Saturday morning started with putting together some flat-pack sidetables for the lounge. They had been delivered on Friday along with the TV unit for the bedroom. That was obviously also flat-packed. I don’t usually have any problems putting these things together and as it is almost identical to the one we have downstairs I wasn’t expecting any issues. The instruction were very clear. The problem was that despite all the parts being clearly numbered on the instruction sheet there were no stickers on the actual parts. Quite a few had very subtle differences such as where pre drilled holes were so it basically looked like a pile of wood and some screws.
I got it sorted. Just had the doors to put on. One of the doors has a magnet to keep it closed. The other door has nothing. The instructions clearly list only 1 magnetic catch. I spent a few minutes looking for an extra catch and trying to figure out what keeps the second door closed but came up with nothing. I’ll have to buy a catch for the other door. By the time I had finished with this unit I couldn’t be bothered to do the side tables on Friday.
On Friday night Sue had gone up to watch a film in bed. When I had taken the dogs out I joined her in bed. She was half way through watching Our House. She told me I probably wouldn’t work this one out by starting watching part way through. I thought she was joking.
“We watched this last week.”
“No we didn’t.”
“If you remember, when we had been watching for a few minutes I asked if we had started watching it before as I recognised the early minutes of it. We watched it all the way through.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Seriously?. The last scene shows a doll that the little girl thought she had left in the old house.”
I don’t know if she didn’t want to see the end of it as if there WAS a doll in the last scene it would prove me right. She said she was tired and wanted to go to sleep.
Anyway, back to Saturday! Not much happened really. I could hear a P.A. system nearby so I thought someone was having a kids party. It was only lunchtime. Once the music started it clearly wasn’t a kids party. It wasn’t until about 3 pm when I took the dogs out that I saw all the cars parked down the street. I wasn’t sure if it was number 4 or number 2 who were having the party. There must have been 10 cars that didn’t belong to residents. While I was out with the dogs I bumped into someone who lives on the next street who had called the police. From his back garden he could see that it was both 4 and 2 who were having a joint party. They had removed a fence panel so that their guests could move between the 2 gardens. He said he had counted at least 40 people there!
When I took the dogs out again at 11 pm the party was still going strong so no police had been out. Apparently it ended around 7am!
Sue is as subtle as a brick sometimes. She asked if we had a tray. I said I didn’t think so. What did she want a tray for? She said she had an idea for something. I guessed that I might be getting breakfast in bed for fathers’ day. She was also asking me what time I was going to take the dogs out on Sunday morning. I told her that I don’t plan it. I just go. I said I probably wouldn’t be taking them out in the morning. I was pretty sure that Michelle and the kids would be bringing me a card and a present but I played dumb.
On Sunday morning I woke around 7 am as usual. Sue was already up. I always get up first and bring her coffee. She came up a few minutes later with a plate full of bacon sandwiches and a huge mug of tea. Nice!
During the morning there was no mention of the kids coming. Michelle is almost as obsessed with time as I am so I knew she would be coming at 9, 10 or 11. Exactly 9, 10 or 11. She isn’t great at getting out of bed on the weekends and as she would have to get the girls ready too I was sure it would be 11.
At 11:01 the doorbell rang. I put on my surprised face and went to open the door. The card and presents were on the door step and the 3 of them were standing near the bottom of the garden. It was the first time we had seen Ella since March. It was great to see her huge smile and to hear her and Ivy shouting Grandad, Grandad! Ivy was a lot happier this time. I think she took her lead from Ella and the 2 of them were chatting to us and doing handstands on the grass and other stuff shouting Grandma watch this! Grandad I can do THIS, can you?
We had a good long chat with them. Towards the end Ivy started to run towards Sue for a hug. Sue told her that she couldn’t hug her which must have been really hard for both of them. Ivy took it well to be fair. Both girls didn’t want to leave and Michelle didn’t have an easy task of getting them into the car.
Hopefully it won’t be much longer before I can hug them again.
Stay safe.
