annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Day 165
First session of bereavement counselling this morning. Good. Via a screen, as in the end the hospice didn't feel able to do face to face. Still good. And free, for twelve weeks. Tiring though - maybe just this first one as I was very anxious about it. It's on some Microsoft thing, not Zoom and I worried about that as well as the counselling itself.
Then lots of confusion about walking, in terms of where and when - I found myself unable to make a fucking decision - this was what I was like when I lived alone - I could spend whole days nearly doing something but not quite as I'd get stuck on some trivial aspect. So after finishing the counselling at 10.50 I didn't manage to leave for my walk till 2.30, but in the end I caught the bus and used my pensioner's free bus pass, which made me surprisingly happy. You have to wear a mask on public transport, but that's OK. It's a bit hot and uncomfortable, but better than being in a coma on a ventilator. I am going to brush my hair again soon. Probably.
With my pass I can catch any bus in the country after 9.30 am - I think there might be a late cut off point as well, but it's 11.30 or something - and I might actually do a bit of this - ah no, probably not - I just looked up the route to my friend who lives forty miles away - an hour in a car on country roads or two and a half hours and three buses... hmm. I'll stick to the car for now.
I walked 3.5 miles altogether, a lot of it into a strong wind, which made my legs ache again. It was quite calm up here so I couldn't believe it when I got off the bus and the wind hit me in the face again. Not as bad as yesterday, nowhere near, but still. I turned round when I'd had enough and got on a bus then changed my mind half way home, got off, walked round the lake picking up plastic bottles then got on another bus. Pleasing. The bus not the bottles.
I made it home just before N, the ex-care-home-manager, came round as arranged. I like that we've become mates - she's younger than all my kids, but once you're past a certain point that doesn't matter. This makes me think of stoner-girl, one of my first friends on Diaryland. She posted something interesting about writing, I commented, she replied and we soon became quite close, in the way that sometimes happens. Then June rolled round and we both wrote about the imminent GCSEs but realised she was taking them, as she was sixteen, and I would be marking them as I was in my fifties and a teacher (marking them for extra cash). I met her a few years later, when my pal M was going to Cardiff where stoner-girl lived and invited me along. It was a bit weird for about five minutes or less - she'd never posted pictures so I'd kind of made up a face for her and it was nothing like her and nowhere near as young as she actually was, but after an initial mildly strange few minutes, once we started chatting we were fine because we did know each other. Very cool.
Anyway, N brought her daughter, 7, who just settled in straight away. People do find it easy to relax in a messy house. Probably not all of them.
This is today's crop from the greenhouse - madness. I gave loads to N, but she'd only take as much as they could eat. I put the bigger tray of cherry tomatoes in the oven, trying out a Nigella recipe that everyone was raving about on Twitter - you cut them in half, pack them in a tray cut side up, sprinkle on a touch of thyme, salt, sugar and olive oil, then bung in a hot oven, 200C, which you turn off at once and leave overnight. We shall see. I'm going to make passata as well, to freeze for the winter. All the recipes I found list onions, garlic, oil etc apart from one, which announces in bold typeface that if you're adding any of these ingredients you're making a tomato sauce, not passata, so you can fuck right off and don't come back. (That last bit is not so much stated as implied)
OK, that's me done, and before midnight at that, go me.
Three good things: the feel of wind bringing fresh air on my face; lovely time with N; feeling pleased to pick up litter again.
11:57 p.m. - 26.08.20
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