Weekly Diary W/E 19th June 2021

This last two weeks, I've been off work. I'd booked some time off for Jury Service, I didn't need to, but I decided to, as I work for a charity and I'd already had lots of time off during Lockdown. In addition, I had been allowed to carry over untaken leave from last year in spite of the lockdowns, so I decided to pay some of it back. The JS finished at the end of the first week, thankfully, and all I will say about it was that it was illuminating in many ways, not necessarily in a positive way, and I didn't find it particularly enjoyable. I really didn't relish the responsiblity.  I won't have to do it again, for another two years at least, which is fine by me.

This last week I've been trying to relax, wind down from it, and just get back to normal life. My knee has had a good rest and is feeling a lot better, although not completely recovered. I'm not sure if I'll cycle to work when I return tomorrow. I spent two days of the week cleaning the whole house, partly because it desperately needed it and partly because LB was having some friends over.

OH had some bad news last week. His father had another stroke and was taken into hospital. This was one of the reasons I didn't go back to work immediately after JS, as we wanted to take a trip up to Yorkshire to visit and see if there was anything we could do to help. We wanted to wait a few days before going and do lateral flow tests, especially after I had spent so much time in court rooms, in reasonably close proximity to lots of other people, although strict Covid restrictions were in place.

LB didn't come up to Yorkshire with us, as she was working at her new part-time job. Instead, on the one day she wasn't working, she had her friends over for the evening to keep her company.

We headed off to Yorkshire on Thursday lunchtime. We'd booked into the Hilton Hotel in Hull City Centre as there were no cottages or apartments available for the dates we were travelling. Luckily, they were happy to allow the dog to stay too. The hotel was really nice. We hadn't stayed in a hotel without LB for years and it felt a bit strange. We enjoyed walking around the town centre on our first evening there and revisiting old haunts and favourite landmark buildings. We had supper sat outside a pub next to the Marina, which was nice. To get there, we walked over a new pedestrian bridge that has been built to link the rest of the town centre to this part of the town. It's a nice bridge, with great views as you walk across. There's a lot of new road construction going on in the city at the moment though, so traffic was especially bad when you did need to try to get anywhere in the car.

On Friday morning, we did a little bit of shopping. I always like to visit a Boyes store when I stay in Yorkshire and as usual, I managed to spend a fortune on lots of different things in there. We then visited OH's mum before she headed off to the hospital for the afternoon.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to visit OH's dad in hospital, due to strict Covid restrictions, but we tried to be as helpful as we could to his mum during our visit.

On Friday night, we had arranged to meet up with my sister, her husband, her daughter and her daughter's new boyfriend, who we'd never met. I hadn't seen my sister for 18 months, so it was good to catch up at a local Italian restaurant. We had a really nice evening.

On Saturday, we had a big breakfast at the hotel before packing up and heading home via OH's mum's again. His sister was there when we arrived, so we got to catch up with her too, before we headed back to London. It was just a short stay, but we were glad we made the effort. OH's father will hopefully be coming home from the hospital next week, but he'll need a lot of care, much more than before he went in.

Now back in London, we're getting back into our normal routines. I'm due back at work tomorrow and I am ever so slightly dreading it. I know I'll get back into the swing of it within a couple of days, but it has been nice to take a break and get out of London. 

I've got another week off booked in a few weeks time, but this time we'll be heading up to the Yorkshire Dales for our UK summer holiday in a rented cottage. LB isn't joining us this year for the first time, as she's going away with her friends to a cottage in Suffolk instead. It will be strange without her, but I remember doing the same kind of thing at her age.

Today I've done a food shop at ASDA and this afternoon, I need to spend some time ironing, as all of my work clothes are in the ironing basket. I've carefully put them to the top of the pile, to give them priority over everything else. I'll let you know how my return to work goes in my next post.

I hope you've had a good couple of weeks and I'll try to post more in the coming weeks.