A cold wind in August

Wake at seven to a fine morning, but heavy rain is forecast from about noon. Make our usual full English breakfast and then wash and dress and make our way to Cherry for a quarter past nine, to collect Dolly and Teddy, before arriving on Newbald Road, next to the Westwood, five minutes later. As we set off into the woods, the skies are already starting to cloud over, and approaching Black Mill, the first drops of rain are blown in the stiffening breeze, fortunately we manage to regain the car before it begins raining in earnest. After dropping the dogs back in Cherry, I make my way to the Poppy Seed cafe with Norman, after parking on Albert Terrace. When we get there, Felicity is sat with her friend Annie and so I order a strong tea and join them. Annie says she has just been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease on top of her diabetes and the loss of both breasts to cancer. Despite the grim prognosis she remains upbeat, but her days of independence must be numbered. Rosemary comes in and joins us, and I arrange for Iain Scott to have a look at her garden one day next week. I leave at eleven thirty and buy some sweaters in the sale at the Edinboro Woollen Mill in the market square. All are plain, one maroon, one green and one blue. We make our way back to the car in the rain and drive back to Tickton, where I leave Norman indoors, before driving to the leisure centre. The rain is coming down in sheets as I leave the village, but has moderated a little by the time I get to the centre. On arrival in the pool it is fairly quiet, except for the ladies aqua aerobics, which takes up half the pool, the infamous wave machine. In fact I mind them less than the blaring music to which they bounce. I find a gap in the double lane reserved for training and manage to swim an easy 400m freestyle warm up, overtaking down the centre a couple of times, as necessary. A couple of swimmers leave the lane and it is safe to swim backstroke, so complete a steady 400m on my back, before switching to fly. By now there are only four of us in the lane and I am able to push off as a lady swimming breaststroke arrives and because my fly is much quicker than her breaststroke, manage a twenty seconds rest before she arrives again. In this way I complete eight of my scheduled sixteen lengths of butterfly before the aerobics class disperses. Rather than climbing out of the pool on the steps nearest to them, they wade across eight lanes like matriarchal elephants, causing mayhem as other swimmers are disrupted by their passage, in order to use the steps next to the showers. Fortunately I now have a lane to myself and complete the remaining lengths of fly without problem before switching to 4 x 100m individual medley, and even have time for a 200m easy backstroke warm down before the pool closes at one thirty. My condition continues to improve and the anti inflamatories that I have been taking for my hip, also seem to be working. Nevertheless I am limiting the amount of breaststroke I do, to the individual medley only. After showering and changing, I drink tea and eat some oaties in the cafe, before driving to
Morrisons to buy some more bacon and black pudding. When I arrive, the makeover of the store that my brother in law, Gino, who works for Morrisons told me about, has been completed and a third of the store is now given over to fresh fruit and vegetables. The choice and display is impressive, clearly they are setting their stall out to compete with Marks and Spencer and Waitrose, rather than slug it out on straight price with Asda and Tesco. To reward their enterprise, I also bought some more tomatoes and a couple of Bramley apples. En route home, call in at Beverley Library to renew my books, having spent the last week reading the ones I took out from the library in Hull. It is still raining when I get in, around three thirty, Norman wagging his tail in greeting at the door. After unpacking I finish the Parmagiana with Ryvita and then stew one of the Bramley apples in the microwave, before sprinkling it with artificial sugar and cinammon and adding the last of the cream with vanilla essence as a custard. It works OK, I let Normy lick the Parmigiana dish clean and then we put our feet up for an hour. It is still raining when it is time for his tea, but eventually it stops, around six thirty, and we are able to walk down to the little wooden bridge. By the time we get there, the clouds have retreated eastwards and the sun has reappeared low in the sky to our west. The air smells fresh and clean after the rain and the drops clinging to the ripening hawthorn berries sparkle red as the low evening sunlight catches them. Across the fields, a rainbow arches from the ground near the newly installed wind turbines, before merging with a retreating dark cloud. When we get back home the phone is ringing, it's Pip telling me she is without power again. I leave Norman in the bungalow, grab my torch and drive the five or six miles to Cherry. When I arrive, there are electricity workers at the top of the cul de sac, and they inform me there is a general outage and that they are probably going to have to dig up the road to find the problem. In the house I find Pip on the phone to a friend, but she breaks off for a minute so that I can relate what I have learned, and then she continues her conversation and ignores me. I check the fuse box and find the main fuse has been tripped by the outage, so reset it and then leave my torch with Pip and head home, as there is nothing further I can achieve. I get back for half past eight, make a pot of tea and some oaties and then read a book until bedtime.