Wednesday 6th September - Mission Accomplished!

 I think the last few days went pretty well for my father and his brother - it was a pretty packed schedule for them bearing in mind their respective ages...

My uncle lives about 2 hours drive away, so packing, travelling, tea in our garden and settling in on Monday, plus my father cooking (microwaving) their suppers was a full day.

Yesterday after breakfast (Oat-so-simple porridge, with clotted cream and honey) we took them to a local pub for their lunch. I'm not good at drawing people (yet - that's a project for the future!) and as I try to never post photographs of family and friends on the blog you will have to make do with my rough pencil attempt;

 I took the picture from the outside of the pub looking in, much to their surprise as they were already awaiting their beers and beginning to study the menu. My father's on the left; he takes after his mother, being stocky 'like a Cornish miner', she always used to say. (Regretfully I take after him too). My uncle is thinner and leaner, like Grandfather was. 

(People always said he looked like the man in the moon from the John Lewis Christmas Avert some years back... when they were in Ireland on a family trip, people were always mistaking my uncle for the then Prime Minister. Does everyone always look like someone else?)

My father was worried about how to entertain his brother - he needn't have been, as they both spend their days having a little nap before and after lunch...

Today we collected my uncle and took him to his next hostess, about half an hour away, where he caught up with old friends and had lunch. He was taken home by his daughter-in-law, while we returned to take my father to the dentist after lunch! I shall ring him up later to make sure he wakes up and has supper; you may have noticed that reference to clotted cream; he is tending to lose weight and since he doesn't eat biscuits, cakes, sweet, and certainly not chocolate (!) it is hard to find things that he easily add to the day's meals to add calories.

'I can't really taste the clotted cream, it is wasted on me so you better have it' he said. But I assured him that if he didn't mind having some on his porridge it would probably be a good idea and keep the nurses happy... Goodness knows I really mustn't add clotted cream to my diet!

It is very touching to see them together - 'we must do this again sometime,' said my uncle as he climbed into our car with his overnight bag (2 pairs of glasses - check, phone and charger - check, razor and charger - check) and maybe we can fix something for them.

Other news;

our haul of slugs and snails decreases every night, I am glad to say. Before people mention wildlife and feeding toads and whatever, we only hunt in the top half of the garden, and I know for a fact we have a toad near the vegetable patch, a frog in the weeds by the water fountain, and a wren that goes through the undergrowth of the long flower border most days...

Our cardoons aren't as giant as I had hoped - maybe they are the wrong sort of cardoons? The are still about 5 feet high, and forming flower heads now. I had to stand on tiptoe to take this. 

Tomorrow will be busy; hygienist for me, and tea with a friend at a local cafe. The an evening zoom with my church group. Himself will be taking me to the hygienist (I need to start driving again now the world chez nous is calming down a bit) and doing my father's shopping in the afternoon, and also starting the first steps in persuading him to try on the new trousers and shirts I have bought in the hope they might fit.