My birthday

My birthday. First thing I saw was an ecard from Mum and Mas, involving a cute cat. Then our own cute cats... Lorraine brought me not one but two cups of tea in bed. Feeling a bit ancient this morning. Lorraine began discussing wills, as we had been talking about them for a while. Nine days from Seaford now. The countdown continues apace. Pat still coughing, and Maureen and Lorraine coughing now too. They all tested for covid but nobody was positive. Cards from Lorraine, and Pat and Maureen -- a recorded piano and voice rendition of Happy birthday from Robin and Nick, and from Dawn and Paul who had Maureen's address plus messages from Toby and Romy and Betty and James and Sam and Jade plus dozens of kind and lovely messages from friends during the day.

A recording session with Robin at 10:30 this morning, which was fun.

Lorraine made me a delicious sourdough bacon and egg sandwich. I spoke to Mum, and Anton. As did Bob, however this was during the big excitement of the day. The drain got blocked outside the kitchen door. Lorraine drove Maureen off to get her knee injection, while I hauled up paving slabs and shifted the mousey plastic shed with Pat, and found the drain and assembled the long pokey thing out of flexible poles and poked slimily and unsuccessfully. As I was doing this the man next door -- called Peter  -- poked his head over the fence and began to offer helpful advice. Things could have gone either way at this point, but instead he offered to come around and help, and he proved to be very helpful and kind, even to the point of getting his hand down into the blockage which loosened it enough for water to flow. I also had a good go at this -- as a special birthday treat -- bringing up handfuls of more stuff. This business took a while, but at least the noisome pool abated. Then the business of replacing the slabs and so on. The very last one I replaced neatly broke into three pieces as I dropped in into place. Brilliant.

Our evening fun, however. Despite Maureen being in some pain after her knee injection. Off to the Blacksmiths, and had a cheery meal there, Maureen telling us about her days as the captain of a ladies darts team, and I ate garlic prawns and a really excellent pizza washed down with some very well kept London Pride. Soon done there, however, and back home for an early night.