A low energy day.

Wake at two, coughing and hungry, so get up and make some porridge in the microwave and eat it with artificial sweetener. Afterwards sleep until six when Norman tells me he wants feeding and toileting, after I have done this I go back to bed as I feel exhausted and sleep until eight. When I get up I still feel very tired, but force myself to make and eat a full English breakfast with tea. No bread or wheat products are allowed on my regime. It is a beautiful morning, sunny and warm with a pleasant northeasterly breeze, sufficient to cool things down, fluffy cumulus clouds drift across the sky and swallows glide and pirouette above the rooftops. After washing and dressing I ring Hannah, Felicity's friend, to cancel my ticket for the Mystery Play in York this evening, I lack the energy to even contemplate it. I drive to Cherry and take the three dogs on the Westwood, with a couple of stops to sit on a bench and rest, as we make our way round. When we get back, I tell Pip I am too tired to garden today and just take the full bags of clippings to the tip before heading for home. En route, I call at Morrisons for milk, tomatoes, some peppers and brown rice and pop into the library to renew my books. We get back for half past twelve, I have some steak and salad for lunch, but feel too tired to cook it, so spread some cream cheese on ryvita with sliced tomato and eat that before lying down and sleeping for three hours. I feel a little better when I wake up, but realise I won't be strong enough to have Louis tomorrow, so ring Sarah and then call the doctors to book an appointment. I make a batch of oatcakes, but without any dried fruit, and whilst the oven is hot, roast the peppers I bought earlier, before giving Normy his dinner and walking him down the lane. The farm is advertising free range eggs at £1.50 a dozen, half the price of the supermarket, but I have no money with me, so will buy some tomorrow. The evening is pleasant, but there are dark clouds to the west and we may get a thunderstorm later. Norman seems tired as well, so we turn back at the farm and go home. When I get in, I peel an onion and pop it in the frying pan and then season the steak and put that in as well. While the meat is cooking, I knock up a tossed salad and then peel the cooled peppers and then slice them and marinade them with basil and olive oil, stopping occasionally to turn my steak and onions. I put the peppers in the fridge, and then plate my steak, onions and salad and take it in the garden to eat. The clouds are quite ominous now, but it's pleasant sat outside, eating my dinner with a glass of tempranillo. Norman whines and begs, but I make him wait until I have finished, before letting him have the leftovers. A gap opens in the clouds and sunlight streams down at a low angle, illuminating hundreds of tiny flying midges, which in normal light would be invisible, now they are glowing points of light darting about, between the eaves of my bungalow and the one next door. Norman and I sit for a while and then carry the plates into the kitchen to wash up. After doing so, I decide to make good use of the steak juices in the skillet and peel and chop another onion and take some stewing steak out of the freezer and fry these up with garlic. When the meat has browned and the onion caremalised I add a couple of oxo and some water before transferring the contents into the slow cooker, adding carrots, peas, peppers, aubergine and brown rice. In the event I am no better tomorrow, I will have a casserole as a fall back. Satisfied with my creation I make a black coffee and retire to the Garden Room and give my brain a workout on my puzzle book. Physical exercise is not possible at the moment, but eventually I will recover and pick up where I left off. The puzzle is the most difficult in the book and it takes an hour before it is cracked, but it gives a certain satisfaction once completed. It is ten o'clock now, and across the field a blood red moon is starting to rise as full darkness settles. Only half the moon's face is revealed, the other side masked behind distant pine trees, silhouetted black against. The Buddha said that old age, sickness and death await us all, well at the moment I have two out of the three! I suppose, as we get older, we never know which illness will be our last, but the way I see it, we either get better or it is time to go home anyway. Worrying or getting angry won't change the outcome and can only spoil our peace of mind. All things arise and then pass away again.