughter

Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, with temperatures in the high single figures. I went to visit daughter for lunch. The kitchen was a busy place, what with daughter her son and myself quickly followed by her stepdaughter and partner. Now, not only is the kitchen small, but stepdaughter decided she wanted something different for her lunch than the offered baked potato and cheese with side salad (lovely dressing). There was so much noise that my hearing aids could not cope with filtering out anything that daughter was saying to me.

After lunch daughter and I repaired to the living room and she ironed while we had a lovely blether in peace.

Once more, on arrival I demonstrated my driving skills, as usual. I think you would best describe it as parking within walking distance of the kerb. Daughter (bless her) moved it for me.

Today I have done my exercises and upped the walk to half a mile. I would never have passed that old test for sobriety – walking along a straight line – as I bounced off the walls a bit on more than one occasion. That is why I do my walking indoors.

After that the cleaners came and now my flat is sparkling!

Bridge Club Hat Night

Yesterday evening was the Bridge Club Hat Night. We were to get there at 6.30 for 7pm and I had been fortunate to secure a partner from the "Monday afternoon group" to go with. There was a magnificent buffet laid on, with smoked salmon and cream cheese on blinis, little tarts with various fillings, biscuits spread with different fillings ( I particularly liked the onion relish) a cheese board, grapes, sandwiches, chicken drumsticks and so on, followed by meringue nests with cream and raspberry, mince pies with icing, Christmas cake and so on. Everything was in bite sizes and so was easy to eat. There were numerous drinks: various soft drinks and red and white wine. As a driver, I stuck to sparkling water.

"But what about the bridge", I hear you cry.

After we had eaten we had to select one from a pile of blank white cards, then afterwards turn it over and it told you which table and which seat at that table you would play. I picked table 10, playing South and found myself partnering a lady I have played with before and whom I like. There were 42 at the evening, so we played 22 boards. I don't know how well we did, but we really enjoyed ourselves.

We finished after 11 pm, so I cut and ran (or at least staggered) and came home.

Badly parked as usual, but worse than usual as I was told off this morning for taking up 2 parking places! This was because I could not see the bay markings in the dark, and was not important as I was away just after 9am for a doctor's appointment.

After checking me over and telling me off for a) putting myself at risk by getting down to mop a spill, b) for not calling for an ambulance and c) for even contemplating sleeping on the floor, he has agreed that the elastic stockings should be discontinued. He also reviewed my medications and pronounced that, although they are a lot, each one is necessary. I concur with that.

We wished each other a Merry Christmas and I came back via the filling station as the petrol level was getting very low. Parking (and even reverse parking this time) was a little squint but was at least entirely within the bay.

Church

Went to Church this morning. Don't want to say too much as I don't want my location identified, but it is rather old and has a lot of history attached. I really love listening to the choir, who are very good. They usually sing an introit and a couple of anthems or an anthem and a psalm. Our minister is a good man. He is very stimulating and will preach sermons on all sorts of topics, including a series of sermons discussing the relationship between the ideas of some of the major philosophers and Christianity. He doesn't pull his punches sometimes and obviously has not a lot of time for politicians. On the other hand he can be very supportive in times of trouble.

On one particular occasion, his Call to Worship of "God is our refuge and our strength; a very present help in time of trouble" kept me going through a bad week. I think he knew what was happening in the lives of several of the members of his congregation at that time.

Had a little chat to several people. I am starting to get to know more and more after living here for 2 years. Beginning to feel more at home.

Today is a lovely sunny day, at last. The roses are in bloom and some new plants put in against the wall opposite are starting to flourish.

Mind you, for some reason it took me about 6 goes to reverse park my car. Managed 40 years of driving without ever having to learn, but need to now as parking is rather tight. Seems that if I don't get it right first time, I takes ages. Still often I do manage first time, so it just goes to show that you can teach an old dog new tricks...