I spent the week clearing another three car-loads of scrap wood from the aged FIL’s ex-shed. This included old fence posts and tree-trunks. It’s all been cut into firewood lengths, but some of the pieces still need to be split. We also had some fairly high winds recently and on the way back home I noticed a couple of trees had been blown down. One was a birch, and the other an oak – which, in falling, had shattered some other birch trees. So that’s gone onto the list of next week’s jobs. As long as it’s not raining, of course.
LSS has now fully regained her voice although she is still coughing like a chain-smoker. This would be fine if she smoked, but she doesn’t. She’s found that chewing cloves seems to help. The good news however is that she was able to obtain the aged FIL’s prescription list in advance of his discharge, so she came home on Friday with a large supermarket carrier bag full of medicines.
The manager of the medical-washing service also organized a prescription for a new mattress, which was delivered on Friday. It’s a really strange-looking thing. There’s a large plastic control box with complicated buttons and LED lights, which hangs over the foot of the bed and is plugged into the mains. From this plastic control box, two tubes run into the mattress, which seems to be filled with spongy pockets. It’s an electrical air-bed! I’ve no idea what it does; I gave the mattress a poke with my finger and then leaped back in surprise when the control box clicked and whirred and then pumped air into the mattress to redistribute the air I must have disturbed.
As the aged FIL is now aware he’s going home, his mood has improved tremendously. He’s now saying things to LSS like “If you’ve gone and ordered a new mattress, I’m not paying for it. You can take it back again. I’m not sleeping on it. I’m going to burn it.”
LSS replied “I didn’t order anything. It’s all taken care of by the health service.”
“I make the decisions! Not you!”
“Actually, you don’t. And it’s not my decision either. The doctors have decided you get that mattress,” she replied sweetly. If he starts complaining about it again once he gets home, she’ll point out that the reason for all this care is to prevent any problems occurring with his diabetic feet; because if there IS a problem in that department he’ll be back into hospital before you can say “Jack Robinson”.
M has settled in to her new place; we were invited around yesterday evening for an apéritif. She asked me to have a look at her new gas cooker; she had not been able to attach the gas hose to the connectors properly. I demonstrated the technique of dipping the ends of the hose into hot water for a few minutes before pushing it onto the connectors. It’s now all securely installed.
Today the last bunny was processed and will be ready to go into the freezer tomorrow, so I also have another batch of pelts to tan. That will have to wait until we get back from our trip to the UK though. Mrs Bunny will be taken to Neighbour J next Saturday for HER holiday.
Speaking of holidays, there will obviously be a break in transmission whilst we’re away; as we’ll be offline I won’t be making any posts on here.
Enjoy your holiday and travel safe!
Thank you!