18th May

Today it was my Mum's 85th Birthday and any plans we might have had about celebrating this milestone went out the window with lockdown.  Lockdown is due to be lifted this week but sadly not in time for today.

At my sisters in Balsall Common the neighbourhood has been keeping itself amused by staging toy tableaux every day to commemorate one occasion or another and today Kaye's scene was in celebration of Mum's birthday!!!.  I had got permission to go down to Emba and have a socially distanced or is that anti-socially distanced get together on the front verandah.  It seemed very strange to be out in the car on the open road after such a long time!!

Mum had a day of messages, emails, texts and video calls and a special birthday 'picnic'.  I had stopped en route at the nursery to get a plant for her and had stopped at the strawberry man in Coral Bay to add them to the meal.

We had quiche and coleslaw to start, then freshly made egg mayonnaise sandwiches and then some of John's famous banana muffins and a video call with John.  We had a lovely couple of hours together sat in the shade before I had to make my way back home - I didn't want to outstay my welcome or the permission I had been granted.

There was another (birthday) bake-off today - I couldn't take part this time but in between answering calls, wishing her happy birthday, mum was able to see her great grandson Jack tacking the honours yet again in the challenge.

There may not have been many benefits being in Lockdown for Mum but one has most definitely been the increase in number of people contacting her and video calls have been a godsend.  I hope that once our restrictions are lifted people will continue to contact her because I know she loves a call or an email or a text.

I think it was a successful celebration - certainly Mum had calls from all over the world starting with one with her sister in Australia and finishing with one from her sister-in-law in Canada.

It was another hot hot hot day.  We sat outside to try and cool down - no humidity at the moment which is bonus as we keep forgetting to pack cushions and the day bed away at night.

The evening was so peaceful and we had great plans to stay up and watch quite a bit of TV but that didn't happen - the trouble is that all this sunshine makes you very tired!

We still have the horse in the field next door which is causing some concern for Boris who cannot work out what the big thing is that keeps making strange noises (and I don't mean John!!).  We had a nice call from Argy this evening.  Glad to hear that she, and all the family, seem to be doing ok under the circumstances.