Short Summers, Short Beers and Zimmer Frames

What a difference a day makes. 24 little hours between yesterday’s gasping effort and today’s canter. I ran for longer and I was quicker with very little effort, all because of a mere 10 degree (Celsius) drop in the temperature!

This ice-cream may have been abandoned because our three day summer, here in Leicester, is all over but it was definitely a more enjoyable run.

I’m staying with my dad at the minute as his arthritis is really flaring up. He’s in his 80s and lives in a bungalow close to my big sis. He would have been in fine fettle now if he hadn’t had polio as a child. This caused one of his legs to become twisted. Over time it’s meant he’s had to walk with heavy, orthotic boots, sticks and now a zimmer frame. He may well have got arthritis at his age anyway but compensating for a gammy leg all these years has definitely aggravated the problem.

Hopefully, though, with a course of anti-inflammatories, we’ll see an improvement in a few days. But the long Covid isolation has also taken its toll on him. He used to get out to a couple of day centres each week and shop for himself, and people came to visit. Now, although my sister gets his groceries and pops in when she can, it’s definitely not the same. He seems older and frailer and a bit more forgetful.

So while I’m here, we can hang out and have random chats during the day, like the correct way to drape washing up gloves or how his most excellent filing system will fool burglars but will also stop my dad from being able to find his apple ID password. 

Plus I have also done his shopping.

I’m not quite sure when the Asda by my dad is ever quiet, but late morning on a Thursday is absolutely not one of them. It was so busy that there were only 4 trolleys left and three of them had rubbish in (Why do people do that!!! Don’t get me started on that topic – grrrr).

I realised when I got back that today is the day before Easter when the UK public panic-buy everything because of those two bank holidays wrapped around the weekend. I kicked myself for not having gone earlier in the week. But my dad’s supply of Warburtons Seeded Batch was running dangerously low and so it had to be now.

I managed to get most of the things on the list – while swerving my trolley and keeping well away from the hoards – apart from the beer. I got Amstel instead of San Miguel. My dad doesn’t have a palate that could differentiate between one mass-produced European lager and another and he only ever has the odd bottle now and again. But he could see that the Amstel bottle was 30ml smaller than the San Miguel, which completely didn’t bother him at all even though he pointed it out about three times.

Although my dad’s obsessive tendencies may have grown, he’s actually much more laid back than he used to be. We can have a laugh and a shorter than normal beer, and chew the cud on the headlines of the day. He has missed that interaction with people this last year. It is nice to spend a bit of quality time with him.

And my big sister will also be off tomorrow; not a given, as she’s a doctor, but this time it’s worked out. So we’ll be able to go for a little run in the morning in the nice, cold, more typical Easter bank holiday weather!