E is for Esme...

And exhausted, which everyone else was except Esme...but more on that later :-))

I woke up at 2am with hip pain (I expect caused by yesterday's examination) so took two gabapentin painkillers and went back to sleep.  

When the alarm woke me at 7.20am I fully intended getting up but I felt completely drugged, to the point I wasn't sure I could hold a conversation!  When my pain was at it's worst in January I was taking gabapentin 3 times a day as well as full strength cocodamol and it never affected me like this.  An indication of how severe my pain was I think!

Anyway, given that we were going out for the day and evening, I decided to re-set my alarm for 10am and asked David to check I was definitely awake by 11am latest.  Didn't even hear my 10am alarm and my phone ringing at 11am woke me.  It was David.  He was up on the moor with Lola.  I thanked him for waking me....and promptly fell asleep again till I woke up with a start!  It was 11.50am!!  I felt so much better though so I obviously needed it.

We set off just after 1pm to visit our friends Keith and Mairi who had invited us for afternoon tea.  This is our fifth attempt to get together as I had to keep cancelling when I had the horrible pelvic pain.

David sees Keith all the time as they are golfing buddies but I hadn't seen either of them for ages so it was lovely to catch up.  We had a delicious start to the afternoon tea with amazing sandwiches (lovely thick crusty bread :-) followed by the most amazing home baking by Keith.  He'd made blueberry scones, iced cinnamon buns and gingerbread.  We couldn't manage it all on one go, but later in the afternoon, with another cuppa we managed to get round everything!  

While we were there Mairi happened to mention that Cloudbusting are playing at their local theatre in June and were we interested in going.  She didn't have to ask twice!  David took note of the details and we will book tickets tomorrow for the four of us!  I've been dying to see them again and the timing is perfect.

We left Keith & Mairi's just after 6.30pm and headed to D''s sister Ele's house 15 minutes away.  D had his singing rehearsal so it made sense to pop to hers and dump me there, rather than drive 45 minutes home, only for D to turn around again and head back down.  

Ele looks after Esme on a Monday and Tuesday and when Nikki arrived to pick Esme up she wanted to stay to see D and me.  Despite being up at the crack of dawn and been at her swimming class, followed by tumble tots (and gymnastics yesterday) she was still a bundle of energy, whilst everyone else was flagging.  She couldn't sit still to let me grab a pic of her on my phone.  How I managed to get this one is a miracle as she was constantly bouncing (see extra!)  She did give me a lovely cuddle when she was leaving, which I enjoyed very much :-)

Had a lovely chat with Ele and my niece Jen, who is training to be a Primary School teacher.  She is currently on placement in a P1 class and she is exhausted!  Don't think she's ever worked so hard!  :-)

D was back again just before 10 pm and we headed home tired but happy after a very full day....oh and with a bag full of Keith's home baking.  That's tomorrow's treat ;-)))

PS Just realised today is that funny day (can't remember what it's called) where the date is the same backwards as it is forwards....22.02.2022