Lazy weekend

Not much happening over the weekend. I caught up yesterday with ironing - exciting stuff. Bought a paper when I dropped M at the station and read through all the supplements. They are so time consuming. Watched Casualty in the evening where the emphasis was on homelessness. The elderly homeless heroine assured the nurses that (having been a journalist in an earlier life) ‘it’s surprising how quickly you can get used to a new way of life…’ (to paraphrase.) Really? When we were living without electricity for six months, (as described in my book The Fruit of the Tree,) I didn’t get used to it at all. I hated every moment of it.

We’ve just been to our neighbours. Their parents went on a cruise, but our neighbour’s father was thrown to the ground in high winds, broke his ankle and spent three days marooned in the cabin while half the boat was seasick. At one point in a Force 10 or 12 gale, a lifeboat was lifted off the deck and crashed into the neighbouring cabin. The two of them subsequently spent the rest of the holiday in a hospital in Funchal. It sounded like a chapter of accidents, and they were finally flown back to England yesterday and brought by ambulance to our neighbours, (where their car is.)

The shower’s leaking and I tried to redesign the bathroom, but didn’t come up with anything better. I need to draw it out to scale and add little toilets and basins and baths and move them around to see where they fit. But I suspect we will end up with a replacement shower tray and nothing else changed.

I haven’t yet heard whether the birthday present I sent to my youngest granddaughter arrived safely. I bought it in Guildford on Tuesday – twin dancing Barbies. I tried several shops to find it – ended up in Argos. By the time I walked back to the car park with that and three or four other presents, I was worn out from the ups and downs. Several people smiled at me. ‘Poor old soul,’ they must have thought. Either that or I was wearing my pants on the outside of my trousers. Come to think of it, a couple of people chatted to me in the M & S café. Why was everyone being so friendly? There was a man who started telling me about the Lyons’ Corner House in Leicester Square (in past times) and a young mother who was entertaining her baby and feeding her at the table. I tried to think if I could incorporate them into a story, but didn’t come up with anything.

I finally, this evening, uploaded chapters of my novel, Tainted Tree, to the YouWriteOn site. It took me ages and having entered a set of questions about it, giving three answers (only one right), I found myself getting the answers wrong and had to redo it. However, something accomplished.