My Diary

 

The diaries of Alan Rickman featured in yesterday's Guardian and it occurred to me that one's blog is actually a diary and that I should start treating it as such. It's not the first time I've thought this.

So I must mention that I started seeing a physiotherapist a few weeks ago. I'd been urged to do this by both Ganching and Kerry Sister. It all seems to be going well and I've noticed some minor improvements. On Saturday last I needed to pick up a prescription and parked the van five minutes walk from the pharmacy. About one minute into the walk my hip started to hurt and it didn't stop. I kept going. The only other notable thing that happened was bumping into the taxi driver whose wing mirror I clipped a few months ago. When he called to see me about this we ended up visiting the polytunnels and left with his repair money and a box of free tomato plants. Apparently, they've done well.

Wednesday evening and all of Thursday were marred by stomach aches. I blamed too much rich food, especially birthday cake. Despite this, I still bought the ingredients for a Pineapple Coconut Cake. At the time of writing, I have yet to make it.

In Bert’s opinion, my guts were bad because I had not drunk wine since the previous Saturday. He backed his argument with that famous biblical quote.*

With this in mind, on Friday we shared a nice bottle of wine from Lidl.

On Saturday I went to Portglenone to have my hair trimmed and afterwards went to the charity shops. And only bought a book, Updike’s Run, Rabbit which I will hopefully get around to reading sometime in the next two years. Whilst perusing the shelves I heard a familiar voice which turned out to be a chap I’d sat next to at my Aunt Bee’s funeral meal some weeks before. He told me that it was Bee’s Months Mind which I’d not known about.

When I got home I contacted Youngest Brother and we made an arrangement to go together. It was the regular early evening mass in Antrim and the chapel was packed. The priest had just got back from Medjugorje and was tremendously enthused about it. The sermon was delivered with exuberance and featured the importance of the Rosary and the reality of the Devil. I’m sure that Aunt Bee would have approved.

Afterwards, Joe and I went to the cemetery. We visited two graves. Joe’s little granddaughter Ava, who died three years ago and Joseph, our cousin and Aunt Bee’s oldest child, who will be gone ten years tomorrow.

And after all that, I went home via Lidl where I bought another bottle of that fine wine – for my stomach’s sake.

*1 Timothy 5:23

Family  Anniversaries

Bernie 1930 - 1922

Joseph 1955 - 2012

Ava 2011 - 2019