Best Laid Plans

From Facebook yesterday, and following on…

26 August 2026 at 08.40

Today, after I've taken Ferretfingers to the Day Centre, I shall pick up my new glasses.

I've half a mind to go through the top of my wardrobe and take out a few things I no longer wear. 

There is a bag and a half of stuff in the hall and I may as well make two. 

This is because last Friday the Marie Curie shop in the Forum (Wallsend shopping centre) was having a moving premises sale and I came away with four pairs of summer trousers, two tops and a clear plastic water jug (our old one having cracked beyond use) for £13.50.   

This means at least 6 things need to go in the bag.   

My old pair of cream coloured summer trousers were entirely worn out so are in the rag bag, but I now have another pair - albeit slightly short in the leg

HOWEVER (written 26/8/26 at 14.19)

Having visited the opticians, as I was on Chillingham Rd for the first time in ages, I had a look around the Asian-selling-everything shop (because you never know what useful thing you'll find in one), St Oswald's Hospice Shop (very different to FourLaneEnds' one but still good) and the Salvation Army Shop.  

Came home with loo blocks, eye-mask & ear plugs, a mug from Blackfriars Day of Dance (an event Phil and I were at) in 1987, birthday and sympathy cards and a blue blouse; which means another garment has to be found to go out.

Returning I found the hall-airlock door open and wondered who had come in and left it that way (I always shut it as our front door is glass and I don't like people being able to see in when we're out).  

I hellooed a couple of times.   

No reply.

Then I noticed Fester’s shopping bag at the foot of the stairs.

He had left for the Mining Institute with a cheery “I’m off” at a quarter to nine so I wondered whether he’d left it behind or come home early.

Nobody in the kitchen

Back door still locked.

More unanswered “helloo”s. 

“Where is he?” I thought “Is he dead?  Or merely incapacitated?  Will I have to call an ambulance?”

Came upstairs to find him doing his hot-house-plant act again. 

Lying fully dressed on the bed sighing and harrumphing and weakly claiming 

“I’ve got an infection … I’ve had loose bowels.”

Oh joy oh flaming rapture oh thirty-three years of bliss!

So I’ve removed his shoes and trousers, filled his water bottles, taken in the bucket (don’t ask), opened the window and closed one of the curtains.

The bed being occupied I have nowhere to sort things out of the wardrobe.