Balls in the air

Oh bother! I have had to cancel the computer appointment tomorrow, as I had forgotten that I had been invited to go to a concert tomorrow, and had double booked myself. I have yet another physiotherapy appointment in the morning before the concert. In the afternoon Dr P has to be taken to see his GP. At least I can defer lugging the computer into the city on a bus.

Last night was choir practice and we finished very late. The work we are singing is a Bruckner Mass, which I sang years ago, and decided that I did not care if I never heard it again. There are some lovely bits in it, but most of it is fairly so-so. It is also very hard on the voice, and in one part we have to sing eight bars of high A's, before moving on to some high Bb's. We did these parts a number of times last night and I came home barely able to squeak. The concert is next Friday evening, and we have dress rehearsals on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I have another physio appointment on Tuesday morning, and one of my twelve nieces plus a friend is arriving that morning, to stay overnight, and then take off to see more friends in Sydney. It will be lovely to see her, but it will not be possible to spare her much time. And I realised that it will be impossible for me to get to the other Italian class late Tuesday afternoon. Oh woe!

These days we lead a fairly quiet life, as Dr P's age, deafness and lack of mobility make joint social events increasingly rare. While he still reads the newspapers and watches the news, he no longer reads books and his short term memory is very bad. He won't go to films any more because he cannot hear the dialogue. It is sad when life contracts in these ways. I miss the man I married. What with the classes, choir, the lectures and lunches with friends from time to time, my life is fairly active still. There are days when Dr P looks as though he feels rather neglected (not true) and this makes me sad. I am not yet prepared or ready to have my own life contract in the same way, but there needs to be a balance, the balls have to be kept in the air, and I do not want to become merely a domestic slushy.

Dr P has taken some unauthorised slices of the second Christmas cake and declared it to be not much good. It was left in the kitchen, and thus a constant temptation. Asking to be eaten, actually. My usual output is generally better, he declaimed. I had a little taste myself, and judge it to be a fairly basic but quite nice fruit cake. To help it along, I sloshed a bit more brandy over it. Mind you, the first cake is superlative and any other cake cannot possibly compete. Cake 1 won't be cut until Christmas Day. In the meantime Dr P will probably continue to hack off more slices from Cake 2, and become accustomed to lesser fare.

After the art lecture today I had coffee with a woman from the choir, who also goes to the lectures. She had her 88 year old mother with her, who is very alert and active despite her various disabilities. It was a very pleasant time, and I hope that a friendship will develop between us. How to maintain and make friends is a subject I have thought about constantly since my move here, and certainly it makes things easier if you stay put in a place instead of moving here and there. When starting afresh making new friends can take quite a long time. It depends on being able to meet like-minded people, and then having the opportunity and time to get to know them. Sometimes it is just a matter of luck: suddenly mutual interests are discovered, or a spark is immediately struck, but usually the process is slow and organic. Choir members are obviously like-minded but what with all that singing there is relatively little time to meet and get to know many of the members.

So the day finishes with optimism.