Yesterday morning I woke up a little earlier than usual whilst the two care workers were scheduled for three quarters of an hour later than normal. So I composed a little Christmas 'party' (or should I say 'festive event') email inviting all of the care staff to drop in and meet us informally two weeks next Monday on December 23rd. The care managers will probably circulate this news to all of the care staff who look after Meg on their own internal system but it is already something to which we can look forward. Because of shift working and other commitments, I would be surprised if any more than five care workers could turn up at any one time and the invite was clear that if they only popped in for a few minutes, we would still be glad to see them. By way of preparation, I have already ordered some disposable wine glasses for any liquid beverages, not that I intend to ply them with too much booze. But I did ask Alexa to play some 'classical Christmas music' and was served up with a selection of Christmassy type offerings often served up by operatic stores like Andrea Bocelli so I think this would fit the bill perfectly for some festive Christmas music which avoided the more naff contributions at this time of year. Preparing for these mini-celebrations puts me in mind of the last time I organised celebrations to commemorate our 50th wedding anniversary in La Coruna and Santiago (Northern Spain).I had arranged a pre-anniversary lunch time dates for friends and relatives in a good hotel Meg and I know well. The restaurant has a little ante-room and I had commandeered this to set up a display of wedding photographs and music and for a pre-dinner aperitif and welcome. I informed the staff that it was part of my 50th wedding anniversary celebrations and we were drinking Cava (Spanish champagne) and I informed the staff that whenever a bottle was empty just go and get one or two more. The staff really joined in the spirit of the celebrations and when a waitress appeared with a new bottle of Cava, she got a hug and a kiss (quite common in Spain) This led one of my oldest friends to remark 'Mike, the whole of this anniversary is just set up as an excuse for to kiss as many Spanish women as possible!' and there was certainly a lot of kissing going on that day.
Now returning to the severely mundane. The workers were scheduled to arrive three quarters of an hour later than usual but in the event were an hour on top of this so we did not get Meg out of bed until 9.45. She was getting a bit agitated and not in the best of moods as a result of all of this but my domestic help helped to calm her a little and I gave her some sustenance and tea before the workers actually arrived as Meg had not breakfasted and was not feeling of her best. When the workers did arrive, I got the excuse that they had a new client who needed two carers but only one was scheduled so a half visit took an hour. But I still could have got an explanatory text from the agency and was not a happy bunny as a result. Immediately after breakfast, our Eucharistic minister arrived by appointment and she brought along some of the Order of Service leaflets for our previous parish priest who had just died of colon cancer. I was somewhat amazed to learn from the particulars of his life that he was actually two years younger than I am when he died. After a rather messed up morning, I pushed Meg down the hill to pick up our newspaper and got ready for the (much delayed) two carers who were due to arrive to give Meg her lunch time call. We lunched on some pea soup kindly provided for us by our domestic help and supplemented this with some ham and cheese toasties.
After lunch, we entertained ourselves with 'Question Time' first broadcast the previous evening. One of the panelists was Nigel Farage whose politics I detest but whose communication skills I respect. As the audience was in Lincoln and therefore more susceptible to his stance of immigration he managed to disparage both of the efforts of the Tory and Labour administration and to claim (quite falsely) that all of the ills of modern society could be laid at the door of immigration, both legal and illegal. Even a challenge on Brexit was brushed away as 'yesterday's story - move on' (which saves him answering embarrassing questions such as why our GNP is 5% lower than it should have been as a direct result of Brexit) This was followed up by a further instalment of 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' which Meg and I are viewing in bits. Hardy seems to have the facility to have quite dramatic twist of the plot in the last quarter or so of the entire work and this is no exception. We will probably conclude our viewing of this tomorrow as no doubt a denouement will ensue.
As the Christmas festive season looms, I am reminding myself what needs to be done to assist in the celebrations. On Monday morning, I have arranged with my son that between us, we shall reach into the loft to bring down the Christmas decorations. We have a little system going that has served us well over the years which is to keep all of the Christmas decorations and artefacts together in a large pile easily accessible from the loft door. This way avoids excessive hunting around in the loft but it does tend to be a two man job i.e. one of us to locate the actual package who then hands it down to the other. All being well, we hope to have everything in place so that our domestic help can assist with the Christmas tree and other decorations when she calls around next Friday. I have in the past taken the view that any decorations around the house should take no more than 2 minutes and 40 seconds working on the principle that the less you put up, the less you have to put away on or before Twelfth Night. But I feel that the carers are rather anticipating a nice Christmas tree in the hall for when the party happens in just over two weeks time so here is a certain degree of moral pressure at work here.
© Mike Hart [2024]