16.56pm Thursday 16 April 2020.
Yesterday began like today. A sluggish sort of start with me ambling around the house aimlessly trying to make up my mind what to do first and getting nowhere. Mama said you would have days like this. Who believes Mama anyway? I sloped around not wanting to get dressed to go out, still hung over from sleeping. Looking in the fridge. Plenty of food but nothing to tempt me. I was off food. I was still a bit worried about Waitrose and that effing delivery slot. I thought it might take another few days before all the tiny cogs in the big wheel finally engaged to release a slot for me. Just on the verge of getting grumpy. Technically absolutely no valid reason for me to get grumpy and bring myself down into a self pity space. But I silently allowed myself to slip down.
When the phone rang. It was Art with some supplies for me. He suggested that we do the same as we did on Sunday. He would meet me for a walk and then collect my supplies from his car and deposit them 6 ft away from me, in front of the building. I told him of the doctors note and we discussed if he could take it into Waitrose customer service desk, with my Waitrose card to see what they suggest. He was happy to do that for me. This cheered me up no end. I said I could be ready by 2pm. We agreed and I went off to the bathroom singing. Chirpy as a bird. Not a care in the world.
All feelings of grumpiness simply vanished. It does not take much to pull me back into a happy space. Certainly not on most occasions.
We met as arranged, I handed him the envelope with the letter confirming I’m a mad queen along with my Waitrose membership card. Keeping to the regulation social distancing regime, we trotted off to a bench in the sun on Marine Parade. We gossiped and watched the men jogging past. We discussed my difficulty in arranging a delivery slot. He promised to go in to speak to whoever was on the customer service desk. This may seem trivial but it is a fundamental key in my survival. And perhaps that of one or two of my friends.
If I can get a sustainable, reliable food delivery service then I do not have to overtax my friends week in and week out doing my shopping. I do not have to put them in more potential danger of catching the virus because they are shopping for me. They, in my mind, are there for emergency use only. I have four of them Art, being one. I do my best not to over use anyone of them.
We sat for nearly and hour before the wind got a bit too nippy. We made our way back, I took charge of the supplies and waved him goodbye.
He called me within the hour just as I had opened the Waitrose webpage on my iPad. He told me to go onto their internet web page. As we were chatting I opened it up. There was a very different arrangement of delivery slots. Showing only 3 days with delivery time for mid afternoon only. But all were unavailable. As he was telling me that I needed perhaps to go onto the web page at odd times of the day, one of the slots suddenly popped open. I screamed. I snatched it up within a second. I was so excited and completely thrown by the events happening so quickly and unexpectedly. I said a hurried goodbye to Art while I concentrated on my good luck. I reviewed my shopping list and added a few more things before going on to pay for everything. FAB U LOUS. I’m overjoyed. What a fantastic end to a fraught day. I heated up my dinner and poured a very large GnT. I even watched the 10pm BBC news and Newsnight.
This morning my dreams were broken by a call from the lady in the council who is managing my kitchen refurb. I had not sent in a reply. I did not know now to do it using the scan on my printer. I promised I would send the reply in before she went home. Up and out of bed for my porridge and another 2 fruitless hours of frustration trying to scan the document onto my computer screen. In the end I emailed her to let her know of my failure. She replied saying it would be ok if I simply emailed her and said that I was happy with the plans. I did that and finally at 4pm sat down to eat some breakfast. My one last big scary computer adventure is finally signing on with my new online banking account. Things went badly wrong last time despite being tutored by one of the banks staff. We fell at the last fence. Five times.
He said it was ok and all I had to do was open up the web page and simply sign on. I’ve been too scared to deal with that but I will do my best tomorrow. Hopefully. I will also try to open up my new online Coop bank account. I’ve not done that since I first got it up and running two weeks ago.
OOHH! A right scary day tomorrow.
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