Not many people will be sad to see the back of 2020. Obviously it will be a few months before things are anywhere near what we used to think of as normal.
Christmas day was an exciting one. I got up at 6 am to take Sue to her 12.5 hour shift at the hospital. Then it was back home for toasted bacon sandwiches for breakfast. I fed the dogs, did a dog poo collection in the back garden and took the dogs out for our normal Christmas morning walk. Then the REAL fun began. I am a bit of a cleaning freak. I find it quite relaxing. For the next 5 hours I gave the house an early spring clean.
Jill next door had kindly offered to plate me up a Christmas dinner. She had said she was aiming to serve it up at 2 pm. Her daughter knocked on the door at 2. When I opened the door she was empty handed. Jill called out from her doorstep and apologised that things weren’t quite ready. She didn’t want me to think she had forgotten me. I told her not to apologise and that I was really grateful for her making dinner for me. At 3 Jill was at the door with a large plate covered in foil. She was in her pyjamas which she also apologised for. She is always apologising.
I took the plate from her and was surprised at the weight of it. I thanked her and wished her a happy Christmas. When I took the foil off it was a real plate full! I have a big appetite but struggled to finish it all. A little later Jill was at the door again with profiteroles and ice-cream!
I still had a bit of hoovering and floor mopping to do so I got that out of the way. By 5 I felt I had done enough and sat down to watch a couple of episodes of Discovery on Netflix.
I picked Sue up at 7:30. I made her something to eat. I wasn’t hungry after my very large lunch. We had left opening our presents until the evening. She was in bed by 10. I took the dogs out as usual. I was ready for my bed.
On Boxing Day we broke the rules. I have been critical of people not following the rules/guidelines during Covid but honestly I didn’t feel guilty about this one. We only saw family on one day. Our daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandkids turned up at 10. We started with them opening presents. That took a good hour. Sue always goes mad with the presents. It was a really nice family day. Sue cooked a superb dinner.
The girls are 3 and 6 and both love dolls. Each one seems to have its own unique selling point. One of their new ones apparently had “lifelike baby soft hair”. It was one of the weirdest dolls I have ever seen, and they have had some freaky ones! This one looked like Donald Trump which I pointed out. Six year old Ella was confused. Why does it look like a double trump? Like many six year olds she is obsessed with poo, wee, farts etc etc. I explained. Ohhhh ok. When they left around 4 pm both girls were walking to the car and suddenly decided to shout at the tops of their voices, “DONALD TRUMP! DONALD TRUMP! DONALD TRUMP!”. Their mum was frantically trying to keep them quiet. “SHHHH we’re not supposed to BE here!”
We had a bit of snow on Monday. Maybe 2 or 3 inches. We live on a bit of a slope and most cars were struggling to get up the hill. By Tuesday morning the snow was starting to melt. Unfortunately there was a little more snow during the day and when the temperature dropped that night the wet roads and paths froze. There was (and still is) a lot of patches of snow that has frozen into solid ice. They are a nightmare to walk on. I hadn’t left the house on Tuesday until I took the dogs out at 10:30. As we got outside there were a couple of cars having problems with the ice on the road. That really should have warned me. Our front path was fairly clear of snow and ice but as we reached the pavement it looked really icy. It would have been nearly impossible to walk on even without 2 large dogs. Charlie had smelt a fox so was pulling on the lead a little. We had gone about 20 feet when my feet went from under me. I hit the pavement with all my weight on my back and hit my head on the concrete. I heard a neighbour call out asking if I was OK. I said that I was. I was pretty winded. Still on the floor I checked my head for blood. Nothing.
I got to my feet. The sensible thing to do would have been to go home. I was only in front of next door. Maybe I was a little dazed but I decided it would be safer to walk on the road. The same road that cars has just been sliding around on. I got maybe 10 metres before I was down again. Flat on my back. All my weight taken by my back. This time as I fell I pulled Charlie’s collar off with the lead. I got up quicker this time. I was annoyed with myself for being so stupid and decided to go home. By the time I was outside our front door my back and ribs were starting to hurt and it was painful to breathe.
So what now? One of the main reasons for walking to dogs so late is that Molly needs the walk to get her bowels moving. When we got back inside I let her out into the back garden. She had a piss but didn’t see her have a shit. She would need to be let out during the night to stop her crapping in the kitchen. She hasn’t done that for years but it was hard to get her into the habit of only going outside and I didn’t want to break that habit. I was also a little concerned about my bang on the head. My head wasn’t hurting apart from a slight headache. We have all seen programmes on TV where someone has a crack on the head and they don’t let them go to sleep. I did google it and it seems that opinions on this have changed. Anyway I would have to sleep downstairs so that Molly could wake me when she needed to go out.
I managed to get comfortable on the sofa so that my back and ribs weren’t hurting and my breathing was fine. I watched a couple more episodes of Discovery. It was around 1 am and I felt OK. I thought I would get some sleep. Three hours later I was woken by Charlie barking. The security light had come on in the back garden. Probably just a cat but I was awake and never got back off to sleep. Molly didn’t need to go out!
I expected to be pretty stiff the next morning (Wednesday) but actually didn’t feel too bad at all. A few aches but nothing more. The aches are a little more painful this morning and my neck in particular is affected. I couldn’t lift my head from the pillow this morning unless I used my hands to lift it.
New Year’s Eve today. Sue is working today and tomorrow. She will get home tonight, have a drink and will go straight to bed. She uses ear plugs but New Year’s Eve is always loud. I’m just hoping there aren’t too many fireworks. People shouldn’t be in the streets at midnight this year but there will be some wandering the street shouting and singing. If there are fireworks then I won’t be taking the dogs out. Molly is terrified of fireworks and as soon as one goes off she bolts for home. There is no way I will stay on my feet on the icy paths while holding on to her.
I think that will do for this post. Enjoy tonight as safely as you can
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
