I managed to get off the couch and head back to work on Friday. My head felt less as though it had been filled with gluggy porridge. Not firing on all cylinders, but at least firing. A bit!
Lindsey and I went to the Lakeside market on Saturday. It is right by the side of the lake for the winter. I expect it will go back to the Zoo Drive paddock in the spring or early summer but there is a lot to be said for having a market right by the side of a lake. It has a lovely atmosphere. Tim the toastie man isn't doing toasties at the moment, but he is selling some awesome soup. So Lindsey and I armed ourselves with a cup of delicious leek, potato and bacon soup each and went for a wander. I came home with bags of delicious vegetables which I MUST use before buying any more. We went out to the mushroom farm. We visited Stella and then Jim. Stella is rather disgruntled because she has been confined to her room with a cough. She isn't feeling unwell and nearly always has some sort of cough. So she was much aggrieved to be quarantined in case she has RSV (Test results came back yesterday and she does not have RSV and has been released from her room.) Jim has also been confined to his room, though he should have been released on Saturday. He was very sleepy when Lindsey and I called in but woke up enough to eat his cakes and biscuits. Someone has shaved him and trimmed his hair. I hadn't realised quite how pinched his face had become, hidden under the bushy beard.
When I called in again on Sunday he was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and no jumper. I was quite shocked by how thin he was. The nurses weighed him on Sunday evening, at my request, and he has lost a lot of weight. He is also much less alert than he was before he was put into quarantine - though it is hard to say whether his cognition is actually declining, or whether it is a side effect of being kept in his room. Plus, some of the carers turn his TV to more "manly" channels, which he doesn't watch. When I go in I put the TV back onto the food channels and he starts paying attention again. Also, when he is wandering around the facility he grazes on the fruit, biscuits, cakes and protein drinks which are available to residents. He will certainly have been given meals and snacks over the last week but I wonder how much the absence of grazing snacks will have contributed to the weight loss. I would provide packets of snacks for him to choose from but he would either eat all of them at once, or forget about them entirely and not eat them at all.
I have a busy week this week. I was in the surgery yesterday to welcome a new member of staff. I am taking Stella to a doctor's appointment shortly. Then I am at work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, although Thursday is to farewell a longstanding staff member on her last day with us and is not a rostered day. Then the Sunday Lunchers are coming on Sunday and somehow I have to find the time to clean the house AND tidy up my long neglected garden, preferably before they come. (The garden won't get properly done by Sunday, although I have weeded and sorted out the three small veg beds out the front, ready for spring/summer planting.)
I have bought new parsley and rainbow silverbeet seedlings that I need to pot on, and I am intending to replace my sage plant with a second thyme plant. I use very little sage, although it is a pretty plant and I may plant it in a garden bed rather than getting rid of it. I do, however, use a lot of thyme and would like a few more plants to keep the supply going. And I am planning to experiment a little with my vegetable seed planting this spring. I'll let you know how the experiments go.
Winter morning light from the front of my place:
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| It was VERY cold. Everything was frozen |
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