She returned from delivering her thank note and I sensed immediately how cold it must be outside, for her coat brought very ChillyBilly air into the hall. She'd walked to South Kensington, crossed over and continued down along Harrington Gardens, turned right into Courtfield Gardens, turned left and crossed the Earls Court Road and Warwick Road to get into Philbeach Gardens.
Dropped the card through the postbox of Andreea's house and continued along Philbeach Gardens, which are a crescent, until she came out at the big junction on the Cromwell Road where there is a large Tesco supermarket. She crossed over and fell amongst thieves! There was an old customer from many moons ago buying tea, they greeted each other and went for a coffee and spent a pleasant hour catching up with each others lives.
Darkness had fallen by the time she left, she had bought a few things which she needed, a parsnip and a big bunch of 'Spring Greens'.. we love these, especially flash steamed with an onion, then tossed in oil and a cup of black rice.
She had also bought something I had never seen before, a large newspaper. There were very few papers left when she went to look at the stand, one being the Daily Telegraph. So that came home with her.
And after fixing our supper, she settled down to read this large flappy thing.. I was intrigued, as normally she reads everything on-line, but it has certainly kept her quiet, except for the rustling of the paper pages and then she did something very strange indeed, she reached into her bag, drew out a pen and proceeded to write on a page.
'How weird', I thought and flew down onto her head to see what on earth she was doing. "It's called a crossword puzzle GeeGee and I cannot remember when I last did one, but it must be at least twenty or more years ago, I'm not very good at them, none of my family ever did them when I was growing up and I'm completely hopeless at the cryptic ones, but it would be fun to start to do them again. You can buy books of crossword puzzles and they're not expensive".
Who knew such things existed as large flappy newspapers, things called puzzles, cross or otherwise, whatever next?
We are bidden for tea tomorrow by our Lebanese friends, she will make a mix of nut brittles to take with us, Raja is going to install a proper anti-virus programme on her new laptop and then she will use it for more things. The reason she'll make the brittle is so she won't be tempted to eat any of their YumYum with wheat in it, like mince pies or stollen.
For she hasn't eaten anything with a morsel of wheat in it now for ten days and has also drastically cut back on her dairy intake and the difference to her right hand is beyond amaazing! She can actually get a ring on to her finger as the knuckle aren't swollen! And, she can bend all of her fingers over to make a fist!
This, Dear Readers, just proves what sadly she knows to be true.. well, for her it is.. that barley, corn, dairy and wheat all trigger arthritis in her joints, particularly in her right hand and they swell quite hideously. And as she is plans to do a great deal of 'serious' work at the allotments this month, the 17th anniversary of her taking these plots on, she would rather not have a painful paw with which to do this hard work!
Yes, it is now seventeen years since she started working this land and what an immense amount of joy it has given her, not to mention the enormous amount of flowers, fruit and vegetables that she has grown. Plus the friendships that she has made with her fellow plot holders.
Yes, roll on Spring and then I will be able to go out as well.. it's a bit 'parky' for me at the moment, which is all my own fault, if I hadn't taken so many of my clothes off I would be quite warm enough but I did, so I have to stay 'Home Alone' until my vest grows back. Silly me, I know.
So there we are folks.. our first day of January is nearly over. We will, I hope, continue to amuse, astound, educate and infuriate you in good measure but for now, I'll just say "Good night".
GeeGee Parrot.
January 1st, 2018.
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