Categories: uncategorized
Date: 07 April 2004 09:01:48
Would you believe it. Two days confined to bed and the first thing I do on getting vertical is check the wibsite. I haven't even had breakfast - that's how honoured you are. OK, so I couldn't face any breakfast, but that's beside the point. And I haven't the energy to do anything beyond sit in the computer chair and there's nothing on telly yet, but that's irrelevent. I'm here.
Yes, Smudgelet managed to give me his bug. He's still poorly too, but my lovely friend took the pair of them off to stay at her house last night, complete with medicine bottles and a bucket, so that I could moan and groan and cough in peace. There are some times a mother has to put herself first. And to be honest, yesterday was one of them. (Warning TMI in next sentence... if squeamish, please skip to next paragraph). I did feel a little mean in my response to a yell from the bathroom - I was far too busy vomitting in the toilet to run to the rescue of my six-year-old throwing up in the bath! Thank goodness Tiddles is old enough and unsqueamish enough to cope with his initiation into being a "nearly-adult". His comment after nursing the pair of us all day was "I start to see what being a mummy's all about. You really do work hard, don't you?"
Mind you, I feel a little robbed. Smudgelet got loads of "oohs" and "ahhs" from the doctor over how high his temperature was. What precisely does it mean when your temperature is low ?
Tiddles was a great help yesterday, or at least intended to be and it's the thought that counts. On my instructions he emptied the dishwasher and filled it with all the dirty dishes. Well, with three of the dirty dishes which happened to be in his direct line of sight, as I discover this morning. He brought me drinks of water through the day, and by the end of the day was getting the hang of putting them actually where I could reach them. I asked him to see if he could tempt Smudgelet to have a round of toast, but as Smudgelet didn't want toast he improvised and gave him a packet of crisps instead. (Mind you, he soon found out why this was not a good move!) And when sent to take a box of raspberries round to my dad to see if they could be rescued, he took first of all a pack of kiwi fruit, and then a fruit loaf, before finally realising that I meant the roundish red berries that look and taste and smell like raspberries.
It was my friend's lodger - a lovely chap - who came to pick the boys up last night. I lay there dishevelled on the sofa, wrapped in a duvet, and apologised for not getting up. The sweet fellow declared I looked as lovely as ever (is that a compliment? Hmm,.. could take it either way) and my beloved Tiddles pointed at my head and said "How do you like mummy's new hairdo? Isn't it lovely?"
An interesting phone call yesterday afternoon. My friend M rang to see if I needed anything, but also to see if I would mind dreadfully if she came and raided my garden as it was perfect for what she needed. Hmmm... not exactly a compliment. She wanted the dead reeds from around my "water feature" (a much nicer way of describing the two raised manhole covers in the middle of my front lawn) and a load of the dead seed-headed flowers from my border. I did suggest she might like to dig them up and plant the seedings for us, but she was too busy with another type of gardening.
She and another friend from Dad's church are building the Easter Garden. It's always spectacular, and very moving - a near life-size replica of the garden tomb, surrounded by greenery until Easter day, when it becomes a veritable feast of flowers, the tomb is open and filled with light, and there's the sound of birdsong echoing round the church. This year they're apparently going for a slightly different effect with the Good Friday one - hence the dried out plants from my front garden. I hope I'm up to going to see it. It will be tinged with a different sadness, as the decision has been made to close the church so this will be the last one. With a dwindling and aging congregation of about 20, and a whole host of alterations and repairs needing to be done before October to fit in with new access regulations (it is the most unfriendly building imaginable if your mobility or sight is impaired), it makes far more sense to cease worship there and join with the other Methodist church in the village. They'll do an Easter Garden there too, but for M it is, I think, the moment when she hands over the responsibility to someone else as her hips and knees are becoming too painful to take the strain of a whole week's bending and stretching to build it. I'm trying to store up the lessons in growing old gracefully - wonder whether I'll manage it when the time comes.