Sunday morning. Sitting in bed with feral (the cat) fast asleep. Eric has just struggled out to feed out, Alice is asleep in the cottage with friends (her birthday sleepover) and Harri hasn’t surfaced either yet.
My weight is going up!!! I suppose after a holiday and a week of cheesescake and birthday cake for Alice hanging around I have a bit of an excuse but.... it needs taking in hand. I made Alice a Nigella chocolate cheesecake for Alice last Monday but she lacked appetite for most of the week (she is very good at only eating when she’s hungry unlike me who eats for a hundred other reasons, hunger being low down on the list) so hardly touched it. I on the other hand, I tucked in every time I opened the fridge. I was in Auckland on Wednesday and Thursday and left instructions that it was to be gone when I got back. It wasn’t so on Friday Eric and I finished it. Poor Alice. She came home at 9.30pm from band practice in Hamilton fancying some and was mortified to find it gone!!!! I felt very guilty but no way am I making another one. I ran yesterday but was not going to go to the gym today. However, having seen what the scales say I guess I will.
Eric has been proper poorly. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I told him he should stay off, he had the most awful cough and rigors. He kept going in claiming he had too much work but it got the better of him by Thursday and he took 2 days off. I have been feeding out etc but this morning he has gone to do it himself. We’ll see how he gets on. Yesterday it was a gorgeous day and he pruned some trees while I was planting in the orchard and coped OK. At work we were surprised with a significant, if not huge, pay bonus this week. Although pretty broke (Samoa and S.Africa flights just paid) I decided to use some of it to buy fruit trees. I spent more than Eric expected and he was not happy!!! He then announced we had 3 bills to pay I was not aware off (including repairs to the water pump and feed). My attitude is it was money we were not expecting and it is exactly the right time of year to plant trees and I didn’t spend all the money. His attitude is my spending was frivolous I guess. These was no big row just a difference of opinion but it this was very unusual for us. Anyway I have bought: 4 plums trees, 1 each of persimmon, feijoa, apricot, nectarine, orange, 2 pear, raspberry canes also, some asparagus crowns and seed potatoes. The day was divine, warm and bright blue skies and I enjoyed planting. I have more to put in today but the weather looks the same, it’s frosty though. So today, when I get up, and get Harri up, it’s off to the gym, back for a late breakfast, tree planting, more tree planting, even more tree planting then a roast chicken for dinner. I was going to ask Mom and Daddy over for dinner but they won’t want to put themselves at risk from flu or colds so we’ll raincheck that. I am sure Eric’s not infectious but I don’t want to risk it.
I had some sad news on Friday morning. My Auntie Mary died during the night (our night). As a child I used to love going to Auntie Mary and Uncle Sid’s. They had an old bungalow adjoining the rugby fields of the University of Kent. Sid was a wonderful gardener and the garden was large (well as a child I thought so) and wonderfully kept. I remember in particular a holiday I had there with my cousin Pauline and another niece of theirs Valda. I was probably about 8-10. Sid and Mary had no children themselves. Uncle Sid died many years ago, quite suddenly of an MI (sorry, heart attack) and Mary then moved into the flat vacated by my grandparents when they moved into residential care. The flat was opposite her sister my Auntie Cis so had family close by until recently when Cis also died. In the last war (I mean the Second World War) Mary had worked as a nurse and I regret now that I didn’t talk to her more about those experiences. This is one of the big disadvantages of living so far from family, you are not there to support at times like this. I would have chosen to be there by her side during this time and know it put a little more pressure on family that were there that Mom, Daddy and I could not do our bit. We also will not be there at her farewell, again, very hard for us.
There is noise from the kitchen and I can smell chocolate croissants! I guess that means that Alice and co have emerged. Some are being collected shortly for church so I’d better get dressed. Until next time.
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