Monday was a busy day for me, going first to Cardiff to see the lovely daughter. She is now on 20,000 words, and doing well with it and, most importantly, having fun with it too.
Later, I went to see a huge display of Christmas lights filling the front garden of a large house. All the lights were white, which made it spectacular, rather than crude and garish. I assume it must be for some charity, although no sign could be seen. The display of lights must have cost well into the thousands of pounds, as the display was so large and of complex design. It definitely took me by surprise, particularly as it apparently has been there since early November.
As a result of going to Cardiff, I did not make it to the cinema this week, but will hopefully make it there during the forthcoming week.
On Tuesday, it was snowing heavily in the morning and afternoon, but then turned to rain, and was gone by bedtime. The cold temperatures continued until Friday, before dramatically rising again as a result of Storm Bert, and heavy rain which persisted throughout Saturday and Sunday.
I also watched a Royal Shakespeare Company production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, where the women were played by men, and the men were played by women, without changing the names of any of the characters. It was a very good performance, and the role reversals worked really well to provide a great alternative version for the 21st century.
Not much happened on Wednesday due to illness, but I did manage to finish listening on Audible to ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ by Shehan Karunatilaka (very good indeed), and to start listening to ‘Kafka on the Shore’ by Haruki Murakami. I have not read anything from this author before, but it came highly recommended.
Thursday commenced at 3:20am due to a very loud health alarm going off, followed by a booming voice coming over the intercom in my lounge, asking me if I was alright. Thus, within the space of a few minutes, I had to climb out of bed and get to my lounge to answer. I fell over twice on the way, failing to get there on time before the next loud chime and booming voice came, asking me if I was alright. This time I answered that I was alright when I was sleeping, but wasn’t alright now as I had been awakened by a faulty alarm in the middle of the night, said whilst feeling sorry for myself, as I rubbed at the minor bumps and scrapes which arose as a result of falling over.
There was no apparent reason for the alarm going off as I hadn’t pulled any of the emergency cords, due to being asleep. I was more mortified than anything else at having undoubtedly woken-up everyone in all the other flats. They shut the call down, and I went back to bed, but I took a long time to go back to sleep, as I was braced for the alarm going off again.
Eventually, I managed a few hours of sleep, but the rest of Thursday was a bit of a train wreck, involving multiple apologies to neighbours and assurances that I was ok. I’m not too sure if they were happy or sad to hear that news, given their own disturbed night of sleep. On the other hand, they understood as most had their own experiences with the alarm system, as we are a community of elderly and disabled people, and sometimes have to use the alarm in earnest.
Not much happened on Friday as I was ill again. I was not having a good week, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
On Saturday, I managed to get a bit of cooking done, with much sitting down, using perching stool in kitchen to get anything done.
To top off this week, I was awakened in the early hours of Sunday morning, with loud winds and rain lashing against the windows from Storm Bert. I got a bit of reading done until abatement of the worst of the weather, when I went back to bed and fortunately slept well into the morning.
I awoke feeling much better, and I managed a reasonable amount of domestic tasks too. My main message from this week to you all is: “Don’t get old, and don’t get ill”. I am hoping for better in the week ahead, starting with the welcome return of a teaching block from my course.
Fraser
November 2024