LIFE UNDER THE STAIRS
STOP THE WORLD… I WANT TO GET OFF Good Day to You All I’m back after a short break and looking forward to this year. Unusual for me as I dislike the New Year. It normally fills me with fills me with trepidation and gloom. My gran used to call it ‘a touch of misery-itis’.
fort zone and went with family. Eldest Offspring is getting married later this year and asked me to go wedding dress shopping with her; a wonderful evening which made me realise what a gorgeous and thoughtful woman she has grown into. I went to a wedding reception just before Christmas, again with Eldest Offspring and her partner, and Other Half. I enjoyed it and left when I wanted to.
To be frank, things got a bit too much toward Youngest Offspring has supported me with the end of last year. phone calls from sunny Bristol, just to see how I was getting on. I spent long evenings with OthI was drowning in my own pool of self-despair er Half, who had watched as I grew more silent and melancholy, without a lifeguard in sight, and morose, but whose physical presence was almost oblivious to all that had been going on comforting although his jokes were excruciataround me. It was too easy to blame everything ing. on the pandemic, lack of funds, restrictions on this that and the other. It is also truly exhausting I read about the adventures of the wonderful being miserable! I waited for something won- Jim Barker on the Dartford Daily website, and derful to happen, to lift me out of the pool, yet his experiences with the NHS, home care and I dismissed those vital, small things in life that the kindness of others – now there’s a man who carry us along. should write for you! I kept looking for actions and gestures from others to soothe my soul, until I realised that I was my own problem, and that the solution had to come from me. It was time I re-entered polite society! I had to put my big girl pants on and leave the house.
Normal life continued. Friends driving over for a cuppa and a chat, long distance video chats with my lovely cousin and a small gift from another friend in Lincolnshire., ‘just to let you know you’re not alone’.
Chatting to some owners of assistance dogs I took it easy, didn’t stray too far from my com- who I was privileged to foster, bright and posi26
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