Graham Visits
Today was Graham’s first visit to our house, he arrived on the – not very impressive – train from Preston at about 2pm and then after a quick stop off at home Steph took him on the tour of the town, her old schools, the golf course, Fairhaven Lake, the beach, the dunes and the prom. She’s saved ‘The Square’ and it’s Christmas lights for after our family meal at Toby’s.
I woke up as usual at 6:30am and as expected I was still very tired. It’s quite clear now that I’m not getting enough sleep, 7.5 hours needs to be 8.5 and that means that I either need to change my bedtime routine, or I need to change my morning one, which is a shame, as I’m enjoying them both. I then went to Caffe Nero, put the tables out and did my digital chores, but as per my pre-new years resolution I also read a book, in fact I finished the excellent Dark Forest. Although I eventually enjoyed it a lot the Chinese names made it very difficult to follow and it took one and a half books to really be comfortable enough for the reading to become effortless, that’s quite a commitment, but it turned out to be worth it. When I left Nero’s I had planned to do a quick shop and come home, but the lack of rain tempted me to walk for a while and that allowed me to finish my current audio book, On The Move, the fantastic autobiography of Oliver Sacks. This book was really splendid, Oliver lead an amazing life, very rich and accomplished but also difficult at times because of his homosexuality. His family were also accomplished and provided him with an amazing network of contacts and friends, that he built on greatly himself. The result was a very rich social life and because he moved around a lot a very varied life, his love of people, science and writing was a very unusual combination and it allowed him to do what few others could.
When I arrived home I watched the first episode of Childhoods End while on my exercise bike and I enjoyed that too. Then Debbie and I went into town along the prom to do a bit more shopping and to admire the setting sun (see photo). When I got back I made some Mince Pies and Jam tarts, using the most useless of recipes, but with some improvisation they turned out ok in the end, that’s the first of my baking for tomorrow out of the way – phew – although there’s a lot more still to do.
We are all (Deb, Me, Anna, Thom, Steph, Graham, Jennie and Jon) off to Toby’s now, unfortunately Tess and Lewis can’t make it as they are both hard are work, but Tess will be joining us for my first Christmas dinner tomorrow. After dinner Anna, Thom, Jennie and Jon headed home and Steph, Graham, Deb and I decided to walk through town, just as we reached the square Jennie rang to say that Grandma had arrived, a day early and three hours late! Luckily she’d only been waiting at home for 5 minutes before Anna arrived. Apparently she was late because her train had been cancelled, but early because of a misunderstanding between her and Debbie over dates, but it all worked out fine in the end.
Everyone had a nice evening chat, I had to excuse myself after a while as I had a migraine and I’m writing this at 1am as I take my third dose of meds
