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.
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.
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.