This morning when I left to spend three hours away from Ray who is really my job now, I wanted to find somewhere to sit and think. I finished up opposite the beach at the Surf Club where we have our Lions Club meetings, having coffee on their terrace in the sun overlooking the ocean. It was a nice view with the dark sea reflecting the rain clouds that are still a feature of our winter. There were couples with dogs that looked like stick figures in the distance walking along the beach and down to the rocky outcrop.

A funny thing happened while I was there. I had an egg sandwich with my coffee and was sitting at an outside table holding a quarter between my fingers when a magpie (about the size of a seagull) flew down and snatched it out of my hand. I nearly screamed with fright, then took a minute to realise I was not hurt, just very surprised. What a cheeky bird! I guess he is finding food hard to find and there it was in my hand…lol.

We have a couple of handymen doing some painting on our front verandah and now the shower room and bathroom ceilings which have both needed painting for a while now. It is strange to have people talking around the house, overhead on the roof etc. I know it will all look much brighter and better when it is finished but at the moment everything is in piles around the place and chaos reigns and things are all so messy with all the toys and furniture piled up out of the rain. It looks such a mess and I am impatient for it to be done and the whole area cleaned up.

While I was at the surf club I noticed they have some wise sayings that apply to what they train people to do there. One that struck me as very true read: “It takes one person to make a decision but a whole team to carry it out.” I thought how true that was of this moment in my life. Here today there was me, the two handymen and the carer to make life happen this morning. Nothing we do is ever achieved alone. Everything we have in our possession was made with the help of teams of other people, our food, our furniture, the computer we are sitting in front of, all were the result of a team of people operating together. “No man is an island unto himself” Shakespeare said and it is so true.

I’m still coughing and using over-the-counter preparations in the hope that my body will strengthen and throw off this virus as nothing seems to work against it. The pharmacist made some recommendations this morning so I am taking a couple of more modern versions of the cold and flu fighters to see if that will help. I hope so as I am still pretty miserable after it gets colder of an evening and coughing away all night.

Ray seems to have had a few odd days when he has had falls etc, followed by a good day here and there. I don’t know what makes the difference. Our mentor at Dementia support says that dementia is cyclic and has good and bad periods. I’d like to know how you figure out what is going on and could make some appropriate changes. I will have to do Asha’s trick and “go with the flow”.

This week has been a good week in a way as Trev cooked us two evening meals so I was free of cooking for a couple of days and we have had a couple of phone calls from people we have not heard from for a while. It is heartening when old friends reach out to us across the miles. I sometimes think everyone has forgotten about us but of course they are just busy with their own lives, as we are with ours.

We had Lukie after school yesterday as Edie’s car broke down and Trev galloped off on his white charger (well white car) to save her and bring her safely home. Lukie beat me at a series of Carnival Games on the Wii so was very happy to be here. Tori is coming on Sunday to stay overnight as she has a pupil free day so is off school on Monday and her Mum is working so the little boys will go off to Daycare and Tori will be with Granma and Pa for the day. She will light up our lives for a while.

So there has not been much housework done this week, and very little to show for what we have all done. Of course we have been working toward improvement but we are at that difficult half-way stage. Next week should resolve that and we will at last see the benefit of all the hard work.