Time stands still

I wake with a stiff neck, it is just becoming light outside, but my watch reads ten past one, clearly it has stopped and probably needs a new battery. When I check my phone it says seven thirty five, so I get up, let Norman into the garden and start to make breakfast. It is windy outside and cold, Normy fairly sprints back into the house, then assumes his usual sentry post by the hall radiator, while I fry our full English. We eat together and then he follows me into the garden room where I finish my coffee and read the Guardian, before showering and dressing to start the day. I am concerned for Leslie and undertake to call him once the dogs are safely delivered to the Westwood. This I do while Teddy and Norman are off the lead, I am just to about to advise him against taking the room next to the main door, because of the noise and disturbance, when he tells me he has already booked the room upstairs, the one overlooking the garden, and his sat waiting for his son in law, William, to drive him to Cherry Burton. I arrange to call in and visit him tomorrow, after I have taken the dogs out. As soon as I have rung off, I dial the care home and ask that Leslie be introduced to the residents in the Lodge, an annex reserved for those that are more independent and not demented. He will make better progress with a few friends, as it is, there are few elderly men in these places, females tend to predominate. I just hope that some physiotherapy and social contact, will help him to get back on his feet. As we turn the corner of Newbegin Pits and progress towards Black Mill, the full force of the wind hits us, it is not quite gale force, only medium sized branches are moving, but it has the chill of winter about it. When we finally arrive in Burton Bushes, the oaks to the western edge are taking the full force of the wind and producing a cascade of leaves that shower down to the ground, by the time I steady the dogs and set up the camera on my phone to try to capture the scee, the phenomenon is past, and although I wait for several minutes, the effect is not repeated. Old Bill is sat out of the wind on Brandon Barker's bench, with his three dogs, one of which, a small terrier, is always ready to scrap. I wish him good morning and press on, returning to the car for twenty past eleven, although rain is forecast later, we have completed our walk without getting wet. Norman and I arrive back at Tickton half an hour later and I set too immediately to make some béchamel sauce. The Bolognese sauce left over from Saturday is soon stuffed into cannelloni, sprinkled with mozarella cheese and then topped with bechamel and a generous grating of nutmeg. There is enough to make two individual iron ware dishes of cannelloni, which I put into a medium oven for thirty five minutes. While these are cooking I knock up another batch of oaties on a baking tray and then make a Parmesan salad as a starter for my pasta. When the pasta is baked, I take it out and set it to cool, replacing it in the oven with the oaties and then sit down and eat my starter with some crusty bread, Norman has dry dog food and a dollop of Bolognese sauce. The cannelloni smell wonderful, but after my full English this morning and the starter, I am too full to eat one. So they will wait for dinner this evening. I have to collect Louis for three fifteen and then take him to my daughter in law, Sam, before taking him for his swimming lessons at five. By now it is two o'clock and this gives me enough time to pop into Beverley to Michael Phillips' watch shop and get my batteries changed. I park at Tesco's and walk to the jewellers, the battery in the watch is OK they say, so they recommend a service for sixty pounds, which I decline and ask for the watch back. When they replace the cover, the watch suddenly comes back to life, it appears that I must have pulled out the winding mechanism whilst I slept. Embarrassing, but cheaper than a service! The forecast rain has finally arrived and I pull on a beanie hat from the pocket of my winter coat and turn the collar up, as I make my way back to the car and then drive to Sam's house, which is just round the corner from Louis' school. When I get there, Sam says she had forgotten that Laura is participating in an after school fair, in order to raise money for children in need. Plans are thus changed and I agree to collect Louis from Saint Mary's and then walk the half mile to Molescroft Primary school and pick up Laura and bring her home. The children in need fair is in the school hall and Laura is on the first stall, selling raffle tickets to name a teddy bear. We buy two for a pound, one for Louis and one for her. The place is heaving, over three hundred parents forming a compressed, circular, crocodile, around a variety of stalls manned by children and teachers. The cacophony is deafening and I stagger round oozing change for half an hour, before collecting Laura and walking back to her mum's with Louis. Laura and Louis play, while Sam makes me a life saving cup of tea, Rebecca, my son's other daughter, arrives home around four thirty, she has a bad back, which eases with a massage, and then suddenly it is a quarter to five and Louis and I have to leave for swimming lessons. Provisionally, I arrange to take all my five grandchildren to the Hayride pub, for tea on Friday, Clement is coming home from UCL, to help look after Louis, while Sarah recovers from having some wisdom teeth extracted. Louis and I arrive on the poolside in the nick of time and Louis, who is a bit hyper after seeing his cousins and eating chocolate cake at the fair, lets off energy by being the first across the pool on every exercise. Unfortunately he also ignores most of the instructions on the drills. Afterwards, I dry and then dress him and deliver him back to Sarah's house a little before six. When I arrive home, I warm one of the dishes of cannelloni in the microwave and open Norman a tin, we eat together. The cannelloni is very good and very filling. After dinner we walk round the village, the rain has stopped though it is still windy, but much less cold. Once we get back to Green Lane, I let Normy off the lead and we play "praise and pat", all the way home. I swear the old boy is getting faster! I read until ten and then have an early night.