Hi everybody from day 12 (???) of quarantine and I’ve just been reminded that here in Malta today is a public holiday, who knew?! As I’m sure is the same for many of us now the days just all seem to merge. We’ve had three visits from the Police thus far, glad to see they are doing their job well.
Picture this, it’s the year 2050 and the question on “The Chase” is which year did the world practically come to a standstill with the Covid-19 virus? 2010/2020/2030 (you can just imagine it right?) For anyone who doesn’t know The Chase is a tv quiz show, Steve & I are quite addicted, even more so now.
How are we all doing? Are you taking care of yourselves and indulging a little bit? Myoka currently have a special offer, when buying a voucher you get 50% extra and it's valid until the end of the year! How’s that kind positive talk to yourselves going? Keep doing it and see what a difference it makes
The good news is that I haven’t killed Steve, we are keeping ourselves busy and he is doing jobs around the house. This I think augurs well for our future in retirement at least! Steve’s grown a beard, it’s horrible! Poor deluded Steve thinks that everything can go back to normal next week, when it absolutely cannot! He is getting a little stir crazy and he’s now gone off the idea of cooking, traded it in for painting, much more his thing really but I’m going to coax him back into the kitchen today. We’re having pasta later and he believes, probably rightly so, that he makes it better than I do so he will gladly take over.
On a happy note, my youngest daughter got engaged so that was something really lovely and happier times to look forward to as we plan another wedding, we will have a celebration for the engagement later on in the year when all this is over and when we can all be together again. We of course have some experience now in wedding planning, but it will of course be unique to them. We get to welcome another son in law, actually you have him to thank for this blog, as he helped me to set it up! Thanks Greg! Welcome to our crazy family Greg, my sons in law read my blogs just to check up on me!!!
I’ve also managed some travel; how did you manage that I hear you ask? This week alone I’ve revisited Egypt, ah Paris in the rain, so lovely, also Thailand, South Africa and India to the Taj Mahal! How? Well virtually of course, I have a sleeping app on my phone and these were my sleep stories, I’ve had to listen to some of them several times, because as it’s a sleep story I would normally fall asleep, so funny!! If I’ve really liked them, I listen to them again when I wake up. I highly recommend it.
The last time that I had to slow down like
this was in 1988. I think I was pretty close
to burnout at the time, working 2 jobs,
swimming 5 mornings a week and planning
a wedding on my own since my fiancée
lived abroad. Where I worked at the time there were three of us getting married in the same year and at one of the hen nights I fell off a table, now to explain, back then Greek restaurants would encourage you to get up on the tables to dance and there were lots of us having a great time dancing, we were I admit a little tipsy, and the table just gave way! Everyone went right and I went left! I was in excruciating pain it transpired that I had dislocated my shoulder, after a night in A&E, they gave me pethidine a wonder drug it took the pain away completely and I slept. They couldn’t put the shoulder back in place straight away because I had been eating and drinking! This miracle drug, pethidine, did not work as well when I was in labour, when it was offered to me I thought brilliant if I can have this the pain will go away! Well, no I called the midwife back to tell her it wasn’t working or they hadn’t given me the right thing, she looked at me slightly bemused, but I digress, again! Thankfully in this particular incident in 1988 nothing had been broken, or I would have been walking down the aisle in plaster! Everyone found this tale amusing with the exception of my Mum and Steve!!
My point here is that I had to stop working and recover, I had physiotherapy, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t even wash and dress myself and I still have a scar on my leg from the incident, only a small scar. The weddings, all lovely, went off without a hitch! So this situation reminded me of when I needed to slow down and spend more time at home. What has that got to do with anything you might ask, well sometimes there are things in life that we have no control over, and we have to learn to adapt to the situation, change is never easy. Like all of you, I imagine, I am looking forward to things returning to some sort of normality and being able to hug my loved ones, but for now we have to ride the storm, batten down the hatches, stay in and stay safe.
In other news I am doing quite well with packing up the house, I've found some interesting things while clearing, lots of old photo's obviously but also my appointment letter and contract from my first job (£18.00 a week!!) I've found things I thought I'd lost or had forgotten about. I've also had a couple of virtual coffee mornings, I highly recommend these, prepare your coffee and biscuits and phone your friend(s) on WhatsApp, Messenger or whatever else you use and hey presto, coffee morning. I am phoning more people too, just to check in and have a chat, I am a people person.
I have been amazed at the kindness of people in these times, one of my friends delivered a cake to my mum because she knows she is on her own, and it really brightened her day, many others have offered to shop for her and are checking in with her because they know I’m not there. Our own local supermarket is delivering our groceries and I do think we need to support local small businesses at this time, wherever possible. I’m going to plan a Tapaz night with Steve at the weekend, using a local company, just a little treat as our quarantine comes to an end. We will still be staying in though apart from any essential trips.
There have been so many great things on social media too, one of my personal favourites is Katherine Jenkins singing for us from her home on Saturday night, pure magic. Donny of course has chipped in too you can see him with, Gary Barlow, another one of my faves, Michael Bublé with his wife, so cute. Cooking tutorials, virtual tours of galleries all over the World.
I am looking forward to my walks after the quarantine is over, with the correct social distancing of course, other than that I will be staying inside as much as possible.
I’ve actually brought out the big guns, yes you guessed it, a jigsaw puzzle, of what you say? Well what do you think? I knew I had been saving this for something, well here it is!! 550 pieces though, so it may take a while!
Well enough of my ramblings, I hope it has amused you for 5 minutes.
Take care everyone, stay safe, stay home.
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