6 November 2021

A Day in the Life

November Song







The clocks have changed. We are at the tail end of another year. Amanda is wandering in the night.  I take this picture at around five a.m. She sips a glass of water and nibbles a biscuit, then we go back upstairs and try the toilet.  Then she snuggles down for another couple of hours, while I lie restless.

Then it is tea time, and proper waking time.






Followed by some washing and a little breakfast before dressing up to go out.







Twice a day we take her out, whatever the weather - sometimes it's me, though we also have kind carers who vary the diet.

Sometimes we go down to RSPB Snettisham, where whirling waders entertain us as the tide washes them from the mud:





Though Amanda is often more interested in the huddles of twitchers:







Other days we go to the beaches of the North Norfolk coast, where shadows are long 




and space is unlimited:






Sometimes we happen on something dead, like this Guillemot, and I think how peaceful it seems....  No need to worry about death, perhaps, (though dying is a different thing):




Anyway, a couple of hours is usually enough for her, and we need to get back to have a snack, a drink and a clean up.  Then she will snooze until I prepare something for lunch:







Lunch is nothing much - sometimes we have an omelette, or some soup; on other days it is just bread and ham, and a glass of water.....







And then it is time for another rest......

Before another cup of tea:






Then it is time for another walk, round the village, watching the geese honking their way back from their feeding stations to their roosts on the Wash:








Dusk gathers easily this time of the year.  Sometimes there is a touch of menace in the cloud:







Other days the sundown gleams with a warmth and all seems well:







If our carers permit, this is the hour I can slip away for a pint in the pub:






Where if I am lucky a brief conversation can take my mind off the daily round. On the other hand, some days the craic may leave me adrift:







Then I need to hurry on home in my Bugatti to relieve the carer:






While the geese plough their own furrows overhead:






And then it is time to bath Amanda and to make her a bowl of pasta and peas, or something similar, timed to coincide with The Simpsons (well I like the primary colours.....)






The cats help, or try to, in their own ways:




Mr White



Denmark



Meadow



And Amanda settles, as her dose of Memantine kicks in....








But the world is not at peace.  Outside the pyrotechnics of the curiously extravagant burst under the stars, terrifying the animals and disturbing the slumbers of those who might wish to be quiet....







Why is it that we remember Guido Fawkes?  Could it be because we would really like to blow up the Houses of Parliament?  Given the shenanigans of the last few days that has to be a reasonable assumption......

It's a sorry tale, and the details are unpleasant, but it is curious that we don't have similarly popular celebratory days (or nights) to commemorate Boadicea, or Hereward the Wake, or Wat Tyler, or even the Tolpuddle Martyrs?








But then I may console myself with a plate of duck breast with broccoli and farro, and a glass of red.






Followed by a glass of Armagnac and a page or two of printed matter.....







Before it all starts over again:







I read the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph


Lennon/McCartney




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