Mother and Mother-in-Law

Today is Wednesday and we have the first signs of a return to some sort of normality here because Mum is coming up to visit the cemetery and have a quick bite to eat with us before returning home.  We are now able to have 2 people come into the house - they should be the same two people but they do not have to be family and it should be for good reason - next week this will increase to 4 people and thereafter we reckon they will relax the limit completely.  Mum hasn't been to the cemetery since Christmas and she is going stir-crazy indoors so whilst I offered to go down she said she really wanted to take her car for a run and come up and see us.

I had made some home-made soup in readiness - sadly we had not been able to get any Corn Loaves yesterday - we had planned to have one today and send Mum home with the other one but we had got a nice specialist seeded loaf from Paps instead.  

Mum was very good about the time as we have only three hours from leaving the house until returning - bearing in mind it takes her about 45 minutes each way there is an hour and a half gone before you start.  She went to the Cemetery (I had been yesterday to make sure everything was ok after the storm on Saturday) and then to us and we had about an hour together before she made her way back home - she said it was like being let out of prison although I did point out the first lockdown had been longer and more onerous than this one - we just think the majority of people adhered to the first lockdown relatively happily thinking that if they did then that would be that - sadly that was not that and we keep finding ourselves with varying restrictions.

Still it was good to see Mum and for her to get out and we have planned to go down on Sunday with a meal.

This week has been glorious - it has been a brilliant start to February seeing as January went out with such a bang.  Having been out and about we have noticed a large number of trees that were uprooted on Saturday - including some very large pine trees across the way from Sonia.  There is the constant hum of chainsaws at the moment as people liberate the damaged wood for their own uses!!!  We spend the days in the conservatory because it is so light, bright and warm in there - even the cats will settle their differences and snuggle up in the warmth on one of the sofas!

CYTA came today - we had reported a fault on Saturday even the woman I spoke to wasn't convinced it was a fault more than we had "too much stuff plugged into the router".  Anyway the engineer came this morning armed with a snazzy new router and informed us that there was an issue on one of the underground cables nearby that should be fixed tomorrow.  The router got set up and everything clagged onto it and it seemed to be working perfectly.  During this Marky-Mark called from across the road to ask John if he had seen his car-port - funnily enough John had wondered if our car was insured for any damage should the carport collapse or a tile or tiles come loose - we very nearly found out!!!  Fortunately John was able to realign the tiles that had been blown in the storm.

As I said it was lovely to see Mum today and to get some sort of 'normality' back for her - lockdown is so much harder when you are on your own and it has been doubly hard for John's Mum who has basically been confined to her house for months and months.  

Conscious that it has not been the best of times for her, particularly recently what with one thing and another, we decided to send her a little gift to cheer her up.

I have to say a big HATS OFF to Pandora UK as I ordered a charm for her bracelet, the silver heart on the left which is inscribed with "Love You Mum", late on Friday and she received it within a couple of days - in fact we watched her open it and today she sent a photograph of it on her wrist.  A real five star service for once!!!  So glad she liked it - but rather wish we could just give her a hug as I know that she, along with many others are missing that right now.

Very pleased to report that my lovely friend Hazel had the first part of her jab on Tuesday - she is in the vulnerable group.  When I spoke to her she hadn't suffered any ill effects save for a bit of an achy arm so hopefully the second jab will go equally smoothly and then she will be covered for a while and hopefully able to come and see us in the Summer.