Yesterday, Anne wrote about her nightmare journey, back from France, to get to Nottingham by time time ‘Lockdown’ began. She continues her journey into ‘Lockdown’ with how you cope with all that spare time. The choice of tea towel was tricky today: would it be the ‘Gardening’ one but she talked about gardening yesterday. Then, I was inspired; since she talked about ‘Choir by Zoom’, I would use the one from my favourite choir: Only Men Aloud. Here’s Part 2 of Anne’s Story:
“Nowadays, being as my husband took early retirement, I only work part time. It’s a labour of love, doing Reflexology. Oh! you may say, shocked! Yes, if you had told me too, years ago, when I worked as a clerk at Midland Bank or worked in the hospital pharmacy, I’d be a Reflexologist I’d have laughed. I’d had a highly sceptical upbringing, even though not in Yorkshire, a spade was a spade, so this certainly was not what I had planned. But a long story and a chain of unusual events, my life’s journey led me to training as a Reflexologist and I’ve been doing it for 13 years. A very rewarding job and I’ve met some wonderful people, who many I would like to think of as dear friends now . Obviously now in isolation, my itchy fingers have not been able to massage tenderly, or pummel to cause extreme pain (as Barbara would hasten to add), but as I like to say, it can’t be too bad as she comes back for more week by week. I said to her maybe she should take up nail-bed walking until I’m back in practice again. But during our isolation, I’ve duped my husband into giving me a treatment, whereby we sit in chairs opposite one another, one foot resting on each others leg, (gazing lovingly), well maybe more in my case of ‘bear with me please’ and in my husband’s case ‘do I have to do your feet? just do mine instead’. Then I give him step by step instructions on how to do a treatment, as I do his feet, and he sort of does mine. I’m not sure I’d pay him, but after the initial persuasion battle, it’s relaxing and makes a change to have my feet massaged.
Then other evenings, we’ll sit down with the aim of watching a film we’ve tried to compromise on (although that meant usually neither of us really enjoyed it), so we’ve gone on to doing the ‘adult thing’ and taking it in turns, and doing our best to stay interested and not saying that it’s not good when it’s not your turn. But really the bit we both enjoy is we’ll share our dwindling supply of chocolate Easter eggs I’d fortunately bought for the family, before we went to France, and never got to give out.
But before the evenings entertainment, watching first my husband’s daily Coronvirus update. Well he says it is, but he watches the morning and lunchtime one too. I’m quite happy to hear it just once a day, the ‘highlights’, if you can call it that, and just take in (with my poor memory) the bits that will make history and I might need for future quizzes. I’m certainly not burying my head in the sand, but I’m trying to live a day at a time so I can rally the troops daily. Well, phoning aunties and ex-gardening customers who live alone. My biggest challenge has been my mother-in-law. She’s a fit lady and certainly hasn’t taken kindly to being suppressed in her home. On the other hand, my father-in-law is loving having a rest and not being dragged around. Mind you, Eileen’s brilliant really; she’s up as the birds sing and has done her daily chores by 8am. She also finds little jobs for Stan to do. Mind you, he loves (much to Eileen’s annoyance) to turn his hearing aids down or go outside and mow the lawn, which I’m sure must be bald by now, as the first week he cut it three times in 5 days. I really did think, in the early days, we would have to get the army in, to stop her going out; she was worried about getting food supplies. I remember saying to her, in the early days, don’t worry if the army comes in and they are blocking the street, shout one of them over, I’m sure they would get you a bottle of milk and not see you without your cup of tea. Fortunately she’s all sorted now. I did phone her twice though the other day when they announced another 3 weeks lockdown, to check she hadn’t gone A.W.O.L. She was, however, surprisingly calm, as she had managed to get some carpet cleaner delivered, so that opened up new possibilities for her days ahead.
Variety is the spice of life! Well, some days we’re finally watching those thousands of things we’ve recorded, but never had chance to watch. We’ve also got a wardrobe full of lovely books we were going to read one day and, if my memory wasn’t equivalent to that of a fish, I would then become an expert on many subjects. As it is, I could read one book and a week later, read it again and still find it interesting as I’d forgotten most of what I’d read previously.
We’ve tried the ‘House Party’ app, having a nightly rendezvous with the girls, husbands and our grandson, which was great until someone told us they thought it might have a virus on the app and spoilt the fun if it.
I’ve done ‘Zoom’. I did think I’d get a chance to learn to read music properly again and catch up with everyone else at the Ladies Choir I’d joined. But, oh no, they’ve managed to set up a weekly class on ‘Zoom’, so it can continue. The saving grace is they mute you, so chaos doesn’t ensue as 30 people try to sing the same song, but with 30 different devices slightly out of sync with one another. But this meaning nobody gets to hear me sing the wrong bits.
I’ve even ‘Zoomed’ a Contemporary Dance class; there I was, determined to carry on to the end, as the younger ones thrashed about on the floor and in the air, from what I could see. I did my upmost best, only to admit to the teacher the next week I’d have to miss the next classes as I’d spent the next 3 days walking like I’d been bare back horse riding for a week.”
Can’t wait for tomorrow’s Part 3. But, as I have read this, I realise how much I have missed Reflexology. Hurray up, unlocking of Lockdown!!
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Virtual Tea Towel Museum 